ESB Rebel Fleet Ship (with Probe Pod) Buildup

I decided that I wanted to build a LR232 probe pod, but so many people have built them so far i wanted to make something a little more unique, the rebel fleet ship from the final scene of Empire.

I was a little wary of starting a SS build of something with little to no refrence images, but after seening how well GKvfx's awesome build up of Captain Needa's Shuttle, i figured why not try it! So I used the small little refrence of it i had and drew up a basic outline to use as size refrence.


I built an armature for it and it can be mounted either in the front of the model or on the underside. I am not really concerned about using correct kit parts but I will be sticking by the same guidlines, only using kits used in ESB.

LOVE this!

I gotta have one of these...

Cool! I wonder if any of this might be ID'd seeing how on the other I can't make out a darn thing but people are ID'ing it.

Get stuck in and have some fun Joe, its a fresh subject with zero ref right now, so its yours to dream up........loving it!

lee

Very cool project! I love the way this is shaping up already.

Kinda looks like a pod racer.
Great project.

Great project!!!

For some reason, i see the centre spar as an aircraft wing, seems to have a curvature to it? Maybe Stuka?
I think Seven is bang on with the Dixie cup theory on the front booms, but still not convinced its a pod stuck on the back....but then again, they did build more than one 8rad pod, thats for sure.
Need to get the Probe droid closer to its end, then think i may have a stab at this ship too.

lee

Nice to see this ship getting tackled. It is def on my to do list in the future. I'll attach the images I have so we have them all together.

As what I can see in the blurry pics, there is a Plastruct ellipse dome on the front of the Dixie cups.

The probot pod is most likely the smaller one (223) with the domes over the holes and what appears to be the Saturn V on each end. With some F1 wheel rims for the engine. Attached is a pic of my 223 with the Saturn parts on either end to give you an idea (just remove all the greeblies of the 223 to it is just the hulls so the Saturn parts slide on) of what it would look like.

good luck with the build

Seven you are a bit of a Legend mate, lol i now see the pod, at least, i can make out three of the Plastruct domes glued to the hulls.
Your theory on the Saturn V parts seems spot on too, think ill wind up using all the spare SdKfz222's i have though.....gotta make them work for me lol.

lee

And I thought the Dornean gunship was hard to ID. This is just insane .

thanks moffeaton, starwarsdoc, Scott, ralphee, tsophika, almar, nazgul, and seven for all of your positive encouragement and comments! I had no idea this would be such a popular subject!

Seven you are honestly a kit spotting hero. I cant believe you can still manage to ID stuff on this thing with such small pictures. I think you hit the nail right on the head with those saturn v pieces covering the 222 hulls. Unfortunately i only collected parts for the 232 pod . I might just have to go with that and see how it looks.

Looks to me like the large Saturn V booster cone is attached to the back of those rear facing Dixie cups.......Seven?

Hmm dont see the Lunar Module theory Seven, thats a cylinder, the engines look conical, or am i on the wrong page lol?

I do see the 8rad parts now you mention them, good eye!

lee

Oh the irritation....ive got three sdkfz 223's and four of the 222 variant on the donor shelf lol, typical, well, i dont think it is a 222, but itll cost me less to buy one more i guess.
May kick the back end of this ship off soon too.

lee

ralphee said:

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Hmm dont see the Lunar Module theory Seven, thats a cylinder, the engines look conical...

Yeah, I was doubting myself right after I said it. It does appear more cylindrical, with a cone on the front. There are two tabs on the side, so it isn't a smooth cylinder. I was looking at the little engine on the back end that made me think of the Module.

Yeah, I was doubting myself right after I said it. It does appear more cylindrical, with a cone on the front. There are two tabs on the side, so it isn't a smooth cylinder. I was looking at the little engine on the back end that made me think of the Module.

Its funny that you should say that because i was actually going to use the apollo command module for the smaller engines. thats why i made those wierd looking smaller attachments sticking out from the end part closer to where the apollo booster sits near the pod.


I just needed to cast it to make an identical one on the other side, but now it might just be easier to get another apollo kit

lol i can already see where this is going

Okay so quick thought, any chance that the front engines could have used the same cups as the ones used on the bottom of the shield generator?



In the picture floating around taken at the archives. the size seems to match up compared to the 222 and 232 pods.

Very possible indeed, but they seem a bit too tapered to my eye?

lee

OMG...I don't dare to do it under the poor reference image.

thanks Eric.

Very possible indeed, but they seem a bit too tapered to my eye?

lee

Yes your right, they see, to be just slightly off on the width of the bottom of the cup, but close enough doesn’t get you anywhere in the SS modeling realm does it?

OMG...I don't dare to do it under the poor reference image.

thanks Eric.

Thanks for the comment, the lack of reference image on this model make it even more enjoyable in a way because it gives me a lot of creative freedom in the areas that cannot be IDd, but it would kill me to not make it as accurate as i can so...BIG UPDATE

I made a lot of improvements to the overal design. I ended up taking off about 3mm off of the entire tapered back end of the ship in order to fit in the airfix apollo part number five on the end. I went along with the plastic cup theme and cut one up to blend the apollo kit to the body.



The second major facelift I did was getting rid of those huge couplings and going with a much lighter and thinner PVC pipe. They were just way too big and threw off all of the proportions. The cups that i was using had a swirl going through it, it is tough to see in the pictures but it was noticable enough for my friend to point it out so i trashed that as well and found a much more accurate looking brand of solo cup.



I attached the pipes to the main frame and secured the front cups to the PVC. I did a dry fit of some of the pieces on the main frame, keep in mind it still will have the probe pod on the back and another airfix #5 part(once i save up for the kit) so its going to be another 8 or so inches longer.

Love these updates. Keep them coming.

Thanks almar!

So been a while since an update sorry about that, but i have been working on it a little at a time I assure you! Heres a little update pic from about a week ago.



Ive started greebling the hull and i decided that it was time to stop putting off casting the pieces for the 8rad pod part of the build. I have never casted before and I was a little scared that the pulls were going to be filled with airbubbles since I do not have a pressure pot or vac chamber. So a bit of creativity and imagination later I made a quick little vibration table using my dremel(without a bit) to add some vibrations under the mold while the resin was curing.


This is my first ever pull from a mold...completly bubble free! (those are specs of dust and dirt, not bubbles)

I started doing some of the final greeblies and now all I need to do is add some styrene bits and some more piping, then its off to primer!