After receiving a windfall pile of 1977 Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars portfolio prints - a bargain at 99p plus £5 postage and I only actually expected two - I set about cleaning up a few stains and scratches, something I really looked forward to.
I find touching-up paper items really enjoyable, even though I have no skill to speak of!
This is how I got them from Ebay, in a splendid A3 Episode 1 tin! [no idea what that was originally for]. Alas, it was covered in sticky tape, which I started to remove but found it was stuck fast to the metal.
Inside the tin were the gorgeous ream of card prints, which are really something else. Not a full set but then again I was only expecting two, so I'm certainly not complaining. the seller was more than generous!
Here they all are in the kitchen. They'll hopefully make a great gift.
To soften the sticky tape I left the tin to soak in a warm bath and started on the paper scratches.
These two were first.
Coloured pencils gave me this finish.
This is how it looks fully cleaned up [interestingly Luke is a girl in this early concept!]
Next was the top left corner surface scratch on this wonderful Millennium Falcon image.
Fortunately the area was a basic grey so I just used a normal pencil for the patch and ruler for the edge.
It ended up like this.
Easily the most exciting print of my lot was this epic duel between Luke and Vader
Being such a fabulous picture I was worried about messing this up. The scratch was immediately above Vader's fist on the roof.
Using three different pencils I had a go and the result, although not perfect, is better than the original white zig-zag I think.
The final picture issue was a hard diagonal white crease on the left side of this X-Wing concept.
Again, coloured pencils seemed to at least slightly blur the original white line.
The prints were done. What do you think?
I then finished cleaning the tin box. This took an hour!
The sticky tape had left such a gunky residue it required copious amounts of lighter fluid and elbow grease to shift it from the lid, sides and bottom.
I also tried a final rubbing of T-Cut to soften the many scratches it came with but it didn't really work. I'd love a mirror finish but it the cost isn't warranted.
Still, I have ended up with a glue-free tin nicely cleaned-up and shined.
I plan to make a large envelope for the prints out of baking paper so the prints don't move about in the tin container, whilst Santa drags it down my daughter's chimney!
