My dormant Interactive Photonovel was indeed set (at least partly) in the world of smugglers.

No jedi to be found anywhere. 


Dormant but coming again to a forum near you, right?

Yeah, man.  Let's see it! 

  No offense to anyone, but I always kind of liked the smuggler aspect of Star Wars, and am a little worn out on the jedi thing.  Its hard to relate to having "powers", but I sure can relate to Han getting shaken down by Imperials for smuggling contraband.  I mean, I've gotten a speeding ticket before.  Same thing.  Are any of these photonovels about smugglers?  Which one (or ones) so that I can read them?

  Here is the custom I made out of the Marvel Blue Beast figure.  His pretend backstory is that he is a washed up pirate who did some hard time in prison and has only gotten out within the last few years.  He is a mercenary now, and he gives himself the title of "General" so that it will help him to get hired if people think he used to be in the military or something.  "General" Mantillas' ship, an enlarged modified B-Wing Starfighter is called the "Blue Blade".  Here are some images of Mantillas:











And here is the Blue Blade:

  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.

  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.

  I've always seen these two figures as belonging more to the Star Wars universe as opposed to the GI Joe world.  The "make-believe" backstory for the two characters is that they are ex-soldiers, deserters who ran away from the military to find a better life.  They are primarily smugglers, but sometimes their activities border on mercenary work when money is low.  Mercer carries a regular energy pistol, a knockoff of the Westar 34 blaster while Taurus' sidearm is a "chain revolver", a slugthrower that uses a flexible metallic ringlet clip that holds bullets, which loads into the gun in a "break-top" fashion.  They run around the galaxy in their broken down CR-12 Light Freighter, the "Blackwater Bay".  I'll post pictures of that within a few days.  This first picture is of Captain Septimus Mercer:  This second photo is of First Mate Finyan Taurus:  Here is their Droid:  Here is Mercer's holstered weapon:  Here is Taurus' holstered "chain revolver", and another showing him brandishing it. The rest of the photos are here:  [img][http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-9/1280532/IMG_1725.JPG/img]

  Hello.  I look at this site a lot, and I enjoy what I see.  The topics that are 60 plus pages long sometimes discourage me from looking through them to see what is new, but other than that, the stuff is usually great.  I wish there were more smuggler-type customs, though.  I decided to show the one that I made.  I posted it before on a GI Joe custom website, but for those who missed it, I will post it again here.  I am getting more into Star Wars customs, anyway.  I repainted a Naboo Royal Starship, added a homemade "bed", mini-ladders for the pilot and potential copilot to climb up to the seats easier, a locker with the pilot's spacesuit inside, and a couple of Power Team Elite crates painted white glued to the bulkhead.  I put the pilot's gunbelt, goggles, and alternate flesh-colored hands inside those.  I also added a custom speederbike to the front, replacing the yellow "escape pod" with it instead, adding tips of guns to the grooves on top of the ship.  Oh, and I also added little tiny lights to the engine tips (which I cut off), put clear plastic over the windshield, added "steering wheels" to the cockpit, and cut the plastic on the back of the ship to create a boarding ramp.
  The pretend backstory is this:  Devaronian gambler Lycius Khan won his ship, an F-Type Nubian Speedster, while gambling (real original, huh?).  It is a luxury craft, built for speed.  However, since Khan loses more than he wins, he often finds himself in the business of smuggling and courier work to make ends meet.
  I came up with the new "type" of ship because an accurately scaled 3 3/4 J-Type Nubian starship would be much larger than the scaled down toy that Lucasfilm decided to produce.  Anyway, let me know what you think!