Author Topic: UPDATED PICS! Modular Death Star  (Read 86231 times)

Offline Muftak

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UPDATED PICS! Modular Death Star
« on: August 17, 2003, 06:42 PM »
My latest project has been a five-story "playset" Death Star. I'm building it in a modular frame of mind, and I've recently completed the bottom level, which contains the trash compactor and the blast chamber (the only diorama version of it I've heard of.)

First up, here are pictures of the blast chamber:







I used an old CD for the end of the chamber to create a sort of "lasery" effect in the reflection. I found halfway through building that using the dark steel grey color made the whole thing too dark, so I fudged the color a little bit to brighten it up. The interior is constructed of those little craft foamies, which were the easiest way to get it all to fold up into a tube.
« Last Edit: September 1, 2005, 04:51 PM by Muftak »

Offline Muftak

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2003, 06:48 PM »
Here are some shots of the trash compactor:









I'd have liked to give it mashing walls, but the Screen Scene base kind of made that impossible. I'm going to put a chute opening in the ceiling to allow figures to drop from the cellblock (which will be directly above it) into the compactor.

Offline Muftak

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2003, 06:55 PM »
Finally, here are some pictures of how the two rooms fit together, and the overall "footprint" of the diorama:





On the outer walls I used more foamies to create the "armored" look, here's a detail of the outside walls:



All that dead space in the back came in handy to house the blast chamber's core tube. As the levels get higher they will carve deeper and deeper into the structure, hopefully keeping all the rooms accessible.

Thanks go out to JD's main man Chris, for hosting my pics!

Offline DSJ™

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2003, 07:10 PM »
W   :o  W  Does that ever look cool! Very, very impressive I must say.  8)

That CD looks perfect in there & I like the way you made it a all in one unit for display.
Thanks for sharing that custom. Some great ideas in there.  8)

Offline Valtar

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2003, 08:08 PM »
Muftak
 
That is Sweet,  it looks Great... I wanted to start a project pretty close to this too,  Im gonna have to wait a little while but I will do one, who knows when though.  I can't Wait to see it Finished I bet it will look Super!

Offline Famine

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2003, 10:22 PM »
Impressive. Most impressive.

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Offline carebear

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2003, 10:49 PM »
WAY COOL!
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Offline dustrho

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2003, 10:51 PM »
Awesome job there Muftak!  I really like the Death Star gunner's station.  Nice job!
dustrho

Offline CorranHorn

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2003, 08:01 PM »
Outstanding work there Muftak. How big do you plan to have the entire set be? Will it encompass such things as a full detention cell hallway, conference room, and/or the hangar bay? Great use of the CD to add effect for the superlaser control room, but wasn't the chamber parallel to the controllers, or was that in ROTJ? I forget....

What about detailing on the outside, will you add anything like gunner stations or the turrets from the trenches?

This looks to be an amazing project, I'd love to tackle it some day. Keep up the great work!

Happy Customizing!
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Offline Muftak

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2003, 06:03 PM »
Outstanding work there Muftak. How big do you plan to have the entire set be? Will it encompass such things as a full detention cell hallway, conference room, and/or the hangar bay?

There will be four more levels on top of this one, it will be just a bit bigger than three feet tall when finished. The next level up (3) has the detention center and the cellblock playset from 96, the one above that will contain the hangar control room, the hangar hallway (with blastdoors) and the elevator hall. The next level up (4) will be the control room and a short hallway with blastdoors. The top level will be the central core shaft, with two bridge doors and the tractor beam controls.

Docking bays are just too large to fit the size I was working for (trying to keep this thing under four feet square).  I really weighed doing the conference room, which would have been a floor all by itself I think, but in the end it boiled down to not enough officers to fill it. Tarkin, Motti, and Vader will just hang out in the control room. If hasbro suddenly has a change of heart and makes a troop builder set of officers, I can alway retrofit it later.

Great use of the CD to add effect for the superlaser control room, but wasn't the chamber parallel to the controllers, or was that in ROTJ? I forget....

After studying that three-second shot for waaaaaay too long, I've come to the conclusion that the control platform is actually in the round chamber (the laser blast bursts right behind them), which was actually just a matte painting. The painting had all the curved walls, while the platform and all it's walls were straight. In ROTJ it looks like they use the same footage flipped mirror-image style.

What about detailing on the outside, will you add anything like gunner stations or the turrets from the trenches?

I originally thought about putting two little gun towers on the very top (above the chasm doorways), but have lately been toying with the idea of making the whole thing double as a nearly-to-scale gun tower from the back, with  two large cannons sticking out about level three.

Maybe an exhaust vent hidden on the back of level two..?

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2003, 11:39 PM »
Very nice work!  I like the firing chamber a lot.
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Offline JediMAC

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #11 on: September 12, 2003, 03:39 PM »
Awesome start to your Death Star there Bobb!   8)  My first thought was on the very creative and ideal use of the CD in there, but I see everyone else has already touched on that.  So will each level be similar in size, so they all just line up accordingly as each new level gets added on?  Interesting idea of making the entire thing (on the exterior) resemble one of the gun towers - with an FX X-Wing right nearby, I presume.  I also like the idea of just making the entire exterior look like the surface of the Death Star as well, with some laser turrets & gun towers up top, perhaps along with a portion of the trench along with the exhaust port...   8)

I've gotta disagree with your exclusion of the conference room though.  No Death Star diorama (of this grand of scale) can be complete without it!   ;)  I'm sure by the time you got around to completing it (do your other levels first), Hasbro will have gotten a few more generic (tuniced) Imperial Officers out to us, along with Colonel Yularen hopefully.  If not, I'm sure you can get some of these creative customizing fellas on the boards to whip you up a couple nice custom Impy's to fill out your conf. room in style.  I say go for it - do the conference room too!

So I assume you're diligently at work on the detention center level now?  When's the ETA on that one?  Can't wait to check out your new level(s) as you progress through the rest of your project.  Keep up the great work Bobb!   8)


Offline Muftak

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #12 on: September 13, 2003, 09:57 PM »
Thanks, Matt! Things are in fact progressing--I finished the Detention Level yesterday, and hope to have pictures to show everyone soon. Now on to the Docking Bay level (which has everything but a docking bay!)

As for the conference room, my creativity's just not piqued with building one...maybe if Hasbro makes a Screen Sceen table...the whole thing disassembles by level, so I haven't ruled out any rooms for sure. I'd love to even stick in a ROTJ Throne Room at some point, but it's not a part of my initial design.

...maybe after I build my modular Cloud City playset...

Offline Muftak

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2003, 08:39 PM »
As I mentioned earlier, I have finished the Detention Level of my multi-part diorama. Here are some views of the Anteroom:







The console is not fixed to the floor, it's its own piece of furniture. I went with the orange-colored grid on the floor (instead of reddish like in the movie) to match the floor of the Cellblock Playset. The elevators are constructed out of multiple layers of Foamies attatched to a cut-in-half mailing tube.

Offline Muftak

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Re: Modular Death Star Dioramas
« Reply #14 on: September 30, 2003, 08:48 PM »
Here, then, are some shots of the Detention Corridor and Leia's Cell:



(I designed the "corridor" sticker myself as an homage to Kenner's vintage style.)





I replaced the tiny cell that came with the original playset with a more accurate room of its own. The playset itself is completely removable from the diorama itself (though it looks silly without it there.) There is also an opening behind the trash grate to allow the figures to fall through to the bottom level--I put some nice pipe details in there, but none of my pictures of it would show up very well.