Why
Recently, I decided to model and print the Ubrikkian Landspeeder 9000 Z001 in 1/12 scale. I have been doing a lot of Tatooine stuff lately, and with Haslab releasing the Cantina, I thought it would be a good idea. This “speeder” has always intrigued me, because we only ever see it once. It is the round thing with bubble windows sitting outside the Mos Eisley Cantina, and we only get to see it from one angle. Some assumptions can be made regarding the symmetry of the vehicle, but there are details that we can never see. Similarly, the lore says that this thing can seat 3 people, and I DID NOT believe that for a second, just from looking at reference stills with Luke that I grabbed from the movie.
There are probably a couple hundred frames of this vehicle in the movie, and they all look like this:
Process
So I started modeling this thing with the idea that it would be a closed model. No interior. There were no reference photos of an interior, and I didn’t believe it could fit 3 people anyway. Because of the scale of the model, I had to split the body into 8 major parts. After I finished, I made a mental note that there did seem to be a good deal of space in there.
Part of my process when building things that interact with action figures, is I will use Daz Studio to create a figure the same size and stature as the character involved. Just look at my Millennium Falcon Cockpit project. You will see figures sized for Han, Chewie, Luke and Obi-Wan. Since I already had Luke in a seated position, I decided to see if I could fit 3 of him inside the space in the Ubrikkian Landspeeder. To my surprise, they all fit, AND had room for seats and a control panel. There was even some storage room behind the seat!
The scale of this model allows me (Forces me) to try out some attachment methods for various parts. I’m also using some techniques I have used before, for example using an overlapping lip with .1mm gaps. This method was used to join halves of a barrel in my Tatooine Greeblies project. I also tried a method of hiding a drain hole that seems to work pretty well. Additionally, the interior is mounted to the same points same mount points as the landing struts.
Printing
I have the parts of the Ubrikkian Landspeeder split up into 7 total prints. including the windows. The first 3 prints are done, with the rest to follow over the weekend.
The windows are kind of a wildcard. I want to print them and polish them, but I am unsure if they will be clear enough to really see through. If not, I may either print a jig that will allow me to take some plastic from a 2l soda bottle and form it with a heat gun, or perhaps make a silicone mold and use 2 part epoxy.
Painting
I primed with Vallejo airbrush primer, then mixed up my own tan, red and blue paints. I Sprayed tan first, then I masked off the bottom of the body and airbrushed it, the base and skirt with Model Master chrome silver. Then I went to work with washes and ground up pastel chalks to apply the weathering. For the top, I masked off the red and blue stripes and hand painted them, and then hand painted the glyphs on the side. The glyphs and the blue stripe are actually raised .1mm from the surface, so it was easier to paint. Then I went at it with some colored pencils and ground pastel chalks to weather it. After it was all done, I hit it with a coat of satin clear.
ToDo
Still left to do is painting the interior. I also need to print a small riser for the control panel. I failed to take Luke’s double jointed knees into account when sizing the interior, and his legs don’t QUITE fit under there.
Also left are the windows. I have ordered some 80mm 2-part clear plastic bauble balls that I will need to trim down to 54mm. Those get here Wednesday.
Tags: Tatooine, WIPCategorised in: Vehicles
