Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
This is my Empire Strikes Back version of the 1:48 Bandai AT-ST (not the smaller mini-kit). The "head" on this version has different proportions than the ROTJ one and the legs and chin cannons are longer. The way Bandai engineers its kits, however, makes major surgery a challenge. With the AT-ST, the interior cockpit walls are integrated into how the exterior pieces fit together. If you modify one piece, it creates a chain reaction of modifications to a dozen other pieces. Since the window shutters on the TESB version are closed, I could forget about the interior completely except where it was needed to hold the exterior together. I lowered the roof section of the head to make the overall profile squatter and more angled. The original studio model had a slight curve to the roof that is nearly impossible to replicate, but I sanded down the front of the roof above the window shutters to make it as close as I could. Other pieces of armor plating had to be trimmed and resized. Not perfect, but it'll have to do. The two round gun mounts on either side of the head are smaller on the ROTJ version, so I replaced those parts with bigger ones. I had some leftover replacement domes from the 1:350 TOS Enterprise kit that were defective that I cut down and shaped until they were the right size. The chin guns were a simple modification by just adding some short lengths of styrene tubing over the ends of the existing guns. The last modification was to lengthen the middle section of each leg to make each roughly twice as long as in the ROTJ version. Bandai has this section of the leg as three pieces, so each needed to be lengthened before final assembly. I just cut the original pieces apart and used some styrene filler to extend the length. I didn't work too hard to make the modifications invisible since I knew I'd be hiding the sins with paint and battle damage.
I still need to modify the left side "ear" guns to more closely match the original and I need to paint the small red emblem on the left side of the upper cockpit. My goal was to spend no more than a weekend from start to finish.
I still need to modify the left side "ear" guns to more closely match the original and I need to paint the small red emblem on the left side of the upper cockpit. My goal was to spend no more than a weekend from start to finish.