[MOC] KdaptPreacher's 1:1455 Fleet --- 208 ships and counting (New: Onyx Cinder)

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#140, the Hapes Nova-class battle cruiser! Another favorite from the old EU, that looks even more like a Star Trek ship than the last ones did. I suspect that whoever designed this ship had spent a lot of time looking at TNG's Klingon birds-of-prey. Unlike the bird-of-prey, though, the Nova-class has a bunch of nice curves in the back half of the ship that definitely weren't designed with LEGO in mind, so capturing the shape of it was quite a fun engineering challenge. The major constraint was that the ion cannons on the leading edge of the wings have to point forwards, which limited my options for that surface. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and figuring out how to get this together makes me more confident about approaching other curvy ships in the future (Mon Cala ships, for example). And yes, I know that there's exactly one Hapan ship that anybody cares about and this one isn't it; I'm working on the Battle Dragon, but it still has some serious structural problems at the moment.

More photos in the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

[Geihlen]

I can remember obsessing over the Hapes in the old Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels. You've done a stellar job recreating its shape here.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

4 hours ago, Geihlen said:

I can remember obsessing over the Hapes in the old Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels. You've done a stellar job recreating its shape here.

Thank you!

 

 

 

#141, Rogue Shadow! Still an EU ship, but one that I suspect more people will be familiar with, from the official set even if not from the game itself at this point (given that it's been, like, 14 years since TFU came out). This is a surprisingly large ship. The deceptively sleek lines make it look more like a fighter, but it's really a gunship or even light corvette; the length is effectively the same as the Gozanti-class, but Rogue Shadow is much wider and masses probably twice as much. This is a bit of an awkward ship to build in LEGO because it really ought to be dark grey and blue, but they're darker shades than LEGO makes. The closest LEGO color is black, like they used in the official set, which turns out looking fine (IMO) but isn't quite right. I'm open to opinions as to whether adding some grey or blue accents would make for a better representation. Also, I recognize that that 2x2 wedge plate isn't a very literal representation of the split wings on the right side of the ship, but I haven't come up with anything else that I feel conveys the impression of the ship as well as that does; every piece I've thought of that's more literally accurate to the shape is too large and adds a lot of visual weight to that side that the ship itself doesn't have. I'd be glad to hear thoughts about that as well if anybody has a better idea.

The next couple of ships I intend to make (/am already working on) are somewhat larger, so it may be a while before I finish anything else.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

Not a new ship this time, but I've completely redone the instruction manual for my Nebulon-B. This was the first model I ever made instructions for and I didn't really understand how Stud.io's camera rotation worked, so they were pretty rough.

[Kage Goomba]

Nice ship! Very nice technique.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

WIP on the Cantwell-class arrestor cruiser from Solo. Still a ways to go on the rest of the ship, but the front end is the hardest part, since this flange thing has to taper in both dimensions over a distance that doesn't correspond to any existing wedge pieces, so I wanted to make sure that was going to stay together before I built everything else around it. This is going to be the longest model I've made so far, although it won't have as many pieces as the Class 4 container transport. I'll be able to finally drop the "although this is not a 'UCS model' per se, it is UCS scale" verbiage--this is definitely a UCS model.

I don't know whether you guys are interested in WIP posts or not. Most of the models I've build so far have been small enough that they didn't really make sense, but I have grander ambitions too. Thoughts? Appreciated, or just spam?

[Gremer2]

I love these minis and I would love to see the Can'twell WIP pics

[Kage Goomba]

1 hour ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

WIP on the Cantwell-class arrestor cruiser from Solo. Still a ways to go on the rest of the ship, but the front end is the hardest part, since this flange thing has to taper in both dimensions over a distance that doesn't correspond to any existing wedge pieces, so I wanted to make sure that was going to stay together before I built everything else around it. This is going to be the longest model I've made so far, although it won't have as many pieces as the Class 4 container transport. I'll be able to finally drop the "although this is not a 'UCS model' per se, it is UCS scale" verbiage--this is definitely a UCS model.

I don't know whether you guys are interested in WIP posts or not. Most of the models I've build so far have been small enough that they didn't really make sense, but I have grander ambitions too. Thoughts? Appreciated, or just spam?

You seriously need to ask with all the WIP crap I've thrown at you with my project (Corellian Transport Project)?

YES!

<also had to look this ship up - very interesting - don't remember this specific ship as I thought it was an ISD at the time - look forward to your work!>

[Kdapt-Preacher]

The Cantwell's proportions are completely wrong. I worked out all the math ahead of time, but now that I've actually built it it doesn't match the original ship at all. I must've screwed up my scale somewhere, but IDK where. So, back to the drawing board on that one. It'll be a huge pain if that anterior flange has to get significantly smaller, since there won't be any room for the greeblies, but we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime I made some more small ships. I'm going to publish these in two sets, one pack of Rebel transports and one of Mara Jade's ships. I'm happy with the Jade Sabre and Jade's Fire (although admittedly the reference images for those ships are pretty bad, so the coloration is mostly a guess), so I just need to get Jade Shadow together to round out that group. For the Rebel transports, I think the Taylander shuttle, the short hauler, and the Ghtroc from earlier in this thread are fine, but I'm not very pleased with the Moldy Crow--it's more like the Chonky Crow at the moment, and I'm not sure there's any way to improve the proportions much at this scale. It may just be too small to represent satisfactorily, honestly, in which case I'll replace with with a Wayfarer-class or some other midsized Rebel freighter. The Wayfarer-class is pretty obscure, so I'm open to suggestions if there's a more notable one in that size range that I've missed.

[Kage Goomba]

I feel you...I really do...on the Cantwell thing.

And you know why. LOL

Good work either way.

Saddly there's not much info out there on the Cantwell - so your in for a fun one.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#142-144, Mara Jade's starships! Including Jade's Fire, Jade Sabre, and Jade Shadow. She used a lot of other ships at various times as well, but as far as I can tell these are the only ones that've ever been illustrated. The first two of these are somewhat obscure (Jade Sabre only lasted about 1.5 books), but Jade Shadow made it into the New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels and should be more widely recognizable.

I do wish that I could close the half-plate gap at the front of Sabre and Shadow (and Silver Angel as well, which is built in the same way), but I haven't come up with a better way to do it given that I need to have a stud facing upwards in there. It's easy to attach two plates back-to-back with brackets, but then there's no clear way to flip that vertically in a ship that's 4 studs long and less than 2 studs wide. I also considered the simplest solution, to make one of those 1x2 curved slopes an inverted one slope and have the whole ship be asymmetrical with antistuds on one side, but that looks terrible, so for the moment the gap is the lesser evil.

[Jollygrnreefer]

I am ready for the imperial ships, keep up the good work.

[jimmynick]

On 11/16/2021 at 4:11 AM, Kdapt-Preacher said:

#141, Rogue Shadow! Still an EU ship, but one that I suspect more people will be familiar with, from the official set even if not from the game itself at this point

It's so... concise! I've played only a bit of the game but I remember the set when it first came out, and this mini is just perfect.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#145-148, small Rebel ships! The Taylander, Ghtroc, and GX1 short hauler are the same ones that I showed earlier, but I ended up dropping the Moldy Crow design; it was a nice idea, but I think that's just too small to look good at this scale with the parts currently available. The nose section needs to be, like, a fifth of a stud wide, and making it a brick loses the entire shape of the ship. So instead, I'm once again bowing to the overwhelming public demand and releasing the Barloz-class medium freighter! I'd like to do the GX1 in Republic diplomatic colors as well, but unfortunately absolutely none of those pieces are available in dark red, so that'll have to wait for that selection to expand a bit.

Next up, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Imperial ships. I'm (still) not satisfied with the Cantwell, but I've got a couple more small Imperial things finished that I'll post tomorrow if I get all the renders done.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Kdapt-Preacher

[Kage Goomba]

Excellent work as always. :)

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#149-152, small Imperial ships! The Guardian-class light cruiser, Theta-class AT-AT barge, VT-49 Decimator, and the Imperial cargo shuttle from Visions. And now I'll get back to finishing the Cantwell.

[MAVERICK26]

Wow! Great job!

[Kdapt-Preacher]

#153, the Wayfarer-class medium transport! Alright, fine, it's still not the Cantwell. Someone on Rebrickable requested this (much to my surprise, for such an obscure ship), and I already had a design in mind since I'd been thinking about it for the small Rebel ships pack, so it made sense to go ahead and finish it. I'm happy with this ship overall, although the proportions turned out to be a little awkward--the cockpit really needs to be 1.5 studs wide, and I haven't come up with a piece or combination of pieces that make a convincing 1.5-stud semicircle like that, so I've included a render of one with a two-stud-wide cockpit as well for anyone who prefers that it be wrong in the other direction.

[Kage Goomba]

You just cant[very]well handle the delay can you?

(dodges buckets of lego bricks being tossed at head) I KID I KID!

I still look forward to it either way. :)

Also - nice design.

*I'm one to tease considering the monster project I'm working on ha ha ha*

[MAVERICK26]

Everything looks great! Is the Windfall from Vader Immortal on the docket?

[Kdapt-Preacher]

1 hour ago, MAVERICK26 said:

Everything looks great! Is the Windfall from Vader Immortal on the docket?

Ooh, good suggestion. I found that Vader Immortal made me really sick after about 20 minutes of play, so I'm not very familiar with most of the content from it, but I remember the Windfall. They haven't published the official length yet, but I've got the 3D model ripped out of the game, and it looks like it's about 29 meters long, which should be enough room to work with.

[Kdapt-Preacher]

I may continue to tinker with these, but I think this is the basic idea for the Windfall. I'll have to come up with a couple more small ships to go with it. Vader Immortal brought the ISD-based Interdictor-class back into canon, and I've been thinking about what that would look like as well, but that'll have to be another project...

[MAVERICK26]

20 hours ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

I may continue to tinker with these, but I think this is the basic idea for the Windfall. I'll have to come up with a couple more small ships to go with it. Vader Immortal brought the ISD-based Interdictor-class back into canon, and I've been thinking about what that would look like as well, but that'll have to be another project...

These look great! You could do the Admiral's Specialized TIE Fighter and a lava skiff.

Edited January 3, 2022 by MAVERICK26

[Kdapt-Preacher]

21 hours ago, MAVERICK26 said:

These look great! You could do the Admiral's Specialized TIE Fighter and a lava skiff.

If we're looking at the same lava skiff, isn't it, like, two meters square? I think it would need to be something less than a fifth of a stud wide at this scale, so I don't know that I can do much with it. I'll see if I can figure out how big the Victor-wing fighter is supposed to be. If that's more gunship-sized it might work.

[MAVERICK26]

1 hour ago, Kdapt-Preacher said:

If we're looking at the same lava skiff, isn't it, like, two meters square? I think it would need to be something less than a fifth of a stud wide at this scale, so I don't know that I can do much with it. I'll see if I can figure out how big the Victor-wing fighter is supposed to be. If that's more gunship-sized it might work.

The Victor - wing isn't the one I'm talking about. It's the Specialized LN in Ep3.