DEATH STAR II SCRATCH BUILD

[vomvom12]

This is a summary of the work steps i did. Unfortunately, not all Little works step is documented because that would make this thraed way to long

Props go to the Japanese model maker Dorobou Hige, whose model and construction method I was inspired by. His Death Star is from 2011.


Making an accurate replica of this specific studio model is probably impossible due to the size and the many thousands of details. And for another reason. There is almost no reference material that shows the Death Star II in detail and from all angles, only the very well-known image that shows it in profile and a few more or less good WIP images.

My construction starts with a 30cm plastic sphere that I made from an old globe (eBay 5-10 €/$) on which I first drew the silhouette /cutting edges but you have to take in mind that a bit of material will be added when doing the real constructi on ege.

 

[vomvom12]

then i made a Ground plate and a back wall to do only the floor Segments that
are viseble later. the floors are cut out from 0.5mm styrene sheeds. first i took 4 mm XPs foam distances bevor i glued 4x1.5mm styrene strips as distances on each floor

 

[vomvom12]

at the point when the upper half of the shere was filled with Floors and the distances are glued in place i started
kitbashing each Floor to fill it up.i know that there are no greeblies in the original prop and the inside look way different but to fill up the whole sphere with photo etch material was way to exspensive.i filled up the rest of the upper half with floores. now i drilled holes in each Floor distance for Fiber optics (0,25mm Fiber obtic cable/0.3mm holes). i threaded them in and glued them in place.

 

[JediMichael]

Thats one I someday wish to try and make....but a very much in the future project.
My spinning avatar is the old AMT kit that I upgraded a whole lot.

 

[JediMichael]

Got me looking for some good pics, and heres one I don't think I've seen before.
Makes you wonder, as big as this thing is suppose to be, which seems to be about 100 miles across....these lights would be massive. Like a few miles big themselves. lol.

 

[vomvom12]

i didn't make any iictures how i made the actuell construction ege for the upper half but there are some for the bottem half and the proces is exectly the same.so here are pictures of the upper half in ist final stage. then i did the same steps for the bottem half as discribed in the last few chapters. both halfs had around 30 Floors.

 

[vomvom12]

here you can see how the final ege for the upper and bottem half was made.

 

[vomvom12]

the masking was a Nightmare and every one ho has ever tryed to mask stright horizontal lines on a sphere knows what i am Talking About.so i had to build myself some Little helpers to do this.

 

[vomvom12]

the masking was a Nightmare and every one ho has ever tryed to mask stright horizontal lines on a sphere knows what i am Talking About.so i had to build myself some Little helpers to do this.

 

[vomvom12]

this is the result so far. i still have to do some work. build in the light source to light up the fiberoptics for the inside light dots and drill many holes into the sphere for the light dots on the Surface. it took me 9 month of work to get to this stage.

 

[vomvom12]

g

 

[vomvom12]

Got me looking for some good pics, and heres one I don't think I've seen before.
Makes you wonder, as big as this thing is suppose to be, which seems to be about 100 miles across....these lights would be massive. Like a few miles big themselves. lol.
View attachment 1862611

i am not sure if it is the original prop... it looks like it but the lights are so bright... anyway unfortunately there are only very few realy good shots of this prop out there

 

[JediMichael]

i am not sure if it is the original prop... it looks like it but the lights are so bright... anyway unfortunately there are only very few realy good shots of this prop out there

It is, it matches the others I have seen, just yeah, lighting on this pic is very different.
The second on the far right, just under the equator has a patch that ended up being constructed area, but here its like a raised section.

 

[vomvom12]

It is, it matches the others I have seen, just yeah, lighting on this pic is very different.
The second on the far right, just under the equator has a patch that ended up being constructed area, but here its like a raised section.

you mean the section that look like a patch.. that is normal... you can see that on other pictures as well

 

[JediMichael]

This part. Looking at the details elsewhere, everything matches spot on. I flipped the first two to match the flipped look of the film, but you can see that it was a construction area that was opened up. Not sure when that first pic was taken. So maybe before they had fully finished building the model, or, sometime after and had to patch it for some reason.
And now its got me really wondering.

 

[vomvom12]

This part. Looking at the details elsewhere, everything matches spot on. I flipped the first two to match the flipped look of the film, but you can see that it was a construction area that was opened up. Not sure when that first pic was taken. So maybe before they had fully finished building the model, or, sometime after and had to patch it for some reason.
And now its got me really wondering.

View attachment 1862819

no this was always there but in the other pictures it's covered. when you do some more research you will
find out that there are 2 more big holes in the uper half as well. the very tiny bandai model kit got it right. on
the bandai kit you can see the patch as well

 

[JediMichael]

I'm just wondering, why then in some pictures is that area covered, but in the film itself, its an open area under construction.

 

[edge10]

The one on the left, the dish appears to be smaller. Could be an illusion.

Pretty poor patch job, either way.

 

[JediMichael]

The one on the left, the dish appears to be smaller. Could be an illusion.

Pretty poor patch job, either way.

I don't think they are quite sized up correctly.
But, always love running into new death star pics.

 

[jake88]

That is truly inspiring! Wonderful and incredible looking replica. So amazing! As I say not too often “you got skills!”