February & March 2020
Taking advantage of the worldwide lockdown due to COVID and all of the downtime it brought me, I expanded my Rebel base in a big way. I had a section of the base earmarked for an Echo Base-inspired diorama but I could never seem to get that going beyond the planning stage. Also it was bugging me that there would be basically two different locations in my display (Hoth and Yavin). So I boxed up my snowspeeders, bacta tank and Hoth soldiers and I used the spot for a big expansion:
- Moved the Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon to this new location which let me add more vehicles in it’s place.
- Added a control booth inspired by the Disney Parks Star Tours attraction.
- Added an A-wing garage beneath the booth
- Filled in back wall of diorama with a large “bay door.”
“STAR TOURS” CONTROL BOOTH
The Star Tours attraction found in Walt Disney World and Disneyland feature a control booth in the queue. There are two Mon Calamari characters in the booth apparently directing traffic, helping with boarding etc. I’ve always loved this part of the attraction and I came up with a pretty easy way to add it to my diorama. I built a foam board three-side booth (it would go into a corner of the diorama so I felt it didn’t need to be 4-sided. Next I built a desk using styrofoam packaging. I wasn’t worried about making the desktop overly detailed because it wouldn’t be seen once installed. After cutting out the window I framed the edges with balsa wood strips to give it a smoother look. I wanted the booth to be bright inside so I used battery-operated LED light strings inside the desk. I cut a few holes in the desktop and covered them with the plastic ends from HDMI cables. I added a few greeblies on the back wall and used another set of lights to light them. Next I hot glued a Power of the Force 2 Admiral Ackbar in place and then removed the lower half of another figure which I glued onto a “seat.” The figures don’t have knee articulation so the only way to simulate the character sitting was to remove its legs. I added an astromech droid and then glued the entire box to the underside of the main section of the diorama. The power switches for all the lighting sit on a section of foam board behind the control room for easy access.
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A-wing Fighter Garage
This was a really fun one to do since it was mainly adding greeblies and lights and not much else. I wanted a garage or repair bay for an A-wing Fighter since it’s the smallest of the Rebel Alliance starships and I wanted to be able to park it inside a garage. I had an IKEA dishes riser (similar but not exactly like this one) that I used for the shape and outline of the garage. The “ceiling” is a metal, mesh material that would let light shine through. I built partial walls on two sides of the riser to close things in (using Project Bricks again. Seriously, I should get them to sponsor me!) . I left two sides open so I could add other elements like a work bench, computer terminal etc.
CLICK an image for full-size slideshow.
I repurposed a Star Trek bridge accessory, given to my by Chris Leddy.
“BAY DOORS” & BACK WALL
I wanted the back of the diorama to be complete so it needed a brick wall. Since the area is huge I didn’t want to spend a small fortune on the foam bricks so I built a “bay door” into the back which would save alot on what would normally be a solid wall. I found an image in the Art of Rogue One book of an exterior look at the surrounding temples of the Rebel base on Yavin and had it printed at Costco. I mounted the print to foam board and glued it behind the “wall.”
-Just don’t ask how the Falcon fit through there. It’s movie magic.
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