Topic: spudafett's custom action fleet

[spudafett]

I feel like these deserve their own thread as they aren't the typical 1:18th scale custom vehicles and are a different muse all together...

I love the action fleet line of toys.  I collected NEARLY all the classic galoob line (minus the e-wing) and have the majority of the other lines.  Over the years of collecting large lot auctions on e-bay I've aquired many duplicates and extras that may be missing parts or pieces and it's with these extras that I'm able to construct these customs.

I've done several action fleet customs in the past so for new members who might not want to dig through to find my old thread here is a VERY quick re-cap of some of my favorite action fleet customs I've done:

I did a tie ugly that I believe tamer owns now:


the "stealth wing" which ISY member goldleaderone now owns and has re-painted:


my Red tie interceptor, or royal guard tie:


the animated debut boba fett slave 1:




So those are some of my old ones...

[spudafett]

and here's a brand spanking new one:

This custom is a kit bash between a tyderium shuttle and a y-wing.  I wanted to create a brand new type of shuttle and had an extra shuttle that was missing the guns on the wings as well as the left-over remains of the y-wing which I cut off the engines for tamer's "die wing". 

I wanted this to look unique, more so than just a y-wing slammed onto a shuttle's front end... so I got to messing with the shuttle's wings and realized that if I cut off the landing gear I could flip the wings around and have them face forward instead of backwards.  This gave the ship a very unique profile, and solved the issue of the odd looking sockets where the missing laser cannons should go.  I trimed some things up, made nicer cuts, and flipped the wings around and glued the shell back together.

Then I carefully cut off the shuttle's cockpit (watch for it later on another custom) and sealed the hole with a piece of "for sale sign" styrene.  I then carefully cut the front section of the y-wing off just behind the r2 unit socket, made a nice flat cut, and glued it into place.

WIP shots:





Once everything was glued back together I gave the entire thing a coat of grey primer and detailed the vehicle.  Some of the lines are intentionally sloppy to make it look hastily painted or slightly weathered.... I'm not quite sure if the effect was what I wanted but I think it works ok.









I've nicknamed it the "ugly bird" as it kind of resembles a goose or swan in flight...

[Luke Sprywalker]

Spud that is freaking awesome! Such a coo vehicle! I love how it looks with the wings on backwards, great idea. The paint scheme and colors are the iceing on the cake! I see where you are going with the jagged lines and it does work. If you would now very lightly sand with fine grit paper over it it would really make the weathering convincing. Either way this is a great vehicle as is!

[spudafett]

Combat Cloud Car

The combat cloud was never showcased in any of the movies but it was included in the "star wars essential guide to vehicles and vessels" which I have owned a copy of since I was very young... and some of my first "customs" were kit bashed sketches of the line drawings of the ships seen within that book!  

One of my favorite designs, and one that I've always wanted to make a custom of but never felt confident enough in my abilities to do so, was the combat cloud car.

here is the line drawing scematic of that vessel:


The twin pod cloud car is similar enough to this vessel that I felt it could be adapted into the combat cloud car.  Luckilly in my "fodder" box of action fleet ships that were missing parts I had a cloud car that one pod was missing it's canopy.  I carefully cut the pods apart and started from there.

I had to first plug the gaping hole on the side of the pod where I cut the other section off, and did so by covering it with styrene pieces and made the duplicate application on the other side so that it would match.  I then constructed wings and the rear fin from strips of styrene and fixed them into place as well.  

the engine was made from a left-over x-wing engine.  I trimmed it down and created a bend in the engine right before the nacelle so that it would be "in line" with the hull of the craft.  It's not exactly like the schematic but I think it looks good and works well enough.

The gun mount on the front is something I'm significantly proud of.  I wanted to have the guns recessed into a divot like in the schematic but didn't know how I was going to pull that off... when the solution hit me.  I drilled a hole into the nose of the craft then inverted a jango fett helmet upside down and squeezed it into the hole, glued it into place and then trimmed off the excess to be flush with the hull.  This gave me the perfect "bowl" to attach the two laser cannons!

I then repainted the entire vessel... twice... my first run at painting it was sloppy and I didn't like the color blue I used... so I repainted the entire vehicle and re-detailed it for, what I think, is a much better result.

WIP:



First paint scheme:


Final paint:







I realy love the mcquarrie concept colors of blue and grey on the cloud car, but of course that's not the color they used in the movies.  I felt like it'd be a great color to use for the combat cloud car though and went with that...  Because of the color's I've nicknamed it the "blue bird"

[spudafett]

Concept A-wing




My variation of the concept:







a comparison with a stock a-wing:





and my crappy photoshop of the ship into the configuration seen in mcquarrie's painting

[hangarbay94]

Not crappy at all Spuda!

The only piece of constructive criticism I have is that the use of some Tamaya masking tape will make your paint lines more defined. I've been wanting to create my own version of the McQuarrie prototype for some time, all-in-all I think you've done a great job.

[spudafett]

Not crappy at all Spuda!

The only piece of constructive criticism I have is that the use of some Tamaya masking tape will make your paint lines more defined. I've been wanting to create my own version of the McQuarrie prototype for some time, all-in-all I think you've done a great job.

yeah I'm really frustrated with the way the lines came out, I aught to start using tape and masking off the strait edges....  maybe I'll learn my lesson and do that next time!

[Dalmont]

WOW! I'm seriously loving your "Ugly bird" though I'm not so sure I'd call it ugly, painted up she looks like a totally different ship all together! The lines on the combat cloud car are also fantastic, those wings are a work of art!

Wonderful job on the A-Wing as well. I'd love to know what color you used for the blue, I've got an old POTF A-Wing ready for a new coat of paint!

One thing I might recommend, since Action fleet can be quite a unique challenge to paint, would be to use a combination between masking and spray paint to get a more even finish on your models. It can be a time consuming process, but when applied thinly and evenly the result is not too far from the look of the official line. It also works very well if you're too cheap to buy an airbrush like me. 

[spudafett]

WOW! I'm seriously loving your "Ugly bird" though I'm not so sure I'd call it ugly, painted up she looks like a totally different ship all together! The lines on the combat cloud car are also fantastic, those wings are a work of art!

Wonderful job on the A-Wing as well. I'd love to know what color you used for the blue, I've got an old POTF A-Wing ready for a new coat of paint!

One thing I might recommend, since Action fleet can be quite a unique challenge to paint, would be to use a combination between masking and spray paint to get a more even finish on your models. It can be a time consuming process, but when applied thinly and evenly the result is not too far from the look of the official line. It also works very well if you're too cheap to buy an airbrush like me. 

I have another custom of an extra melenium falcon that I plan on taking a different painting approach too... very similar to what you recomended.  If it works better than what I've been doing I might go back and re-visit the a-wing.

[Kolti Wan Kenobi]

Really nice. I like the y-wing shuttle. The A-wing is great too. Good job on shortening it up as well. Keep it up!