There will be no one to stop us this time.

my god... what kind of can of worms have I opened this time?

Rebel Blockade Runner

A while back I built a model of the Rebel Blockade Runner, which I'd created from fan-made plans found online. I'd been pretty satisfied with the model for a while, but didn't think about it for a long time afterward.

Earlier this week, I got a wild hair up my ass to see what would happen if I photomatched the scene in ANH where the Star Destroyer draws the Blockade Runner into its bay. I wanted to see what the relative scales would look like, if everything was matched in perspective (rather than through guesswork).

What I discovered, instead, was that my previously built Blockade Runner Model didn't match what was on the screen at all. So I got complete distracted, and rebuilt my Blockade Runner from scratch. This time 100% original work, using Sketchup's Photomatch tool on the studio scale model used in filming ANH. Turned out pretty well, if I do say so.

Here's the geometry of the model overlaid on the photos I used.

T-16 Skyhopper

I spent some time this weekend perfecting a model of Luke's T-16 Skyhopper. One of my favorite ships throughout the world of Star Wars.



The ship shows up in the garage scene on Tatooine. Luke holds a model of it while complaining about his bleak future. Something it took me years to notice was that there was a full scale T-16 in the background of the very same scene.

I made the model using Sketchup's Photomatch tools, combining a number of photos of the original scale model made by Colin Cantwell. I've also been building in such a way that it will be 3D-print ready. Once complete, I may even sell some kits.

here an image of the actual model

and the scene where the ship shows up.

Millennium Falcon Exterior and Death Star Docking Bay (part 6)

This weekend I got to the plating on the mandibles, and started to fill up the maintenance access pits. These new details are referenced from the 5' studio model that was used for effects shots of the exterior. The actual full scale Falcon in A New Hope has nothing at all in the pits or on top of the mandibles, because shooting angles didn't demand detailing in those areas.

I did some virtual kitbashing in one of the pits, as well. I noticed that one part was an entire famous real-life spacecraft, so I found a low res model of it and scaled it down to fit. Saved me a lot of time, and made me feel part of a great tradition.

Virtually all sci-fi spacecraft models from this era of film-making where made by scratch building a basic body out of various materials, and then gluing miniature model parts to that. Anything from model tanks, trucks, trains, aircraft, and space industry miniatures were used. After a base coat was applied to everything, the models magically transformed into seemingly practical spacecraft.

Bonus points if you can spot the kitbashed part (best viewed in the third render).

I also got some work done on the jawbox (the last render) which so far is all referenced from the full scale set of the Falcon.

Millennium Falcon Exterior and Deathstar Docking Bay (part 2)

Classic Size Comparison Chart (Part 2)

As a follow up to Part 1, I've added a basic model of the Blockade Runner, based on Mike Marincic's excellent orthgraphic drawings. I've also used his scale for the Tantive, which puts the ship at about 495' long. As you can see, she's quite a bit bigger than the scale drawing originally indicated.

(click to enlarge)

I suspect that the scale of this drawing was based on the second iteration of the Blockade Runner, when it first transformed from being an early Millennium Falcon:

as you can see from the windows of the hammerhead section, the scale was quite a bit smaller than the final model eventually implied.

 And now, for fun, here are some renders of all the ships stacked up together, as they might be seen from an observer standing on the ground, taking in the scale in person... (Click any, to enlarge.)

Classic Size Comparison Chart

 (Click to enlarge)


The drawing on the left was created around the production time of Star Wars A New Hope, to show the relative size comparisons of the major vehicles. It's an old favorite of mine, and has appeared in several Making of Star Wars books. Recently, I've been building replicas, in Sketchup, of the full scale movie props from A New Hope, (using production blueprints) and I wanted to see how the sizes of the real full scale props matched up to this charming chart.

I started with the x-wing, the movie prop of which was about 39' long, and scaled the drawing to fit. With that ship in place as a reference point, I pulled in my model of the Millennium Falcon, which comes in at about 86'+. At that point, the relative scales in the drawing actually seemed to be looking pretty good. I don't yet have a complete TIE fighter, but then there never was a full scale prop constructed for that. There are blueprints from pre-production of the TIE Fighter studio model, but they don't have exact dimensions. So, I went by the cockpit set of the TIE Fighter, which is noted in Rinzler's Star Wars the Blueprints as being 7' 6" wide on the inside. Adding another 6" total for a theorized bulkhead thickness of 3" brought the sphere of the exterior cockpit to about 8' ( a measurement that comes up a lot in set design on ANH. The Falcon's cockpit, for instance, has an 8' diameter, as do her corridors.). With those dimensions in place, the rudimentary TIE Fighter model I drew up from those studio model blueprints fit the scale comparison drawing perfectly.

Next was the Sandcrawler. The fullscale set built for the Sandcrawler, seen when R2 and 3P0 are sold to Uncle Owen, only had the crawler's caterpillar tracks and entry gangway, with a bit of skirting over the treads to imply the rest of the vehicle looming above the actors and droids. I built my model from production blueprints of the full scale treads themselves, and then added the rest of the hulking machine scaling up a recreation the studio scale model used in the miniature shots. The results show that the scale drawing of the Sandcrawler, in the old comparison chart, was a bit on the small side.

I've yet to built a Y-wing, an old favorite of mine, but that will come soon. It seems probable that the Y-wing will fit as nicely as the X-Wing, Falcon, and TIE Fighter.

The Blockade Runner is going to present some problems of its own, since I think it's pretty obvious that the scale is not quite right to what's implied in the movie. Of course there was no full scale set of the Tantive exterior ever built, so I'll have to extrapolate from the interior movie sets, and use my imagination a bit.

Anyone familiar with this drawing will note that I cut off the final comparison between the Blockade Runner and a Star Destroyer. At this point, that's an issue for another day.