Thanks for the links. That Crow/Raven build was one of the first things I remember seeing when I first discovered paper modeling. I thought I'd mentioned it in my first post in this thread but instead all I've written was "something I've wanted to do from as far back as I can remember becoming interested in this wonderful hobby of ours". That line is specifically referring to that model, I was blown away by his attention to detail and what could be achieved in paper. Thanks for the link, I tried searching for that post recently but couldn't remember where I'd seen it and had no luck finding it.
I thought about doing a parts count on mine but I tried that on my Scud build and kinda got slack with it and lost count at around the 4000 mark. I think I'm well into the hundreds here already.
Speaking of parts... I've now completed the inner mandible details, I managed to lose a couple of pics of the side plates that go behind the tractor beams but there's not much to them anyway. For this part, whatever it's called, there's not a lot of reference pics available due to it being between the two "jaws". It's very rarely visible at all but I didn't let that stop me going all out on the details.
Due to a lack of reference pics, I pretty much relied on this pic I found on the "Falcon A!" blog buy Jay Machado, who's been creating a 3D model of the Falcon, while also identifying and documenting the actual model kit parts that ILM used to build the original filming props. The upright part on the right is what I've built for now, I'll come back to the jaws themselves later in the build.
The pics look a bit messy, mainly due to superglue but that'll all get covered up by paint.
Next up I'm moving to the outer mandibles. Instead of building a separate part to attach later, I've removed the mandible sides from the model as I wanted to move them in a bit anyway to allow for a bit more depth when adding 3D detail, as the original model didn't allow for this.