Author Topic: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"  (Read 13360 times)

Offline no boom boom soul brother

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Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« on: October 21, 2007, 10:01 PM »
  Here is the starship that belongs to the two mediocre-looking characters I posted last week.  It is mostly made out of three AT-AT bodies, an Imperial shuttle fuselage, a Slave I shell, two shoeboxes, and four old water jugs.  The use of the AT-AT bodies creates three entrances; a portside hatch near the aft of the ship, the main entry hatch on the starboard side near the front, and a third entry hatch between the engines in the back.  The bluish-purple cubes that can be seen on the insides of some of the interior shots are lights that illuminate the insides of the ship.

Here are some general shots.






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Here are two shots (the ship has no weaponry because it was at an earlier stage of completion) of the ship showing the interior lights on.



Here are some pictures showing size comparison.




This shows the interior of the "bridge".


This one shows the bridge overall.  The ladder drops down for pretending that the characters need to climb up to the dorsal "hatch".


Here is the "cockpit" area.


Here is the portside bulkhead, showing the ladder that leads down to the cargo deck as well as the gun rack.


Sorry about the darkness (maybe it's just my computer) but these are the lockers that the two figures' spacesuits are stored.


This is the compartment (shoebox) directly behind the bridge.  It is where passengers can stay, as well as serving as a lounge.  This image shows one of the two bunk sets and the edges of one of two more storage lockers holding two more emergency spacesuits.


This is the ship's toilet, and that black thing is supposed to be a "towel".  The cardboard door has been removed to get a better view.  There is a sink made out of a Clone Wars Gunship ball turret cut in half (just like the toilet itself) and a mirror directly across from the black "towel", but the angle does not allow it to be seen (I guess you'll just have to take my word for it).


Oh! Here is an angle that shows the sink, faucet, and mirror.  (I forgot I had this picture.)


Here is the looong hallway of the lower cargo deck area.  At the far end is the ladder that will lead to the upper command deck.  A storage locker on the righthand side of the image stores tools.


This one is a larger shot that shows the bridge that leads to the lounge.  It looks a little different from the lounge in the larger shot because it used to be green and made out of paper.


Here is the view looking into the lounge from the bridge.


Oh, and here's the lounge (Made out of sculpy), in the rear section of the compartment behind the bridge.


Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2007, 01:25 AM »
Impressive!  I like all the detail that you put into it, especially touches like a bathroom and lockers with emergency spacesuits.  That's something many people would overlook.
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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2007, 10:24 AM »
What a piece of junk!!   :o 

I mean that in a good way, as when Luke first saw the Falcon.   ;D

Really, this is a truly awesome creation you've made.  Rarely do you see someone go all out and try their hand at something on this level.  It's huge, it's a great use of available parts, and it's very Star Wars.

Offline no boom boom soul brother

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2007, 01:24 PM »
What a piece of junk!!   :o 

All I have to say in my defense is that, "she'll make 0.5 past light speed."

Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2007, 02:36 PM »
 8)

Offline Glassman6

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2007, 03:19 PM »
Man i have to second that the details in this really do it for me.
I love the passenger bunks and the bathrooms. I wondered what
happend on those long space flights if somone had to go.

I would go back and add some of that attention to the "water jugs" engines.
They stand out as what they are, bottles. Adding some bits and pieces would camoflague them
some more.

Extremely creative. Great work.

Offline stormtripper

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2007, 09:37 PM »
That's a pretty sizable project that you took on. Good for you! Pretty cool looking project over all, yeah it's rough and sloppy in places but who cares, it reeks of star wars.. You did a great job on kit bashing and melding the various pieces together. It is what customizers do...from time to time. Awesome job ;D
The other vehicles look pretty rad too!

Offline no boom boom soul brother

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2007, 11:51 PM »
  Thanks for all the great comments.  In regards to the water jug engines, yeah they are kind of hard to disguise.  I've been sort of thinking about what to replace them with.  I was thinking of maybe four of those "Justice League" Watch Tower Playsets, but I would have to wait a while to save up for something like that.  I do have a sort of sentimental affinity for the water jug engines, though.  The ship is a little on the sloppy side, I agree.  Do you guys think that the sloppiness takes away from the illusion that the toy is supposed to be a real ship?  I sort of rationalized this to myself, but I admit that things could be touched up a bit here and there.  Oh, and if anyone is curious (but probably not),  I forgot to mention that the Imperial Shuttle piece is supposed to be a detachable lifeboat.  You know, to meet "galactic" safety legal requirements.  Again though, thanks for all the kind words of encouragement.

Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2007, 09:27 AM »
Holy crap! What a piece of work!

That's an amazing achievement. Looks incredibly fun to play with.
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Offline Darth_Ennis

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2007, 01:45 PM »
I must say, I am suitably impressed with the amount of time and work this project must have taken. My hat is off to you.

The details are absoulutely stunning.

Well better than I could ever do.

Excellent job.

Offline jedi_master_sal

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2007, 05:45 PM »
Very nice. A good solid coat of paint to even out some of the areas and fixing up some of the not so finished areas, will make this an excellent ship/playset.

At first glance when i read what parts you used, I was almost shocked. I don't think I'd have the courage to hack up my ships to make something like this, but you did a pretty fine job of it.

Kudos to you!
« Last Edit: October 29, 2007, 10:10 AM by jedi_master_sal »
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Offline Glassman6

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2007, 05:24 PM »
In regards to the water jug engines, yeah they are kind of hard to disguise.  I've been sort of thinking about what to replace them with.

What about, V8 fusion juice bottles. First the Juice rocks, and its good for you, and it has that shape of rocket engines without the handles.  That being said, any bottle without the handles. I think that is what stands out the most is the handles on the jugs.

Offline patreektherodian

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #12 on: October 29, 2007, 05:54 PM »
I would add something to the choped atat legs to make them look  more like pontoons or landing gear.

Offline RichardTheBloody

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2007, 08:19 PM »
This is so awesome it's not even funny. Nice work on integrating Slave I as the cockpit. Would it detach, sort of like an extra escape pod, in addition to the shuttle piece? Or better, have the shuttle detach like the piggyback drone from the old GI Joe Cobra Night Raven. I had an idea about the engines though...how about Big Gulp cups? Bundle them together in a group of four or more to a side. You'd still have the cavernous thruster openings, (which you could wire in red LEDs for the engine glows)

Love the job you did on the bathroom (or "refresher" as they put it in the books)

So, is she a smuggling vessel, with extra firepower tucked away in case of unexpected "Imperial entanglements"? ;)  And i don't know if it was intentional, but i'm seeing a resemblance to the Republic Diplomatic Cruiser from Episode I (sweet ship as well IMO)

Wonder if Hasbro ever thought of making a toy version of Tantive IV...that would be so awesome...insanely expensive, and would probably sell about as much as Jar Jar did during his "heyday", but it'd still be sweet.

Offline no boom boom soul brother

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Re: Custom Light Freighter "Blackwater Bay"
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2007, 04:11 AM »
  Thanks for the compliments.  In regards to the Slave I piece, it is not intended to detach.  The shuttle piece actually does detach, although it is attached with long screws and butterfly-type ends.  This makes it extremely difficult to detach.  It is actually supposed to be the escape pod for the ship.  There is a trapdoor on the bottom of it that leads down through the hollowed out soap boxes that I spray-painted silver.  I put a piece of a ladder inside it, which further leads to a trapdoor on the top of the aft part of the ship's ceiling.  A ladder is also glued to the ceiling, and can swing down for the figure to climb up.  I forgot to take pictures of that stuff.  The Big Gulp cups are a good idea, but it is kind of hard to imagine how they would look repainted and modified.  It would probably accomodate some sort of flashlight to act as thrusters, because this is something I wanted to do with the current thrusters, but they just won't fit.
  The Blackwater Bay is a smuggling ship, a somewhat slow and dillapidated vessel, but sturdy enough to get the two characters in and out of trouble.  The ship's armaments consist of three mounted blaster turrets, two mounted forward and one mounted aft.  It is kind of lightly armed in regards to taking on dedicated military fighters, and are usually used to hold them at bay until it can jump to hyperspace.  They like to keep a low profile around the more civilized sections of space, preferring the fringes and frontier worlds to find work.  The weaponry really comes in handy when they get the opportunity to take advantage of a planet's lower levels of technology.  Captain Mercer and his First Mate Taurus, ex-soldiers and slaves, have very flexible job descriptions and morals.  They mostly do smuggling and light shipping work, but are not above doing jobs that lean toward mercenary work.
  In regards to designing the ship with the red cruiser type ship seen in Episode I, that type of look was exactly what I was going for, as well as the Tantive IV.  Thanks for the interest!