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.