Upgrading Jazwares Imperial Shuttle

starks

Sr Member
Hi guys,

The last 6 months found it hard to get the mojo to do much creative but wanted an easy project for over the Christmas holidays. I've wanted to build an Imperial shuttle for a while and picked up the Jazwares toy in our local collectables shop figuring it's a comparable scale to my other 1/72 builds and will make for an easy enough build.

My plan is to keep it simple, thin down the neck, fill some holes and seams, tidy the guns up a bit and fill the cockpit hinge. It wont be perfect but more acceptable.

started with some disassembly.




From the underside of the separated cockpit I cut the front section out and re-attached it to the cockpit upper.




I re-attached the 2 body halves and began on the lower neck. No longer spring loaded but I put the original ramp back in place and filled in the gap on the body.



Then I planned to cut down the original ramp surround but made a mess so a new lower was made and shaped at the end




Next was the lower sides which while not totally correct I added some features to look the part





Next up will be a simple re-assembly of the cockpit. Thanks for looking!
Cheers,
Josh
 
I'll follow your transformation/build with interest(y)(y)

Thanks mate!

Usually I light my builds but really not feeling the patience for this one. The Bandai Y wing I did was a nightmare to light and not feeling a repeat of that I wanted just a basic cockpit so when you see through the screen, something is there.

I made a new floor to sit above the access ramp, removed some seats from the original base and painted it all black. I repurposed some seated model railway figures and gave them a quick coat of grey to have the look of Imperial officers. then I re-added the original dash/ control assembley.



The canopy I put in place and glued together. Then I filled the hinge seam and scribed some panel lines into the filler. With a coat of primer...
Edit: Almost forgot you can see between this picture and the last where I have glued the removable body cover back on that gives you access to the inside and filled the release areas. On that shadowed side of the body the removable cover also had a rounded edge one side but squared off on the other...it should be square. So that was filled by gluing in some plastic and reshaped also. I'll have to get some pictures....



Next onto the guns. For the body mounted hardware I trimmed the support sprue between the barrels. the lower barrels while undefined, don't seem to be a bad size so they're staying. The top barrels are very small so these were cut back and replaced with thin brass rod.



The wing mounted guns I was looking around for something to use and cut down the metal rod from some sparklers the kids had used on new years. Saved buying anything!
I didn't have anything for the suppressor on the barrel however so a trick I've used in the past is to cut some thin strips of masking tape and wrap it around the wire. you can slide the tape forward a bit once wrapped to give a hole for the barrel end. I then add a drop of super glue to keep it all together. It works ok. The body seams down the sides have been filled and a coat of primer over them here to.



Thanks for looking, I'm up to repainting now.
Cheers,
Josh
 
Last edited:
Thanks mate!

Usually I light my builds but really not feeling the patience for this one. The Bandai Y wing I did was a nightmare to light and not feeling a repeat of that I wanted just a basic cockpit so when you see through the screen, something is there.

I made a new floor to sit above the access ramp, removed some seats from the original base and painted it all black. I repurposed some seated model railway figures and gave them a quick coat of grey to have the look of Imperial officers. then I re-added the original dash/ control assembley.



The canopy I put in place and glued together. Then I filled the hinge seam and scribed some panel lines into the filler. With a coat of primer...
Edit: Almost forgot you can see between this picture and the last where I have glued the removable body cover back on that gives you access to the inside and filled the release areas. On that shadowed side of the body the removable cover also had a rounded edge one side but squared off on the other...it should be square. So that was filled by gluing in some plastic and reshaped also. I'll have to get some pictures....



Next onto the guns. For the body mounted hardware I trimmed the support sprue between the barrels. the lower barrels while undefined, don't seem to be a bad size so they're staying. The top barrels are very small so these were cut back and replaced with thin brass rod.



The wing mounted guns I was looking around for something to use and cut down the metal rod from some sparklers the kids had used on new years. Saved buying anything!
I didn't have anything for the suppressor on the barrel however so a trick I've used in the past is to cut some thin strips of masking tape and wrap it around the wire. you can slide the tape forward a bit once wrapped to give a hole for the barrel end. I then add a drop of super glue to keep it all together. It works ok. The body seams down the sides have been filled and a coat of primer over them here to.



Thanks for looking, I'm up to repainting now.
Cheers,
Josh
Yep, those gun barrels will have to be modified to make it sharper for sure. Cockpit is good, btw(y)(y)(y)
 
Yep, those gun barrels will have to be modified to make it sharper for sure. Cockpit is good, btw(y)(y)(y)
Thanks! again, a quick build. Things like a cockpit in the past Ive spent many hours on and ultimately you never see it so figured why get too excited this time.

So a paint and weather is done. Weathering looks heavy enough in person but is always hard to photograph I find. Any input is welcome.
The studio model seems to have been fairly well weathered but then heavily toned back with white just allowing a hint of grime. I'm guessing being an Imperial ship they are expected to be much better maintained then the MF or Rebel fighters.
I simply hit her with some Tamiya white primer and then did a wash and some streaking. A few rust spots.
definitely an improvement on the toy and makes for a nice addition to my existing ships.









Cheers, Josh
 
Great work on this. It's inspired me get to work on mine, which has been sat on the shelf with my 1/72 Bandai models for months.

Very good workmanship/paint into transforming that model:cool::cool:(y)(y)
Thanks for the kind words :)
The toy definetely makes a good starting point for a decent model. With a bit more effort I think you could get something really close.

I think the entire neck probably needs rebuilding to be perfectly accurate and I note there's a fill piece under the front of the nose that is not present on pictures of the studio model. Still, for all purposes this presents quite well as an Imperial Shuttle.
Cheers,
Josh
 
Fantastic!

How did you get it apart? Was it glued, or just screws that you have to find?

All but 2 of the screws are visible, and you can clearly see where they are plugged on the underside of the body, near the center of the wings.
Now, on the body, between the rear wing mechanisms, is an internal post into a post and it is glued there.
Heat is your friend when removing glue so I used a heat gun although a hair-dryer may be safer and warm the area, you can get it somewhat hot but you WILL MELT the body if you go to far. Then I got a screwdriver between the engine mechanisms and pryed the body open. I still broke one of the posts but no big deal. And I needed a fill where I put the screwdriver in to clean the edge up, again no big deal.

That will get the body apart.
The head, the lower section I removed carefully with heat and again was glued but it came apart reasonably easy. I would say I had the entire thing disassembled in 30 minutes.

Cheers,
Josh
 
All but 2 of the screws are visible, and you can clearly see where they are plugged on the underside of the body, near the center of the wings.
Now, on the body, between the rear wing mechanisms, is an internal post into a post and it is glued there.
Heat is your friend when removing glue so I used a heat gun although a hair-dryer may be safer and warm the area, you can get it somewhat hot but you WILL MELT the body if you go to far. Then I got a screwdriver between the engine mechanisms and pryed the body open. I still broke one of the posts but no big deal. And I needed a fill where I put the screwdriver in to clean the edge up, again no big deal.

That will get the body apart.
The head, the lower section I removed carefully with heat and again was glued but it came apart reasonably easy. I would say I had the entire thing disassembled in 30 minutes.

Cheers,
Josh

Thanks for the info. Taking it apart will make it easier to paint the interior. Was thinking of doing mine in a landed pose and taking the Darth Vader walking down the ramp figure and pilot figures from the AMT kit. Those figure are roughly HO scale so should fit nicely based on you use of HO scale figures

Of course that means I have to replace the landing gear

It also make me curious if I can "frankenstein" the AMT kit and Jazwares one together. Will have to check that out
 
Thanks for the info. Taking it apart will make it easier to paint the interior. Was thinking of doing mine in a landed pose and taking the Darth Vader walking down the ramp figure and pilot figures from the AMT kit. Those figure are roughly HO scale so should fit nicely based on you use of HO scale figures

Of course that means I have to replace the landing gear

It also make me curious if I can "frankenstein" the AMT kit and Jazwares one together. Will have to check that out
That's sounds like a great idea!
2 things to note:
In landed position the wings are just past verticle. Not as folded in to the center as the studio model. I wanted an in-flight display, so I left it alone.
There's a gear system inside and a stopper pin. You can see it in my photos. An extra notch or relieving on the final notch in the gear should allow the wings to fold in a bit more.

Secondly I don't recall if the landing gear is too bad but the landing gear bay door is incorrect and folds the wrong way. You would need to do new doors, that's easy though.

And yeah, HO figures seem to be a good fit!

Cheers,
Josh
 
Back
Top