Scratchbuilt Imperial Speeder (Original Design)

My wife and I have an amazing new baby boy. He's healthy, knows how to scream and smile (the latter making the former much easier to cope with), and has totally transformed us.

Well...not totally.

I've been picking away at this project for the past two and a half months, usually in twenty to forty minute intervals once or twice a week. Then, my lady and her sister took little man on a tour, which gave me the better part of a day (after some housework) to really go nuts and finish it up. I haven't come up with a snappy name, but it's armoured, it's Imperial, and it's for battle, and it's a speeder. I initially thought Imperial Battle Speeder, but the acronym would be IBS, and that may make some people think of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I'm still working on it.

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I really had no set plan or sketches...in fact, I ended up combining two failed concepts into one, literally gluing one abandoned scratchbuild to another, working out the kinks, and playing around with it until it looked like something decent.

Top View:


Everything is scratchbuilt except the usual plumber fittings for the engines. I wanted something that was both streamlined and boxy, evoking the landspeeder while also being vaguely reminiscent of an AT-AT...and I wanted it to be small, because I knew I didn't really have the luxury of time to really fill out a larger scale vehicle with adequate detailing.




I imagine this machine being used for short range 'urban pacification', deployed from a garrison in the middle of a city to crush opposition...almost like a compact car version of a larger troop transport.




The c0ckpit is where I really dropped the ball. I just didn't have it in me to really go all out like I have in the past. It's too bad, because I really liked the basic layout and design...it actually feels more like an old Kenner toy than my previous projects. But really, if I had another few hours back, I'd probably greeblify the hell out of the panels.




The blaster cannon is what I'm really proud of. It swivels 360 degrees, and has an up and down joint, so that it is as poseable as a real turret mounted machine gun. It was made from the usual styrene rod, tube, and card.




[size="3"]The bottom got some half-hearted detailing...not nearly as much as the Saber Dart, again because of the amount of time (the detailing on the Saber Dart took as long as this whole project from beginning to end). I wanted to make this thing look like it was hovering, so I created a couple of small platforms, and tried my best to position them so that they wouldn't be visible from as many angles. I think the effect works pretty well.



With the Saber Dart:


Joy-ridin':


Let me know what you think, and thanks for looking.