AMT ERTL STAP with BATTLE DROID 1/6th Scale

Post by **spruecutter** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 12:46 pm

Part 1

I've had this one for years now, but this Sci Fi build has prompted me to dig it out and give it a go.
I attempted the pod racer from this series yonks ago but gave up due to the number of distorted parts. I might still try and fix it one day. Maybe we can have a new section for recovering bad and damaged models.

We'll see if this one is any better.

The box cover has a still image from Star Wars Episode One -this will provide a guide for painting and weathering. I also have a Visual Dictionary for the film that should be useful.

I'll loosely break this down into two sections for the Droid and the Stap

Instructions : Droid

Sprues:Droid

Instructions: Stap

Sprues: Stap

Base

At one sixth scale this thing is huge, I imagine that putting the Stap together will be like building a battleship.

A rough trial at fitting the parts on the Droid.

There's quite a bit of distortion on some of the parts, particularly the legs. So I'll probably be using a few pegs in the assembly - "Roger Roger"

Pete

Post by **Paul** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 12:48 pm

Brilliant Pete look forward to seeing it come together.

Post by **Lee** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:26 pm

What a cool kit....!!!

Post by **RED** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 11:30 pm

Nice looking droid cant wait to see the finished product

Post by **5Craven** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 11:58 pm

This isn't the droid your looking for! ..... Sorry couldn't resist it I will crawl back to my under subscribed WW1 SIG.

Post by **schweinhund227** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 3:48 am

Keep up the good work..... this model always turns nice !!! one of the best ST New episodes models...

Post by **Bagpiper** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 7:13 pm

5Craven wrote:This isn't the droid your looking for! ..... Sorry couldn't resist it I will crawl back to my under subscribed WW1 SIG.

Hahaha good plug for the WWI SiG mate.

Cheers
Ji

Post by **Bagpiper** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 7:14 pm

Good luck with this build Sprue.

Cheers
Jim

Post by **chief5437** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 7:17 pm

Bagpiper wrote:
5Craven wrote:This isn't the droid your looking for! ..... Sorry couldn't resist it I will crawl back to my under subscribed WW1 SIG.
Hahaha good plug for the WWI SiG mate.

Cheers
Ji

This isn't the SIG you're looking for.

Post by **spruecutter** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:39 am

Part II

Droid Assembly

Made a start cleaning up and joining a few bits

Head, torso and pelvic area joined

It took this many pegs to join the legs due to distortion of the parts

The legs completed and showing that they articulate freely

Power pack added

In general the parts have required a lot of clean up and sanding, but once done they do look good. I might have to consider painting this as sub-assemblies as it's so large.
As you can see the pelvic joints are angled slightly relative to the body, I assume at this stage that this is to accommodate the position of the legs on the STAP.
I haven't tidied up the aerials yet as I'll probably replace these with brass rod - they are bound to get broken otherwise.

Post by **spruecutter** » Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:50 pm

Part III

A very rough bit of pre-shading on the droid's torso.

(the stick is to keep the head in place)

Other sub-assemblies prepared for priming; legs

and arms

The arms and legs haven't been joined to the body as I don't know what their final position will be without building the complete STAP. Also, the STAP itself will have to be painted as a series of sub-assemblies too. Not to mention that they are both so large that it's more manageable to paint them in parts.

I've decided to paint the STAP in blue rather than the more familiar brown/rust colour. I recently saw a Blue one in the Clone Wars, as representative of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Like this:-

Pete

Post by **DC87** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:43 am

Really nice

Looks like a proper droid factory with the legs and torso separated.

Post by **Lee** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 9:12 am

That's really coming along nicely

Post by **UKscalemodeller** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 6:54 pm

Am i the only one not seeing pictures.

Post by **DC87** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 7:11 pm

UKscalemodeller wrote: Am i the only one not seeing pictures.

Working fine on both my PC's.

Post by **Coen** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 8:32 pm

What a sweet little kit.
This must be fun to build.
An fully articulated too.
Cool!

Post by **Bagpiper** » Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:07 pm

Nice. Pre shading is looking good

Cheers
Jim

Post by **spruecutter** » Tue Jul 23, 2013 10:57 pm

Part IV

Base coat is on - Tamiya Buff XF-57 mixed with a bit of Desert Yellow XF-59

And for a bit of fun here it is on the assembly line of the Droid Factory

It appears that those ubiquitous handy clamps were even used there.

Post by **chief5437** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:23 pm

That last pic looks great! Just like the film.

Post by **spruecutter** » Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:53 pm

Applied a coat of thinned Vallejo Gloss varnish to try and get the finish right for the droid armour.

Started on the STAP assembly - the pivot joints

and primed

Post by **Lee** » Mon Aug 05, 2013 6:43 pm

That's really starting to look good...!!!

Post by **spruecutter** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:07 pm

More progress shots

Black applied as undercoat for metallic paint - gun ends masked to prevent overspray into the vents

STAP upper surface masked for metallic paint

Trial assembly after metallics and some pre-shading

Controls primed

https://www.youtube.com/user/bnealuk · Post by **T3hGuppy** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:35 pm

Those metallics came out great dude.

Post by **Coen** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:46 pm

Now here's and old buddy. Haven't seen this fella in some time.
Good to see him back on the road to completion haha.
Lookin good too!

Post by **Lee** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:58 pm

That looks ace Pete

Post by **wappynutter** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 11:00 pm

The paint and pre-shading on this Stap is excellent mate..... Very nice indeed, looks almost like a studio built piece to me.
Now where's that droid??

Very well done again Sprue..

Post by **spruecutter** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 11:13 pm

Thanks all, Yep, it's been a while since I did anything with this - the race is on now to get it done by the end of the build period. The thread from here on will be relatively simple, I'm not out to win a prize for a great build thread or anything like that, instead the GBs give me an incentive to complete the models, which I need.

The droid will be appearing soon, but first its the STAP base paint to do.

Post by **Lee** » Tue Sep 24, 2013 11:09 pm

Pete - Please tell me you're going to get this done by the deadline mate....

Post by **spruecutter** » Tue Sep 24, 2013 11:40 pm

Lee wrote:Pete - Please tell me you're going to get this done by the deadline mate....

Ha ha, I'm gonna try.

I'll see if I can do a daily update for this last week

I've decided to bin the idea of the blue colour scheme, that STAP is a different version anyway, and the insignia would cause a delay. So its the standard rust STAP colour now instead.

Base coat of Tamiya Hull Red XF9 on to the STAP sub-assemblies.

Post by **spruecutter** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:09 pm

Part VII

Update on today's activity:-

After the base coat, thinned Tamiya XF64 Red Brown was sprayed all over. It was then mixed with XF1 Black for shadows, followed by XF52 Flat Earth for highlights and to vary the tones. Extra highlights were created with a bit of XF15 Flat flesh added to the highlight mix.

Upper parts loosely assembled and masking removed:-

The main STAP body:-

This thing was a bit frustrating to paint, simply because it's so large. It wouldn't fit into my spray booth properly, and I kept catching the top surface on the edge of the booth and scraping the paint.

This is roughly how the whole thing will look when assembled:-

Post by **Coen** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 12:49 am

That thing is massive Pete... where are you planning on keeping it?
Even with the troubles that paint work came out wonderfully dude.
It looks amazing.

Hell you could enter that alone and it would be awesome haha.

https://www.youtube.com/user/bnealuk · Post by **T3hGuppy** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:32 am

Very nice paint work dude.

Really like your shading and highlights.

Post by **Paul** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:29 am

That's looking fantastic mate, as mike said its huge, gonna look real impressive once done

Post by **Lee** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:36 am

That looks stunning Pete! Excellent paint work there buddy

Post by **wappynutter** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:42 am

Wow...... She's huge.......

Really nice build up and the paintwork is awesome ...

You know how to handle that airbrush mate, shadows, highlights, colour/tonal variation..... very very nice indeed sir..

Well done....

http://www.youtube.com/user/longlance67 · Post by **longlance67** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:48 am

for some reason I keep saying to myself any time the lads say its huge....is thats what she said hahaha
sorry Im such a child

Great work mate, lovely paintjob this should build up into a fantastic piece

keep up the great work

Shane

Post by **spruecutter** » Fri Sep 27, 2013 12:24 am

Thanks all for the comments

Coen wrote:That thing is massive Pete... where are you planning on keeping it?

You know until now I hadn't given that any thought. The model will be around 40cm high, I might just be able to squeeze it onto a large shelf.

I suppose it could hang from the ceiling like an aircraft model, but I'll probably bang my head on it.

Part VIII

Just enough time tonight for a bit of work on the Droid - pre-shading and base coat on the arms and legs.

what a load of old of clamps

Post by **Coen** » Fri Sep 27, 2013 12:48 am

You could use it as a garden gnome.

It would scare the crap out of the crows

Ok... I'm really itching to see this thing together now. haha.

Post by **spruecutter** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 1:45 am

Part VIII

Today I attempted to fit the Droid to the STAP - it didn't go too well.

The control pedals are aligned straight and perpendicular to the wing whereas the feet of the Droid are at an angle. Try as I might I could not get these to line up in a satisfactory way.

The wing and pedal location holes

The solution was to cut off the pegs on the pedals

and re-fit them at an angle

The corrected pedals are now a better fit.

Next problem was the arms - they wouldn't fit well on the controls. The solution was to cut the hands off at the wrists,

drill and pin them,

and make them articulated like on the actual Droid.

I also drilled and pinned the upper arms at the shoulders to allow them to be adjusted easier.

The droid is together and clamped whilst the glue dries. This also provded a handle and support for the next painting stage.

Coen wrote:You could use it as a garden gnome.
It would scare the crap out of the crows
Ok... I'm really itching to see this thing together now. haha.

Scary Droid:-

After painting, light weathering and a coat of varnish, the Droid is almost ready:-

Next I've got to do some touch ups, varnish the STAP, hopefully do a bit of weathering and damage, and complete the base. Oh and find a way of fitting it together so that it doesn't all fall to bits.

Post by **Paul** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:58 am

Superb job Pete great job moving the parts around too. Paintwork looks great too

Post by **Lee** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 10:05 am

Excellent work Pete

https://www.youtube.com/user/bnealuk · Post by **T3hGuppy** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 10:28 am

Fantastic work dude.

Makes me want to do one but don't think id be able to get the great results you have.

Not yet anyway

Post by **Coen** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:13 am

That's spectacular work Pete.
Really great job on the preshading. It turned out beautifully buddy.
First class.

Can't wait to see him mounted.

Probably could have worded that better.

Post by **spruecutter** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am

Part IX

This is how it was left last night ( this morning), pegged to hold the legs and arms in place while the glue set.

Part X

It hasn't fallen apart yet, so after some touch ups, a bit of simulated damage was added, and I think it's completed.

I'll try and take some better pictures for the final reveal

My thanks to everyone that looked in and thanks again for the comments.
Pete

Post by **Paul** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:54 am

Awesome Pete, it looks even better in person

Good to meet you this morning too mate

Post by **wappynutter** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 12:03 pm

Oh Peter.... Sir this piece is gorgeous....... He looks so true to the film model finish.
How and where do I learn to handle an airbrush and paint and get a finish like this???

The battle damage and laser scorchmarks are fantastic mate...

Looks like a movie prop for sure.... Have you borrowed this from ILM/Lucas film ??
A huge well done mate....... You should make " how to airbrush and detail " videos for ISM.

Post by **Coen** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 12:11 pm

I second that Pete. Your airbrushing skills are magnificent.
This is a beautiful piece of work buddy.
Absolutely top drawer

Post by **spruecutter** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 3:21 pm

Thank you, I'm humbled by such praise.

I've added some Final Reveal shots now. Although I think it looks better against a black background, but I didn't have anything large enough.

I've been so engrossed in this the past day or so getting it ready, that I haven't had time to comment elsewhere on other threads. I'll have some catching up to do soon.

Once again thanks to the forum for allowing me to get involved and display some of my efforts. I know that this model would still be in the box if I hadn't joined in here.

A special thanks to Paul who I met today, he kindly dropped off sprues that were missing from the Revell kit that I won. Cheers mate, it was great to meet you too. I hope to catch up with you again and have a proper chat.

Pete

Post by **Lee** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:39 pm

Awesome work Pete - I REALLY like that mate...

Post by **Coen** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:48 pm

The bestest garden gnome ever!!!

Damn fine build Pete.
Wicked shading with the airbrush buddy.