A Star Wars: Legion Christmas Special

This is all real. The names are not changed in any way as everybody involved is guilty. This is the story of a super secret secret squirrel project that was inspired by a conversation in the Weekender thread.

It was back in the middle of October that the regular banter was going on that Sundancer was showcasing his Star Wars Legion progress. He seemed quite excited about what he was doing and the forces he was about to paint. Amid all this he popped a few photos of Boba Fett that he had just completed. With commentary going back and forth about paint schemes it was mentioned by Evilstu about how he could’ve done a red and white armor scheme. I put my two cents in with suggesting that it might be worked over like a Star Wars Christmas special. The hilarity ensued with the back and forth of Sundancer feigning the nightmarish thoughts of such a horrid show having an effect on his figure and my own vote to promote the idea. These posts ended up being punctuated by YouTube videos with the highlighting lyrics as the main message.

I like to perform minor mischief from time to time and this seemed like a good idea to act. I turned to Evilstu and suggested that we might get Sundancer his very own Christmas themed Boba Fett. He agreed that if he bought it I’d be in charge of painting. Fair enough a deal, I thought, and had a snazzy grey figure in less than a week to start work on that I had mulled over how to modify.

Thanks to the way the figure was molded I was able to build in subassembly the same way complicated figures can be painted. For the sculpting I turned to Apoxiesculpt. The cloak on the left arm had the holes filled in with gloss varnish and a fur trim added. The legs had a length of plastic strip for a row of bells to be put on. The helmet got a customary Santa style hat. That hat, mind you, was the most troublesome bit in trying to get a puff at the end that kept its texture while the rest of it hadn’t yet cured. The backpack was its own matter as the twin jets of mini flame seemed boring and I wasn’t sure about the stability of the figure on the transparent peg.  To remedy this I made bursts of snow coming from the pack which almost matched in the curvature of the wire. In the end those didn’t matter for stabilizers.

The pack has a great section at the top that would make a splendid Christmas tree so it will be slapped with short lengths of 32 gauge wire glued into place. This is a process I am learning to have much patience with.

Tying the base in with the snow works but it seems bland… so I’ll improvise! Initially the idea was just a sack of goodies but there was still open space and it didn’t quite make visual sense. I knew that there was a manufacturer out there that had done resin wrapped gifts (Ristul’s Market?) but I wasn’t able to find any. Out came the scrap bits of plastic in the form of strip, rod and tubing. I have much respect for modellers who detail with etch brass after this because plastic just was a task to build with in the detail of the ribbons.

The first run at creating the sack was scrapped as the epoxy didn’t cure as quickly as normal due to the sheer amount. This turned into marred details whenever I slipped my fingers around the base. Off goes the epoxy glob and in comes a metal bead to act as a core form for molding around.

I started into painting with the intent to continue diligently with the project but then the burnout struck. Its a back and forth thing. Letting loose with full throttle between the last commission and going into the Boba Fett was a bit much. Recharging the batteries back with a fun build before going back to the paint is just what I need. Taking time to just modify another ork warboss to have fun with kitbashing like I did initially with this figure has gotten me back into the spirit of things.

The idea of the Christmas tree is quite a bit more troublesome than anticipated. Trying to get the right angles for the branches to jut out is leaving me a little irked and uttering choice words when things go badly. Glue and epoxy have become materials that I might forego for a bit.

Ok, while at work and armed with painting material I have gotten all the paint done. I need to finish the trim of the base, seal it all, throw a proper metallic on the bells and flock the snow portions before sending it off. Its a simple update for getting motivated to finish this off. This is the first complete project I’ve documented from the beginning instead of just jumping in from significantly later.

I’m impatient when I’m this close to having it all done. The base was trimmed and all of it was sealed. I finally finished with touching up the details. The snow was your basic flock attached with PVA. The tree on the backpack didn’t get the white undercoat that the booster jets had so it shows as a wet snow. I put on a coat of MiG metallic Old Brass to finish the jingle bells and put on those little holes that produce the sound. Of course once you think you have it all in the bag something pops during the photographs, so that was repaired for the final project photo.

Now all that needs to happen is for Sundancer to actually open it up from the gift wrapping. I’m glad for the private setting for these projects because this has been hard to keep under wraps since its been so fun.

Merry Christmas everybody

A couple of things have definitely thrown a monkey wrench into the timing of posting this project after finishing it out. First off was seeing a joke project I was working on pop onto the screen when Lance was amusing Big Ben from 4Ground and getting absolutely no critique done that I had labelled as private. He stopped one line short of this project and pulled onto Amachan’s Pink Tank for review which brought me just shy of cardiac arrest.

The second it seems is that there’s a tradition of opening gifts the day BEFORE Christmas in Germany that sundancer was kind enough to announce in the Weekender thread. I have a few choice words about this as the whole thing is being kicked off early but still “on time”. I’m GMT -8 so here goes everything! I’m unleashing it all!!!