The Fast and the Furious: Mos Eisley Drift Part 3 -- Ubrickkian 9000 Z001 Landspeeder

 Here is the third installment to my "The Fast and Furious: Mos Eisley Drift" landspeeder customs -- the Ubrickkian 9000 Z001 landspeeder. Now, I have spelled "Ubrickkian" as it appears on the original ILM blueprint designs, but most sources spell this as "Ubrikkian." Of course, the name and design are an homage to Stanley Kubrick and the escape pods from 2001: A Space Odyssey, hence the name Ubrickkian 9000 Z001 (2001) landspeeder.

The Ubrickkian speeder appears twice in A New Hope: Special Edition: (1) parked in front of the GR-75 medium transport, when the ASP-7 droid smashed the small probe droid and (2) sitting front and center at the entrance of the cantina. The added Ubrickkian speeder in the Special Edition appears to be a mirror image of the speeder in front of the cantina with a slightly different logo between the window ports.

The Ubrickkian speeder also appears in one of the Sunday morning comic strips, WEG roleplaying game book, and Decipher CCG.

The original ILM blueprints show two different antenna pieces on the top, as does the WEG illustration; however, the actual photoshoot images appear to have more of an umbrella frame or periscope-designed antenna.

I looked at various online vendors for a Ubrickkian speeder and decided to go with Brad's Toy Room on Etsy and eBay. This was before I met Lolli & Pops, otherwise, I probably would have just found an STL file and had them print one. Brady's speeder came in three pieces with very fine print lines. I really liked how he has the actual window ports and not just four window openings. Also, I liked how the one cylinder-greeble extends below the belt line like the actual movie prop. I added a few greeble pieces that I cut from a G.I. Joe Torch flame thrower and other accessories.

I masked off the bottom section and interior and painted the main body Satin White. Then I masked off the rounded belt line and hand painted the belt red. I also masked off and painted the blue trim line in Navy Blue and the window port areas in light grey. I made my own custom logos and glued them between the window ports. Then I dry brushed some silver weathering in different areas, added various weathering all around, and topped it off with a wash in Oiled Earth.

I cut off the antenna that Brad had molded on the top piece and drilled a small hole. For the antenna, I used a small white grappling hook. I cut out the window pieces from a clear plastic Christmas decoration and then glued them in place. 

Overall, I love the size of this Ubrickkian speeder versus other ones that I have seen that look more like a Kenner mini-rig. The inside has a detailed cockpit that can seat one figure, but once again, like with other STL files, the seat is slightly too high, which does not allow the lid to sit properly when placing a figure inside. I had to remove Greedo's head in order for the lid to fit. I could probably Dremel away part of the lid's ceiling, but it would be better if the cockpit seating was just lower. This would also allow you to see the character's face through the window port.

Like the other speeders, this is more of a glorified diorama prop that will just sit in front of my Haslab Cantina, but for play value, it would be better if this file were redesigned with a lower, two-seater cockpit. I would even suggest having the two seats facing opposite directions or perpendicular like the G.I. Joe Iron Grenadiers D.E.M.O.N.

The Fast and the Furious: Mos Eisley Drift Part 2 -- Sorosuub V-35 Courier Landspeeder

Part 2 of "The Fast and the Furious: Mos Eisley Drift" covers the Sorosuub V-35 Courier landspeeder. The schematics on the top left are from one of the Star Wars Technical Journals or WEG Sourcebooks. There are three different V-35 landspeeders depicted in A New Hope: (1) Yellow-white, (2) Red-white, and (3) Black-silver Lar's family speeder. In actuality, there was only one V-35 speeder for the Mos Eisley scenes that was painted yellow and white on one side and white with red striping on the other side. This prop was then repainted black and silver as the Lars family speeder seen in the background of the Luke-garage scene. Since the Lars speeder is just stationary, it gives a better view of the cowl ornament. 

Through cinematic magic, ILM filmed the same V-35 speeder from different angles to depict two different speeders. You can just barely see the red stripe near the nose of the vehicle as it first drives by on the streets of Mos Eisley. At the Sandtrooper checkpoint scene, this same speeder is filmed from the other direction showing the red striping. In the Making of Star Wars video [available on YouTube] you can see the checkpoint scene from another angle, showing the yellow-white side of the speeder. I have combined still shots from ANH to give a better illustration of what the red pin striping looks like: (1) large stripes on and down the engine, (2) large stripe from the side intake to the front nose, (3) smaller pin striping along the upper body under the canopy, and (4) smaller pin striping over the canopy and along the cowl. 

Once again, Lolli & Pops, a local vendor, printed the STL file I found on Cults3D. Their print lines are super fine and the weight and feel of the model feels like a factory-produced toy. The file breaks the speeder into pieces. Lolli & Pops did ask me if I wanted it printed in pieces or as a whole. In hindsight, it may have been better to have the main body printed as one piece, but there were really not any issues in gluing the pieces together. Plus, having the rear engines printed separately helped with the painting. I glued all the main body pieces together and spray painted everything in Satin White.

I spray masked off the areas for the yellow panel details and dry brushed Sunflower Yellow until the pieces were totally covered. I also masked off the canopy (removable) canopy section and spray painted the windshield gloss black. Then, I painted the engine-intake cylinder and round cones (look like speakers) in the side boxes light grey.

I dry brushed various weathering lines to look as close to the actual prop vehicle and topped it off with a wash of Oiled Earth -- special shout out to YakChewie (Justin) for turning me on to Oiled Earth!

I don't ever get too crazy with the interior details. Normally, I just paint the computer consoles grey and then give them a wash. There is a removable lid behind the cockpit area for cargo storage. The cockpit canopy snaps in place, using small tabs on the canopy section.

Side and rear pics. I also added some brown detailing to the seats to make them look leather - Bantha hide?

The bottom has three molded "wheels" to make it look like its hovering. The cargo area behind the cockpit is big enough to hold an astromech. You could add a Lego block or something to the bottom to create a platform for the droid to stand up taller. Someone with some 3D STL design skills could customize the lid to make a cut out to go over the droid. That may be a future project of making a resin cast and Dremelling out a "droid socket."

I love all the details of this STL file. The seats could stand to be just a little lower into the cockpit to make the canopy cover modern figures better. Human figures fit fine, but alien creatures like Greedo have to be squished down a bit to get the canopy to snap in place. I get the feeling that some of these STL files were designed for vintage or retro figures.

I looked at different vendors who sell V-35 speeders and different STL files, and this one seemed the most detailed to me. So, I am very happy with how this turned out and pretty proud of how my painting and weathering looks. I may have Lolli & Pops print me another V-35 so I can paint one up with the red pin striping -- but that will definitely be a back-burner project.

The Fast and the Furious: Mos Eisley Drift Part 1 -- Mobquet A-1 Deluxe Floater

This is Part 1 of a three-part series entitled "The Fast and the Furious: Mos Eisley Drift," where I will showcase one of my three custom Mos Eisley landspeeders in each part. Technically, there are four additional, unique landspeeders in the Mos Eisley street and alley way scene -- Mobquet A-1 Floater Deluxe, Sorosuub V-35 Courier, Ubrickkian 9000 Z001, and Void Spider TX-3 -- but I have only made customs of three of them thus far.

So, Part 1 will cover the Mobquet A-1 Deluxe Floater landspeeder

The "Mobquet Landspeeder" from the ILM original blueprints is a cylindrical speeder with engine pipes on each side and tail fins, at least on the blueprint design. Although, I am confident that ILM only built one model, there are actually two A-1 Deluxe Floater landspeeders seen in Mos Eisley: (1) parked outside of the cantina and (2) parked under an arch at the landspeeder sales lot. The A-1 speeder in front of the cantina has a red underbelly and trim paint details, while the A-1 speeder at Wiolsea's sales lot does not. Also, from behind the scenes photos, you can see that ILM did not construct the tail fins and they reversed the engine pipe designs from the blueprints.

I found an A-1 Deluxe Floater STL file on Cults3D and had a local vender Lolli & Pops Studio [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61570639495920] print the speeder for me. They did an excellent job! The print lines are very fine, and the quality feels like a factory-produced toy. In hindsight, I wish I would have chosen a different file though because this 3D STL file has the engine pipes connected to the chassis, which made it a pain to paint the red details. Also, as you will see, the seat design does not allow a modern figure to fit with the canopy closed. One other minor detail is that the trim lines on this file are raised when the actual prop has recessed trim/body lines. So, I think I would have preferred whatever STL file Hole in the Ground used as the base for their model or an STL file similar to their product. 

Lolli & Pops also threw in a transparent canopy. I sanded it down with 600 grit wet-dry sandpaper and even used some headlight paste on it to smooth out the print lines. It helped some, but would probably work better as a clear resin cast/pour if someone really wanted a clear canopy.

I spray painted the body with a Satin White. Originally, I tried masking off the the top section and engine pipes to spray paint the bottom Fire Engine Red, but my masking allowed for over spray. So, I ended up just hand painting the red under belly, fins, and engine sections.

The stand was printed in a dark grey. So, I did not add any paint to this section. In hindsight, it would have been better if this stand was printed in clear plastic. I may try to make a clear resin cast of the stand.

I spray painted the canopy with Deep Turquois gloss and the interior in light grey. I also painted the engine pipes and rear thruster in Pavement then weathered the body with various techniques, topping the entire body in a coat of Oiled Earth wash. As you can see the seat is ill designed. Even with a basic sized figure like Greedo, the canopy will not sit all the way down. A better design would be a lower seat and maybe even back-to-back seats like the Snowspeeder to allow two figures to sit inside.

The Mobquet A-1 Deluxe Floater speeder will sit on display in front of my Haslab Cantina. So, basically, it will be a glorified diorama piece. Overall, I am pretty satisfied with how this turned out, but for any customizers that have not built an A-1 speeder yet, I would recommend either (1) buying the model from Hole in the Ground or (2) finding an STL 3D print file similar to Hole in the Ground's model that has the engine pipes unattached, a deeper seating area, and the recessed trim/body lines.

Hey Mr. Spaceman: BoShek and Cantina Dude

Here are a couple of popular Mos Eisley Cantina "Spacemen" that I am surprised Hasbro has not already released (or re-released) in a super-articulated fashion: BoShek and "Cantina Dude" -- I prefer "Yellow Spacer."

First up is everyone's pork-chop-sideburn-wearing spaceman, BoShek! For this custom, I used the VTSC Bossk as the foundation and added the calves from an A-wing pilot. I boiled and popped all the parts and then dyed the yellow parts and A-wing legs black using synthetic dye.

***A word of caution using dyes, at least with red; when dying the parts for my Mosep Binneed and Tawss Khaa figures, the red dye got on my fingers, which then got on my razor knife. I then inadvertently transposed red dye to parts of a Kenner (ketchup & mustard) VC Boba Fett and BoShek's face.***

I cut off the neck and Dremelled a socket into a POTF BoShek head. As per my warning above, I had to paint the flesh areas of BoShek's head sculpt. For a neck post I used the neck from a female Imperial Officer in a red uniform (can't remember her name -- left over fodder). I also trimmed off the collar from the POTJ figure and sanded the collar down to fit the Bossk figure. I trimmed off the silver necklace thing and glued it to the chest piece. I also dyed some MTF gloves red. They came out more purple than red. So, I ended up painting them red with white stripes.

The helmet in the left picture is actually the helmet-head from my Yellow Spacer custom. It has a chopped up Bossk head glued inside. BoShek and the Yellow Spacer wear British Windak high-altitude pressure suits. These costumes first appeared in the 1964 film First Men on the Moon and also the 1966 episode of Dr. Who, "The Tenth Planet."

I tried painting the white lines on the shoulders, but couldn't make them straight enough for my satisfaction. So, I just painted over them. I'd rather not have the lines than to have crooked lines.

The Yellow Spacer custom is a VTSC Bossk body with Ten Numb legs and gloves from the Chicken Fried Cavalry Officer. I painted the gloves red to match character in the movie. The helmet is a resin cast of the POTJ BoShek helmet from Darth Sinister Creations. I spray painted the helmet white, painted in the details black, and then gave the white areas a wash in grey. The helmet is not 100% movie accurate, but it's close enough. In the movie, the tubes do not wrap around the front of the helmet. Instead, they attach to the actor's back.

The background for these pictures is a custom of the Streets of Mos Eisley playset with weathering, a new door, and added accessories. I'll make a future post displaying all the parts soon.

I am the Walrus: Mosep Binneed & Taws Khaa Customs

 As I patiently await any new information on the Haslab Cantina or re-releasing Cantina figures (the recent news of Bom Vimdin has me hopeful), I am steadily working on various action figure and diorama customs.

This post features the original Mos Eisley Cantina "Walrus," no not Ponda Baba aka "Walrus Man," but Mosep Binneed and Taws Khaa! In his original character sketches, John Mollo designated these two character's design as "Walrus."

With current eBay listings pricing out the Black Series Mosep Binneed at $70 to $100, I figured that my most affordable option would be just to customize my own figures.

For both figures, I purchased custom head sculpts from Darth Sinister Creations on eBay. For the bodies, I chose VC337 Grand Admiral Thrawn and the upper body of the ISB Officer from the Imperial Officer 4-pack. I have Mosep the Thrawn upper body with the shoulder accents to add a bit of variety to his costume.

I dyed the body parts used a red synthetic dye. The soft-plastic parts turned more of dark purple-red and the hard-plastic joints red. With both figures, I used B-wing pilot forearms and gloves. I dry-brushed the bodies with red paint and painted the belt buckle and rivet silver. For the head sculpts, I created a custom flesh tone using a mix of flesh tone and khaki paints. Once the head sculpts dried, I then gave them a wash of the same mix but with more khaki paint to darken the wash a bit.

All the articulations work just fine. With the softer plastic tunic-skirt, each figure can sit down. The head sculpts are just pressed down over the neck sculpts with the dumbbell neck joint removed.

I realized after taking these photos that Taws Khaa's whiskers are actually shorter than Mosep's. So, I will probably trim them down. I have also thought about adding the raised collars using G.I. Joe Duke fodder, but for now I am happy with these customs.

If Hasbro re-releases Mosep Binneed, I am sure that I will grab two of them (if possible), but from what I understand, the tunic-skirt on that figure is too stiff to allow the figure to sit. So, who knows? I guess I will cross that bridge if Hasbro ever re-releases that figure.

TESB Boba Fett Custom

This is a custom that I completed a year ago. When the new Target exclusive Boba Fetts were released, I just had to grab some. I prefer TESB Boba Fett's color scheme over ROTJ, plus I love how the flamethrower/laser details are exposed on the left gauntlet. So, I knew I would try my hand at updating a custom TESB Boba Fett!

The base figure is the VC186 ROTJ Boba Fett. I removed the belt and green cape. I also trimmed off the flamethrower/laser cover off the left gauntlet. 

I created the new belt from piecing together the belt from Evolutions Boba Fett, the holster from the Solo-Han Solo 2pk Fett, and pieces from the new G.I. Joe Grunt web gear

I trimmed down a cape from Evolutions Fett and attached it under the shoulder armor. I also sliced off the flamethrower/laser details from the Solo-Han Solo 2pk Fett and glued it to the left gauntlet. I like how this sculpt has the mounting plate sculpted. The left gauntlet was really important to me for this custom. I did not just want to paint the gauntlet and keep the rectangular flamethrower/laser cover. Once the flamethrower/laser detailing was attached, I painted both gauntlets and the jetpack adding weathering to both. Another important detail to this custom for me is to have a moveable range finder. So, I trimmed the sculpted range finder off, Dremelled a whole and attached the range finder from a scrap 300th Boba Fett using hot glue to fill in the socket. I also painted in the two slivers on the left chest piece. Finally, I gave the body a wash in dark grey to dirty the figure up a bit.

The rifle is a kit bash from the VC186 Fett and Evolution Fett rifles.

Here are comparison pictures of my older custom Evolutions TESB Boba Fett and new VC186 TESB Boba Fett. The older Evolutions custom has a 300th Fett head (Dremelled to fit), left gauntlet, and customized jet pack.

Finally, here is a collage of my Boba Fett shelf in my home office. Carded figures in the back, 6" figures, Funkos, and Legos in the middle, and loose figures in the front. I also have this super-cool cloth flag/wall hanger that my daughter got me in Okinawa (not pictured).

My Boba Fett collection has doubled since taking this photo. I will have to post more pictures at a later date, but in the meantime, two figures I am proud to have added to my collection are (1) a custom rocket-firing Boba Fett from Procustomfigures and (2) a vintage 1979 Hong Kong Boba Fett!

Procustomfigures rocket-firing Boba Fett

Vintage 1979 Hong Kong Boba Fett

Custom Jawa Action Figures

This post reflects more of the "custom" side of Cantina Customs with a look at some custom Jawa action figures I made for an extended Streets of Mos Eisley playset/diorama.

Group shot of custom Jawas mixed with stock Jawa action figures.

With the expectation of the Haslab Cantina, I wanted to customize some Jawas with ball-joint knees to see outside of the Cantina. I plan to just use the Black Series Jawas for inside the Cantina.

I had several older Luke Skywalkers based on the VOTC mold with the skinny swivel/bend knees.

I simply cut Luke's legs above and below the knee joint so it did not affect the swivel or bend articulation. Measured the pieces against the existing Jawa legs. Cut the Jawa legs where needed and glued the pieces together. I used the old super glue and baking soda trick to strengthen the bond and fill in any gaps. I plan to paint the legs to match the existing figures later.

These two Jawas are Offworld Jawas that I dyed red. The finished product has a reddish brown look. I boiled and popped the hoods off the heads before dying the pieces. This allowed better access to paint the red eyes yellow. Just to change things up a bit for these Jawas, I gave them alternate bandoliers. The Jawa on the left has one of the bandoliers from the Streets of Mos Eisley Jawa. The Jawa on the right wears the soft-goods vest from VOTC Greedo and the Offworld Jawa bandolier crossed over a G.I. Joe (?) bandolier.

This is a Black Series Jawa with custom ball-joint (swivel/bend) knees and a soft-goods skirt. The legs for the Black Series Jawas are articulated to sit, but the hard plastic skirt renders this useless. Teeka's, Offworld Jawa's, and Streets of Mos Eisley Jawa's legs are the same as the taller Black Series Jawa. The soft-goods skirt is an Ep. 3 Shaak Ti skirt. I switched up the bandoliers just a bit by giving him a Streets of Mos Eisley bandolier over an Offworld Jawa bandolier. The hands are from Grand Admiral Thrawn that I dyed red. The finished product has more of a deep red-brown look. With the articulated hands, the Jawa can hold the ion blaster better.

The Jawa on the left is the figure that came with the LIN droid. That Jawa figure does not have articulated legs under the hard plastic skirt. I gave this Jawa the legs from the taller Black Series Jawa, customized with Luke ball-joint knees. The soft-goods skirt is from some Jedi figure (I think). When I get around to painting the legs, I plan to alter the skirt a bit to make it less flared out.

The Jawa on the right is the Streets of Mos Eisley Jawa with the shorter Black Series Jawa's bandolier. I also trimmed off the tassels from the back of the hood.

I got the idea for this custom from YouTube user Toys Are the Way. The body is a Kuill figure painted brown. I used the hot glue trick to attach the Black Series Jawa head to the body. I painted the hood brown to better match the robe. The soft-goods robe is from an alien (Jedi?) figure. If I remember correctly, it's an alien that looks like Ratts Tyerrel. I glued the front pieces of the robe together. The bandolier is from the taller Black Series Jawa. This guy will stand in as my Jawa Chief.