Death Star Crane

[moffeaton]

File this one under the "pushing the "why bother" envelope" of studio scale models, the Death Star crane. It's in ONE shot. It is made from some Saturn V, and Hanomag, Movin' On, and 8 Rad stuff... and it's fun to "fill in the blanks" on what was clearly a 5 minute filler build.

I've worked out the bracing angles, and have modeled a "mechanism" that makes it look functional (and is conveniently off-camera). More on that tomorrow. I even embedded a bit from a Flak kit to make the upper turret swivel.

These weird ones are nice diversions when you're in the middle of the more "serious" builds. Like those welder droids from ROTJ!

 

[Bigturc]

Jason, that crane is dead ugly .. In a good way!! I always appreciate the time put to repro these!!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[moffeaton]

It really is one of those things that you see years after thinking you know everything that's in the movie and suddenly you're like "what is that CRANE?!"

And it's probably 1/24, like the X-Wings, Y-Wings, TIEs, Death Star Turret, Silos.... suddenly you're thinking about ALL the in-scale Death Star items. Lorne's response to my plan to make the Death Star Gantry Crane (The one that hangs above the magnetic shields when the Falcon enters/leaves the hangar on the Death Star) was "of course you do", lol. I guess I'm pigeonholing myself on the esoterica.

So yeah, I decided to have fun with the off-screen details. Access hatch, inner guts, ladder for access, and a "rolling place" to anchor the bracing to, so you can imagine it being able to swivel around. Try to make it look functional a little.

 

[moffeaton]

Since we will either:

A. Never see another angle of this real model apart from the Bluray cap
B. It will turn up only AFTER I finish building it

I am forging ahead as best I can. Got the main braces angled as best as I can figure.

 

[t2sides]

Looks AWESOME Jason!! Your build/artistic interpretation was my inspiration to start this project as well!! Still have a ways to go, but this shows how I decided to make the crane underside support structure. It is definitely more detailed than the obscure view we get, but I figured hey, this is a 'heavy duty' version, gotta be tons of these all around the DS, right?
Also keyed in on your extra little detail in the main Sat V body, still plan to add some minor externals, and of course, there WILL be a ladder!

Thanks for the motivation and creativity. Your positive, artistic one-off's like this really motivate builders to get out there and make these cool projects!!


Sean

 

[Tsophika]

Sean, yours is looking cool as well! Everyone has taken a slightly different, yet fun, approach to a blink-and-miss-it subject.

Craig

 

[moffeaton]

Baby, you got a stew going! These are awesome!

 

[vaderdarth]

Jason, it's ugliness is only equaled by it's awsomeness..........LOL. I love it! I swear I've never noticed it before. How cool is that hunk of junk?

Dave

 

[Rats]

Wonder if this thread will goad Simon into finishing his??? :lol

 

[Alan3]

Hi Rats. I got his Death Star crane. Will have to get around to it. Both moffeaton and t2sides are inspiring me to pull it out of the cupboard and get into it. Awesome work guys!!!!

Dave

 

[moffeaton]

And Craig was the one who inspired me! Loving this - Dave, go for it!

 

[moffeaton]

Slowly deciding where to put things to match the one screen grab....

 

[swpropmaker]

You guys are gonna need to upscale your death star bases I think!!! Check this out I just scored! A copy from an original film used 2 footer DS tower tile!!
So we have one tile to go to have all 6 of the original low altitude 2 footer tiles!

Great work on the towers guys..

 

[moffeaton]

Is it that mysterious one that's hard to get reference on?

 

[moffeaton]

Getting closer to done! I have the crane's "hook" to finish - it will get rigged and hung from the left side arm I made.

Also have to trim a few things back - the Tenax is still setting but i shot it with primer any way, to see were I want to adjust before painting begins!

 

[3phase]

Looking good, I like the opening you have above the ladder where there is no reference. Unless you did ha. Do you know if this is still around in the archives maybe.

 

[moffeaton]

I don't think it is, but you never know. I have asked all the usual suspects that would know, and no one seems to remember it "being around" past filming. I assume it was chucked, so I'm just forging ahead and assuming as soon as I am done, the real one will resurface

Trying to match the screen grab, and then the fun of using parts that ILM "might" have used in the areas that you don't see.

It's Pseudio Scale!

 

[jontom]

A fitting "Death Star Teamsters Memorial" for the hard working men who died constructing this battle station. You do the Imperial Labor Union proud.

 

[moffeaton]

LOL. I made a "Death Star Builder,s Local" union graphic a while back! I'll see if it's around....

 

[OTnROTSfan]

And here I thought it was a Death Star, um, soap-dispenser... that is so ugliful beautiful...