Ok so here's another really, really brief work in progress update. I've been working on it every day since these pictures were taken Friday, so hopefully the speeder will be done really soon.
So it's been a while, I hit a few serious snags with this project as I mentioned in the last update.
The idea behind this custom is a "My first speeder" type of thing- a suped-up hot rod. The piece was intended for me to recover my mixed media skills from back in the day, by using some brass, some lazer-etched, and some found-parts of metal as well as Hasbro parts and styrene.
The new front engines didn't take to the paint I was using, so I had to re-color them to yellow. I mounted them onto their "engine block" yesterday, there's still quite a bit of painting and detailing to be done (to cover up a lot of the sloppy cuts i made with the Dremel) but I think you get the idea.
they still don't look like how I envision them but a little elbow grease, and they're be nice...
Here is the basic layout for the back "extra engine." Again I hit a snag with this as the original brass and photo-etched parts I wanted to use just didn't look so great when I fit-test them. The idea is that this is a "blower" type of attachment to make this hot rod faster. The original idea was far more complex, with metal-etched and some found brass parts incorporated. It's pretty small size (about 2 inches tops) but I really over-filled it to a distracting level. I didn't clean the brass too well, and when it was primed it looked like a painted antique almost-steampunk mess more than a metal engine like intended. So into the trash it went. This is just a really rough test fit of the parts before trimming and painting and to see how it photographs.
As many of you guys know, I am very much into the classic, old-school, original trilogy look, the "high-science-meets junk-dealer" vibe. I thought this design was much better in the end, and instead of brass, I will go with the much-cheaper paper clips to make the piping I wanted.
Also I finally figured out what to do with the front exposed engine panels. I made a cover with a handle, which took way too much time to get right. This is my 4th attempt and I think I finally got it right. It still needs some more styrene panels and whatnot of course.
I've been distracted with starting a blog about my toy collection and customs (something my friends have been pressuring me to do for 5+ years!) and making a painted diorama for my robot collection out of those Mechanical Base displays, but now that they are 90% done, I am back full-time into this project. I also started a little bit on two more speeders, which I will show when they're more than parts in my parts bin
cheers all, and thanks for looking as always!!!!
