[MOC][LDD] Plo and Obi-wan's Delta-7 Aethersprite-class light interceptors

[atlas]

Hello !

Here is the second iteration of (kind of) my delta-7 model.

You ought to see where this all started on khatmorg's page here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/95628537@N02/8735306298/in/dateposted/

And the eurobricks thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/82931-moc-obi-wans-delta-7-aethersprite-class-light-interceptor/

The previous eurobricks thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/132852-moc-delta-7-aethersprite-class-light-interceptor/

 

plo's delta-7 album on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/48109771@N05/sets/72157675717316394

obi-wan's delta-7 and the rest: https://www.flickr.com/photos/48109771@N05/sets/72157675717304614

This time I photographed it mainly because last month I finally finished painting the livery onto the necessary pieces for plo-koon's whip from the order 66 montage in episode III. That was a protracted process because I was working off only 1 piece of reference material (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/9/94/Plo_Koon's_Jedi_Starfighter.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20061207163510), and it took a long time to begin placing important marks on the model so that the rest of the design would follow the source material as closely as possible. I haven't done much painting at all, so doing this was a learning experience. Some of the edges are cleaner than others, due to some amateur masking, but I'm pleased enough with the final result.

 

 

I have a series of progress photos documenting the project basically from start to finish. (warning: ~30 images will pop up)

Spoiler

 

1 - starting off. at this point I was still working off a copy of my first version of the model, and started with cutting up stickers to achieve the livery. This was pretty silly though.

2 - submitting to paint. I started with enamel paint for the dark blue, and acrylic water based paint for the white. The latter choice caused some problems with doing the job in general.  

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18 - by this point I had basically finalised the actual design of the final model, so all that was left was to finish painting. I also switched my white paint to enamel paint so that both the white and blue paint was the same type, which made applying and finishing it much easier.

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30 - masking the final pieces

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33 - finished!

 

 

 

Not much has changed from the original version, but most of what has concerns the rear section. I also managed to include retracting landing gear inside the bulbs of the engines, which in hindsight was a no-brainer for how simple it was to incorporate. I was forced to paint some parts dark red, dark blue, and white simply because they aren't currently available, but I tried to restrain doing that too much to keep myself in Lego territory and away from modelmaking.

The build itself is pretty solid and "swooshable" I guess. My main issue with the build, which I gave up on correcting when completing the revised versions, is that the cockpit section rises up higher than it should (ie, it's too fat). Using the 12x3 wedge plate made that impossible to fix (for me), but I think it's not too bad. The other thing I'm not sure about is the angle of the wedge from the tip of the nose backward - to my eye, it seems like the ship itself is a little bit too narrow. I haven't been able to find much blueprint or schematic-style reference to look at this so it will have to do for now.

A word about scale: the real thing is listed as 8 meters long so I used that as a starting point (well, retroactively). Using a scale of 4 studs = 1 meter, it should be 32 studs long. The build is 36 long. I'm going to pin that down to the angle of the wedge - if the tip of the nose was warped back 3 studs, that might fix the angle. But i have to call it a day on this one I think so I finish other things. I have left notes on some of the photos on my flickr profile, please do take a look.

Feedback,criticism, and comments are much appreciated!

Edited February 1, 2017 by atlas

[All in the Reflexes]

I saw these on your flickr page, brilliantly done, i dont know if id go as far as to paint them but it looks great so what do i know :D

[Cody Startale]

I think you did a fantastic paint job, especially on Plo Koon's fighter. Tbh, at first I didn't even see it was painted. I thought it was an official printing and that there was probably a playset with these printed parts, so I was pretty impressed to see that you did it yourself. Are these Revell colors you are using? I didn't browse all the pictures – it was a bit hard to view them all since you stored each link in a separate spoiler tag, unfortunately.

[Kristof]

Just when I think this design can't get any better, you come and nail it a bit higher once again! Wonder, wonder, wonderful. This might very well be my first moc of someone else I buy bricks for and build :)

Also thank you very much for throrough description!

[legoSWfan]

Really nice ships. I thought first, that was official printed parts 

[atlas]

1 hour ago, All in the Reflexes said:

I saw these on your flickr page, brilliantly done, i dont know if id go as far as to paint them but it looks great so what do i know :D

Thanks very much! I was very hesitant about it as well, but i'm pleased with the end result and there was no other way to do what I wanted to achieve unfortunately.

34 minutes ago, Cody Startale said:

I think you did a fantastic paint job, especially on Plo Koon's fighter. Tbh, at first I didn't even see it was painted. I thought it was an official printing and that there was probably a playset with these printed parts, so I was pretty impressed to see that you did it yourself. Are these Revell colors you are using? I didn't browse all the pictures – it was a bit hard to view them all since you stored each link in a separate spoiler tag, unfortunately.

Thank you. That is great to hear. For the paints, I used Tamiya enamel paint from my modelling shop in my city. "X-2 White" and "X-3 Royal Blue" to be specific.

Although as I put somewhere in the post, it wasn't until about halfway through the painting process that I replaced my acrylic waterbased white paint with the enamel, which is a problem I highly suggest you skip over if considering doing this. At least in my experience, the enamel paint was easier to work with when applied and looked better in general. I'm really sorry to hear about the spoiler tag problem, I'll try and get rid of them and maybe that will make the pictures easier to access? 

31 minutes ago, krisandkris12 said:

Just when I think this design can't get any better, you come and nail it a bit higher once again! Wonder, wonder, wonderful. This might very well be my first moc of someone else I buy bricks for and build :)

Also thank you very much for throrough description!

wow, thanks. I enjoy giving as much detail about the whole thing as possible, because for me personally when I see a model I really love there's nothing more disappointing than only being able to see a little bit of it. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed that!

I have been asked a few times about instructions and breakdown images for some things and I feel bad because I keep putting it off. I think maybe it would be easier to just make an LDD file with everything in there and if some folks are interested they can poke around in there. Funnily enough that is how all of this started, i built a copy of khatmorg's one from the ldd file they made. So i guess i should do that if it would make it easier to organise parts etc?

27 minutes ago, legoSWfan said:

Really nice ships. I thought first, that was official printed parts 

thank you very much :)

[Kristof]

^Spoilers make a lot of sense here, valid choice when you have a bunch of sort of sidetrack images to share. If the images displayed right in the spoiler when exploded, that would be alright. As for now I agree it's a bit inconvenient :) Perhaps you could have included all in one spoiler as well, but hey, thats not a big deal.

About a LDD file, of course, that's always favorable. Or perhaps to try Mecabricks for even easier sharing? But I wouldn't dare to complain if you haven't done any of it - I know very well that re-building completed models (especially those with tricky connections and compound angles) in LDD after you have finished it is not the most enjoyable task in the world :D I'm just painfully building one of my models in LDcad because several people ask me for instructions and I am pulling their patience for more than a year now and still not done with it :D

[atlas]

I think I managed to fix the picture problem, they should pop out of the spoiler all out once now.

I have spent so much time with this build that I could probably assemble it off the top of my head. How each little section goes together has basically been burned into my brain forever. So making an LDD file should be no problem if that's what the people want. Of course it would have floaty bits inside the file, because there are a few non-ldd friendly connections in it. Most of it is pretty straight forward though :) 

Edited January 27, 2017 by atlas

[Kristof]

Then it's wonderful! Ho rigid is the build btw? On scale 1 to 10 from super flimsy to rock solid hammer replacement? :D I barely ever swoosh my models, but I'm kinda obsessed with structural strength :)

Edited January 27, 2017 by krisandkris12

[atlas]

If 0 is a few hundred pieces connected together with small tiles, just hanging, and 10 is a modern, near indestructible Lego set like the U-wing, I would say about a 6 or 7. There are some fragile exterior parts but overall it's really sturdy (you can pinch the tip of the tail and nothing will break or droop really badly) if you know where to grab it. Compared to other things I've built its much stronger, but I guess the source material lends itself to that. It's got a very small footprint for the number of pieces/weight/volume compared to other ships.

[Ellisss_2]

Awesome, Great paint job!

[Littleworlds]

Truly amazing looking ships! Sadly I look at them with mixed feeling due to the paint on them, but I have to say it works great on them.  

[Leonardo da Bricki]

These ships look great! I don't like painting Lego, but this just looks too good.

[atlas]

18 hours ago, Ellisss_2 said:

Awesome, Great paint job!

Thank you.

17 hours ago, Littleworlds said:

Truly amazing looking ships! Sadly I look at them with mixed feeling due to the paint on them, but I have to say it works great on them.  

11 hours ago, Leonardo da Bricki said:

These ships look great! I don't like painting Lego, but this just looks too good.

Thanks. I totally understand about the paint, it isn't for everyone, purism and non purism is a subject of difference for lots of people. I am really glad to know that you both like the result!

[Jamesx]

I would really love to see and LDD file for this. I think it would be good to just do it with all the sub models disconnected. That way you don't have to fight to get all the angles and you don't have floating pieces. Just an idea. Excellent build

 

[VaderFan2187]

The painting and the shaping look absolutely amazing! Hopefully TLG has done something similar for the Obi-Wan's JSF set this summer

[atlas]

6 hours ago, Jamesx said:

I would really love to see and LDD file for this. I think it would be good to just do it with all the sub models disconnected. That way you don't have to fight to get all the angles and you don't have floating pieces. Just an idea. Excellent build

 

Thank you very much. I think I will do that. (:

22 minutes ago, VaderFan2187 said:

The painting and the shaping look absolutely amazing! Hopefully TLG has done something similar for the Obi-Wan's JSF set this summer

Thanks. I am looking forward to that set.

[TWP]

I really love your models of these! Might make one myself too if you'd be okay with that

Haven't been able to find better versions of these, and of what I'm seeing they seem very hard to improve on!

[MilkPls69]

Atlas you madman! Not even finishing the ROTS obi wan fighter and then making an amazing ATOTC fighter. How do you do it!

[atlas]

10 hours ago, TWP said:

I really love your models of these! Might make one myself too if you'd be okay with that

Haven't been able to find better versions of these, and of what I'm seeing they seem very hard to improve on!

Thanks! That's really flattering and of course I would love to see more in the flesh. I've started working on and LDD file and will post in here when it's done.

1 minute ago, MilkPls69 said:

Atlas you madman! Not even finishing the ROTS obi wan fighter and then making an amazing ATOTC fighter. How do you do it!

Hahaha. Thank you. I have a high powerlevel when it comes to procrastinating. I do intend on finishing that ship, though. I wasn't completely happy with the 3 builds that I already posted, so I did some more work on those and told myself that they were finished so I put them aside. That was very minor cosmetic stuff. But I saw some better reference images and realised I needed to fix quite a bit more than that. So I'm going to take advantage of the fact that the utapau eta-2 is just a barebones version of the other 3 — i.e. it has no paint or stickers, so I will rebuild that ship to a proper standard and then decorate it. And I promise I will finally make either a breakdown thing or an LDD file of it for you when it's finished! (:

[atlas]

22 hours ago, MilkPls69 said:

Atlas you madman! Not even finishing the ROTS obi wan fighter and then making an amazing ATOTC fighter. How do you do it!

 

On 1/31/2017 at 7:48 AM, TWP said:

I really love your models of these! Might make one myself too if you'd be okay with that

Haven't been able to find better versions of these, and of what I'm seeing they seem very hard to improve on!

 

On 1/30/2017 at 8:17 AM, Jamesx said:

I would really love to see and LDD file for this. I think it would be good to just do it with all the sub models disconnected. That way you don't have to fight to get all the angles and you don't have floating pieces. Just an idea. Excellent build

 

 

On 1/28/2017 at 2:18 AM, krisandkris12 said:

^Spoilers make a lot of sense here, valid choice when you have a bunch of sort of sidetrack images to share. If the images displayed right in the spoiler when exploded, that would be alright. As for now I agree it's a bit inconvenient :) Perhaps you could have included all in one spoiler as well, but hey, thats not a big deal.

About a LDD file, of course, that's always favorable. Or perhaps to try Mecabricks for even easier sharing? But I wouldn't dare to complain if you haven't done any of it - I know very well that re-building completed models (especially those with tricky connections and compound angles) in LDD after you have finished it is not the most enjoyable task in the world :D I'm just painfully building one of my models in LDcad because several people ask me for instructions and I am pulling their patience for more than a year now and still not done with it :D

Okay, here's an LDD file. It's partially exploded but everything is there, except for the following:

4x http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=95344&name=Container, Bucket 1 x 1 x 1 Handle / Scooter Stand &category=[Container]#T=C in whatever colour is available. LDD doesn't allow the connection I used, so I put the bucket handles and buckets in the file. The buckets are just to mark where the handles should, but it's pretty straightforward anyway.

2x LBG http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=18677#T=S&C=86&O={"color":86}. The black pin with the ball, underneath the 3x12 white wedge plates, is where these pieces attach. I couldn't find them in LDD so the neighbouring pieces are floating.

4x black http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=23443#T=S&C=11&O={"color":11}. These attach to the clips on top of and below the hull.

2x black http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=15535#T=S&C=11&O={"color":"11"}. Couldn't find these in LDD either - the engine exhausts are just attached backwards instead of the right way around, these parts link the 2x2 round plates and the 1x1 bricks with stud.

2x LBG http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=983&name=Hand&category=[Minifig, Body Part]#T=S&C=86&O={"color":86}. These just go next to the trans blue cheese slope in the cockpit.

Some other small notes: all parts in blue can be any colour. The 2x1 white tile and 1x1 white tile above the cockpit are attached by stickers so they're floating in the file. 

Link to file download: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=79756654279555874432

 

[JDbricks]

Oh man, these are BEAUTIFUL! 

Great work on the paint job. I've never seen someone paint a build like that, looks wonderful, though. 

Delta 7s are one of my favorite prequel ships, I love seeing such a great representation of them here.

-JD

[Jamesx]

Thanks for the LDD, looking forward to building my own!

[atlas]

18 hours ago, JDbricks said:

Oh man, these are BEAUTIFUL! 

Great work on the paint job. I've never seen someone paint a build like that, looks wonderful, though. 

Delta 7s are one of my favorite prequel ships, I love seeing such a great representation of them here.

-JD

Thanks very much. 

13 hours ago, Jamesx said:

Thanks for the LDD, looking forward to building my own!

no problem! I look to forward to seeing it. Are you going to make it in the same colours or a different colour scheme?

[Khaled Yousef]

This is just perfect; my heart glows every time I see someone come up with new solutions for curves and angles of SW ships. I’ve been looking for MOCs of Obi-wan’s ship ever since the movie came out in 2002 because the official set wasn’t very satisfying, and yours is by far the most “complete” Jedi Starfighter I’ve seen. Allow me to steal some of those ideas for my MOC (the wedge plates around the cockpit to be precise).

Enamel colors have perfect finish, but I find them to be too thick. But your paint job is perfect since it’s thin enough not to obscure the LEGO logo on the studs. Do you use any solvent to make the color more manageable or just apply right out of the bottle?