So glad you guys are digging my fledgling dio as it transforms from a Jawa scrap heap to a proud Imperial installation! With all the support and compliments I almost forgot this was a competition! I'm just having such a blast doing this!
Ah Spry, a Jedi never reveals his tricks
alright I suppose i can let you in on some of the secrets. Good eye, Spry, yes those are cut up ends of sticks of hot glue. I like the industrial piping or rebar look they have. I imagine in a ship designed purely for work and battle there isn't a lot of cosmetic deco and tons of exposed pipes and and bare wires. The gold rings are some left over grommets i had from a previous armor project. I cut up a contact lens solution box (basically made from cardstock) for the helmet rack and lounge seating around the reactor core. The reactor core inside the lounge is made from the top of a small contact lens solution bottle, with a grommet on the nozel. The base of the seats is an empty plastic dip container from the super market. I cut some nice cloth coated wires off of an old mini halogen lamp (which made an awesome holoprojector table) and then popped two holes into the dip container, threaded the wires up through the dip container, and popped two more holes into the top of the contact lens solution bottle. The halogen lamp came with a plastic connector piece which I cut off and threaded the wires into the opposite, receiving, end of it and glued it down onto the deck for a nice "transformer/regulator box that carries the wires elsewhere in the ship).
The bacta tank was a lot of fun and I decided to add it on a whim. I started with a roughly cut lower half of a plastic bottle, but that leaked all over--I always try to rush the designs I'm most excited about. My girlfriend saw me mixing the food coloring in, trying to gauge the right dilution for the "bacta" and she had the perfect remedy for the leaky tank. An old plastic cinnamon container! Perfect size for an extra tank in a ready room away from the med-bay, or on a ship too small for a full med-bay. I used some of the cloth wrapping from the halogen lamp wires as the oxygen tubing. Glued that to an older Hasbro Han Solo breath mask and posed my trooper in a "submerged" position. I attached the breathing tube to the top of the cinnamon container which screws on nice and tightly. (no leaks!) and then added a mustard cap, an olive oil bottle cap, and some more of the cloth wire wrappings as wires. Added the "googly" eyes for rivets and glued a random metal bracket to the top. Voila! 10 minute Bacta tank! (anyone want one? I could do commissions on these!)
For the armor racks I simply glued two nails together in a "cross" and glued their points onto more lengths of hot glue sticks. Under my helmet rack I glued on a piece of corrugated cardboard that E-11 blasters and other blasters can easily slide into for a "ready rack". The gold rings (grommets) above the helmet rack fit the Sandtrooper backpacks nicely and look space-y enough to also look good aesthetically. More grommets--this time with one side cut out to give them a flat edge have been affixed to the bulkhead to hold Electropoles and other polearms. On the sides of the Helmet rack there are staple gun staples (left 3 thick) glued in 4 places to hold longer blasters such as the DLT-19s. Next to the electropoles I have a micro-rack with a "bumper" to prevent hanging/strapped blasters from shifting during space-flight. This rack is great for the Sandtrooper T-21 rifles with the sculpted on straps. And I used 2 more pieces of hot glue to secure the E-WEB.
The sconce up at the top of the bulkhead is fabricated from the bottom of a curved blister pack, a strip of sheet metal, and googly eyes for grommets. I popped holes into the blister pack plastic and pushed the LEDs through.
Just finished painting it all gun metal gray. Will have more pics soon!
The base itself is constructed from two sheets of thin aluminum reinforced with cardboard backings and "welded" together with hot glue. A very simple slightly off axis right angle design. So more like maybe a 75 degree angle or 85. I will gladly submit some pics of the back and bottoms of this thing if you guys want.
