Ideas are dangerous. You picture something in your mind, you start thinking it's actually really cool, and boom! You find yourself scratch-building a spaceship. So here I am.

Where do I start? I start, of course, with...

THE PLAN™!



The Jaunty Handmaiden is supposed to be a bounty hunter vessel supporting a crew of two to four (depending on how you feel about working in shifts and sharing bunks). The plan only exists for the interior of the fuselage. The hull, landing gear and wings exist as an idea that builds on the core of the model which I have yet to build, so there's no point in detailing any of that until I have the actual physical dimensions to work with.

In terms of purpose, other than looking pretty when it's done, I want the ship to be a terrain piece with a removable roof (and all the interior decor that implies) and a ramp in the back that can be opened and closed. There's going to be an airlock in the side and I have yet to make up my mind if I want the door glued shut or able to slide open. The former is obviously going to be a lot easier.

Like any good plan, this one did not survive contact with the enemy. By the time the starboard side had its details filled in, the port side was no longer up to date. I relocated the bathroom to consolidate plumbing on one side of the ship and make room for an airlock on the other side, the exact shape and position of which is not yet nailed down and may shift up from where it's drawn by a centimeter. Similarly, bathroom and kitchen are a block that gets fitted together on the actual model rather than on paper. Those dotted line are more like guidelines. I also only have a rudimentary cockpit so far. The empty space in the top left will almost certainly contain room for an astromech and the exact shape and size of the consoles will be determined when I have models for the seats. In fact the exact shape of the cockpit isn't set in stone yet. I'm thinking perpendicular on the sides and a little sloped on the front. Maybe a mix of both for the front.

That's the plan. On to humble beginnings:



Going with the idea of building from the core outward, the forward wall and adjacent bunk are the central element around which everything is built. The starboard bunk is glued in place and gives me a solid base to work off of. The port bunk is going to stay loose for a while since I won't be able to paint the upper parts of it and its counterpart once assembled. I have to figure out how best to go about that. But to build on that solid start, there's going to be the bulkhead to the cockpit that allows me to construct and properly align the port bunk.

Towards the back the bathroom and kitchen assembly comes next. After that I can figure out where to place a small hatch in the starboard wall, fit that wall in and later move on to the cargo hold. That's the next steps laid out for now. I'll see how I progress from there when more of the ship is assembled.

Fun times ahead.

Progress:



I've added the bulkhead and door to the cockpit. The door is glued in place and thus just two narrow strips of plasticard. I want all areas of the ship accessible, so there is no point in allowing the cockpit and inner airlock doors to close. The bathroom door will get the same treatment, even though the bathroom will be too narrow to fit a base inside. But consistency and all that.

Next up is a mock up from the cockpit side with port bunk section in place:



Seeing the door like that, I should grab a model for scale next time I take pictures. I forgot about that. For now I'll just say ceiling height was chosen to fit a Wookiee in without him hitting his head (as a real life design consideration, if you know what I mean), but because Legion uses very tall bases I can't guarantee that it's still true of an actual Wookiee model once I've fitted the floor in. Next tallest model I have is a Death Trooper, and she should fit in just fine even with the base.

Finally a view from the other side:



Also just mocked up, on the right there's the armature for the toilet. That's going to be the width of the bathroom. The armature got some sculpting done after I took the picture and won't take much more to finish. As per the plan the bathroom door will face the camera and between it and the toilet will be a small sink, on the left side installed against the wall.

The next step is to figure out what that wall should look liked. The other side of the wall will have the kitchen. I'm thinking there will be a fridge, oven, dishwasher and sink with a cupboard suspended above it. Mostly that means I can the whole thing out of strips of plasticard and won't have to worry about complex shapes aside from door handles and the sink.

Technically a trashcan or inbuilt container for garbage disposal makes sense in or near the kitchen, but I'll have to see what I can fit into the space I have first.

Looks good so far. I have been tempted by some printable large scale ships for gaming through, but I don’t really have the storage space for them. Looking forward to seeing the details emerge.

Thank you. Yeah, I don't exactly have room to spare for this thing either, but, umm, I'm going to worry about that when the time comes.

I made a bit of progress:



First up, I didn't forget to bring the volunteers this time so that should provide a sense of scale. The officer and the Death Trooper should pretty much represent the short and tall ends of the human Legion models. The ship is obviously built to look correct with the bases out of the picture, so everything will look a little low when you place models in there, but like I said unfortunately Legion has very tall bases and that just can't be helped. The height of the walls still lets the models fit comfortably inside the ship, so at least that won't look awkward.

I've added the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen as well as the bathroom door. On the kitchen side, I still have to do all groundwork. The bathroom is further along:



Like I said, it's far too small for a base so it's entirely decorative and for immersion. The toilet is complete and fitted in. The base for the sink is only for show at the moment. I'll probably sculpt the sink straight into its niche, but I have to install the floor tiles first before the little cupboard under the sink gets glued in. I'll also need to sculpt a handle each on the raised parts to make them look like doors.

There'll be a bar and a towel or two to round it off, but I think that's all that's going into the bathroom. Okay, probably a mirror, too. I have yet to make up my mind about what I'm going to do with the walls, so some wall decoration or screws/rivets or something like that will likely also be added. As with parts of the beds, I'm going to have to put paint under the sink before I add the outer wall and bar access for the brush. I'll see how far I get before I absolutely have to put paint on the model to complete the assembly. Ideally I'll only have one in between painting session to keep things flowing smoothly.

Well that's some detail, this'll be quite the project!

Indeed. I tried not to think about it so as not to drain my motivation before I even started, but I couldn't help myself yesterday and I estimate this project will keep me busy until August, provided there are no real life events or engineering problems getting in the way.

Fun fact, I could keep the door to the cargo compartment closed, but where's the fun in that? So now I have to scratch-build two speederbikes that are supposed to be in there. Huzzah for ambition!

Kitchen and bathroom progress:



Fridge and freezer door on the right are in their final shape. They'll get sculpted hinges and I'm going to be sci-fi about it and give them buttons to open the doors automatically. I think it'll be cool to have a mix of automated and manual controls for the various doors in the ship. Most storage compartments will be simple affairs with doors that are opened manually.

I gave the counter a bit of curvature to make it more interesting. The ship is generally built around flat panels and right angles, so that's a great way to get a bit of variety in there. Should go well with the aforementioned doors and will likely be mirrored in the design of the table across from the kitchen.

While I was at it I started adding detail to the bed in the form of a blanket.

The bathroom:



It's the first room to have a floor. The simple panel design won't be mirrored in the main compartment or cockpit, but I may reuse it in the airlock. That remains to be determined.

Everything in the picture is now glued in place and ready for the sink. There isn't a whole lot left to do in the bathroom, so I'm confident that I can wrap it up in a few days. How long exactly depends on how many stages I need to sculpt the sink. Framework, cleanup, faucet if all goes well. Towels on the bar I can do alongside that. The mirror above the sink probably has to wait until afterwards.

Things are happening:



While the focus is on getting the bathroom done the other side got some attention and spare green stuff as well. The fridge and freezer are in a good place and the sink is coming along as well. I've been able to add the storage compartments above the beds complete with handles, and due to using up the rest of a pack of green stuff I mixed so much that I had plenty to sculpt the pillows on the side. While that's nice progress, I haven't really gotten much structural work done so overall the assembly mostly still looks like last time.

The bathroom on the other hand got the bulk of my attention:



It's not as easy to get my sculpting tool into all the corners as I'd like, so it's taking a bit longer than I had hoped, but much of the bathroom is done. The towel on the right needs some more work and the door controls, which I almost forgot about, need a few buttons and a lever. After that I can fit in the mirror and that should conclude work on the bathroom.

In terms of structural extensions I've worked out the plan for the starboard wall and can now start cutting plasticard for the cargo compartment. Due to the old problem of getting everywhere with a brush I don't think I can glue anything to the floor yet. I'm not exactly looking forward to that. It's probably going to be a pretty fiddly affair to put the compartment pieces together without the support of the floor.

Nice work so far, it's an ambitious project. Do you have a particular thickness of plasticard that you find best to work with?

Cool project. Looks great so far.

Thanks. So, not sure if the following is super scientific or anything, but here goes. I mostly work with 1mm and 1.5mm plasticard. In this instance, the floor is 1.5mm and everything else is 1mm.

I found in the past that 1.5mm thickness provides a nice compromise between sturdiness and flexibility. I went with that for the floor to make sure that I have a good foundation to build on. It's still quite flexible, which helps with cutting, but it does not easily give in to gravity.

I find 1mm a bit easier to cut and work with. In addition, it's the kind of thickness that looks right for some surface detail like doors. It's probably too thick for realistic scaling, but once painted and at that scale I think it does the job nicely. More importantly, it's fairly flexible, so it's easier to bend a little if the angles don't otherwise work out just right. Which, I'm afraid, is quite necessary for me since owed to physical limitations I can't work very precisely. There is a downside in that offers less surface area to glue, so it's not as sturdy. It's still plastic welded with plastic cement, but it can come off if subjected to too much force, which can happen when the green stuff has started to cure after an hour and requires more force to shape.

I do like that 1mm thickness makes math and measuring easier. If a wall takes up 1mm, it's easier to measure, say, 3.9cm instead of having to find 3.85mm on the ruler. The downside is that it's a bit bendier than 1.5mm, so keeping everything straight is harder..

The bathroom floor is, I believe, 0.5mm thick. I don't exactly know since it's from a sheet from a grab bag kind of deal with plasticard sheets of varying thickness. Should be that thickness, but who knows. That's really just useful for surface ornamentation as it's too thin and bendy to be used for anything else. It should align nicely with a sheet of patterned plasticard that I intend to use for the floor, though. I want to combine patterned and plain plasticard to add some interest to the floor surface.

I don't have thicker plasticard than 1.5mm, and I think in this case it would be unnecessary as well. The idea I have is to have an inner and outer hull with sprue pieces as spacers that provide structure and add to the sturdiness of the construction. It should also provide me with additional space to fit a few things in, like recesses for the landing gear, hatches, and magnets. Not sure I mentioned it before, but since I want to be able to take the rood of, the idea is to fasten in in place with magnets.

Looking really good, I admire the attention to detail in adding bathrooms and kitchens!

Thank you.

Today we have a structural extension to the rear:



I had only a little bit of hobby time and that went towards the side and back wall as well as the cargo compartment.

The round hole will be an access shaft that leads through the wing to a gun turret.

Beside it is the cargo compartment. There's a case in the back that will be part of a roller door. Which is going to be a lot of work to construct and I already hate myself for it. But never mind that. The compartment should allow for a reasonable amount of stowage. This is where I want to put the two speederbikes I talked about. The rest of the space will likely be filled with a few spare crates I have laying around.

I cut out part of the back wall where the back ramp goes. Aside from a door panel that's about as much work as I expect the ramp to get until the interior is complete and I move on to the outer hull. I'm currently planning a slanted extension to the back and a wedge shaped ramp with a simple peg and hole system at the bottom to allow it to open, and a magnet or two at the top to keep in it place while shut.

The extension is two. loose sections for now so I can reach everything. Once the roller door and rails are ready to be fitted in, I'll glue the whole thing together. I'll still keep the whole piece separate from the floor until the bathroom is sufficiently painted and the wing access has all its (yet to be determined) detailing done.

Unexpected substantial progress!



Well, not that. It's a good shot of the sculpting I did to add buttons along with some interest to the bed. While I was technically trying to get the bathroom done it occurred to me that if the cargo compartment makes good progress, lack of progress on this side of the forward starboard assembly is actually going to stop me from starting work on the bench and table across the room. So I figured I'd put the work in to get the kitchen side ready so as not to hold up construction. Because...

As it turns out...



Construction of the cargo compartment didn't keep me busy for very long. Above, a look at the components before assembly.

Below, the assembled compartment:



So, that sucked. It's one of those things that sound like a good until I realize I'm the one who has to do the work. Somehow this keeps happening to me...

But in spite of the dodgy work on the door panels that will get serious cleanup with green stuff and need for precision engineering to make sure the rails are exactly 1mm apart along their entire length so as to fit the door, construction was actually pretty straightforward. Drained four hours to get there, sure, but it's finished and out of the way now. Huzzah!

Which makes this the perfect time for an atmospheric shot:



Of course the back starboard assembly is still not glued in place, but if you ignore the resulting gaps I think it's coming together nicely. I figured I'd put the crates in there for the photo to give an impression of what the compartment can hold.

I wanted the door open and could have raised it further instead of keeping it half open like that. The case in the back is large enough to accommodate the full length of the door, that is of course with the length of the ceiling figured in. But since the door frame is the same 4.5cm tall as all the other doors I figured it would look more interesting for the opening to be lower. Since the compartment is going to be filled with cargo there is no need to worry about whether the door gets in the way of placing a model inside. There's no room for that anyway. It also adds a differently textured area to the walls, which will also help variety.

I get to be cheeky and call something finished:



It's just two tiny sections but the sculpting on the beds is completed. Everything I want to be there is there.

Below the starboard bed I messed up the drawer a little and I have to bulk up the left side a bit to bring it in line with the right side. Not sure what to do with the corners yet. I'll figure that out when I get there.

After the counter and sink, and most importantly the buttons above the sink were done, I was finally able to add the cupboard above and the appliances below. The doors are done while the appliances still need dials and buttons. I'll also add a vent to the oven.

Which means this part of the ship is in a really good place now. On the other side of the wall:



Barring minor touch ups on the towels if I happen to spot any more rough areas, the fancy bits in the bathroom are done. That leaves little on the to do list.

Same thing with the buttons above the sink as in the kitchen, now that they're done I can add the mirror above the sink without getting in the way of my sculpting.

Also the floor looks a bit rough and I'll put some green stuff on the panel edges for a smoother appearance.

With all of that done I can start planning the sitting corner and start work there soon.

What a great project !! Such detail work, too !!
I can't wait to see how it develops over the next few months. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you.

I started work on the airlock:



This update is a little late compared to earlier ones because it took a while drawing up a plan for the airlock, figuring out how I wanted the wall assembly to go together and then cutting out all those not quite identical panels that differ from each other by one or two millimeters. After that, lots of work deciding how to do the doors.

The interior door isn't a big deal as its constructed as any previous door. I just had to be sure how large I want the sitting corner to be, and by extension how wide I want the door to be.

The exterior door will be a bit more trouble and I'm saving it for later. Mostly because I have what I need to start work on the sitting corner, as well as the cells which will add the final wall piece and close the hold assembly off. Most of it is still removable for ease of access, of course. But back to the door, I made sure that the airlock is large enough to fit models (and more importantly their bases) inside, and since I want the back ramp to open it stands to reason that I'd allow the other access point to the ship to open and close as well. The problem here is that I don't expect a sliding door to work well. Paint and varnish will add uncertain thickness and stick to the bulkhead if left for a while. If I space the bulkhead panels too far apart I'll end up with a wobbly, slanted door which won't look good.

So I figure the way I want to go about it is to assembled the bulkhead with a fixed door similar to the interior airlock door, but put two magnets in the protruding parts of the door. Then I'll make a separate door, also with two magnets, that fits inside the door frame. That way I can pop it out if I need an open door and snap it back in if I want it shut again, without hassle of fiddly bits. When it's closed you won't see the retracted door bit from the outside and when it's open the door will look much like the other doors in the ship. I figure this is a decent solution.

I'm going to take my time working out the final details and see if actually works as I want it to. A thought on the exterior is that the door will have some elevation, so I'll probably build a "retractable" gangway underneath for easy access. Functionality yet to be determined.

Side note, this is the first extension to the base plate and into the outer hull. Hurray!

As for the kitchen:



Everything that needs to be there is there now.

You can see that I've been looking into filling the connection lines between panels with green stuff. That just needs to happen for a smoother appearance once the parts are painted, and I consider that "final" polishing. There's a chance I'll add further details like vents or pipes or such things. I'll have to make up my mind how I want to paint the interior and decide if I want to break up larger areas. Until I have a better idea of that, work on that part of the ship is considered done.

This is a cool start to your space ship, and quite detailed. I don't play Star Wars Legion, nor do I have any model space ships, but I am still enjoying your progress.

Thanks.

I added the sitting corner framework:



Pretty simple bench with backrest, but in the spirit of 70s design I added a few rounded elements even if the basic shape is rectangular.

In addition to that before picture, here's kind of an after one:



Still WIP obviously, but it already looks more comfortable to sit on.

You can also see the base sculpt for the door panel without the buttons and lever just above the bench. Not sure if I already have one in previous pictures.

Work on the bench isn't going to take much longer. After that I need to tackle the table. For that, however, I first have to install the floor. For the floor, I first need to add the cells so that the entire interior structure is accounted for. That's going to be the next major addition.

As for the bathroom:



With the addition of the mirror and medicine cabinet the bathroom is now finished. Maybe I'll still tweak a bit or two, but we're not talking anything major here.

The one thing about this part of the ship that still needs looking into is the door frame. You can see it in a number of pictures, but the thin side suffered a good bit of warping. That's just an unfortunate side effect of using 1mm plasticard coupled with no real experience working with the material on my part, at the time. My first thought here is to install a thin strip of plasticard in the middle that aligns with the wall to give me a plastic surface to still join the parts with plastic cement, and fill the sides with green stuff. I'll have to do a bit of dry-fitting to see how it all goes together and give it some thought before I proceed.

Looks like you're making good progress, Geifer.

Yeah, I'm glad it's going so smoothly. This isn't really the kind of project I stick with for an extended period. Historically speaking, anyway. I've got a good feeling about this one.

Work on the guest quarters has commenced:



Now that I think about it I should have probably put a model in that shot to give an impression how cozy they are. Anyway, being what they are, the cells' interiors are pretty much there already. There's a bench and/or bunk and a retractable potty. It's missing the floor that can be inserted once the wall with the doors is in place. That's going to be a bit of a bottleneck because the entire floor construction requires that piece.

I'm not decided on what to do with the top of the walls in general. The ship obviously needs ventilation, but I don't know if I want vents in the walls or in the ceiling. So depending on how I decide, that may get added to the cells as well.

The aforementioned doors will take a bit of work, I think. From the outside they'll be heavy, hinged doors in a similar vein to the fridge door, but since you'll be able to see the inside when the ship is finished and I want them to extend into the door frame, I need texture on that side of the wall. I'll probably carve out the shape as best as I can and fix mishaps with green stuff. I'd prefer for this wall piece to retain its integrity as much as possible to make the construction on that side of the ship sturdier, so I'll consider fully cutting out the door frame only a last resort.

Moving on from the cells, a note on upholstery. The sitting corner bench is now finished. When I added the remaining backrest I found that I wasn't happy with what I'd already sculpted the other day, owed to having too little green stuff left at the time. It looked too flat and worn out and not very comfy at all, so I bulked it out some more while I was at it.

I'm going to ask the obvious question, Geifer - where would the "facilities" in the cells retract into?

The idea is that it's a box under the bench that slides out at the push of a button, and that can be returned back under the bench with another push to get back what little space is available in the cell. I'm thinking of reinforcing the idea with a dual floor design: patterned for most of the floor, and smooth in the back where the box moves across the floor. Possibly paint it with some light marks on the floor as well.

If you ever wanted to see inaction in action, you've come to the right place!

Just kidding, but I certainly wasn't when I said that the cell door panel I'm working on is a bottleneck that's holding up pretty much everything else. On the bright side, I happened to find myself short on time this week. That would have slowed me down if I made as much progress as I'd like, but didn't actually have an effect for the aforementioned reason. Yay!

On to the pretty picture:



Two things before I get back to spaceship construction. First, I didn't forget the size comparison model again, so the coziness of the cells is now adequately documented. Second, I barely know which way around to hold the camera, but it seems that I accidentally had good light and the officer in the picture doesn't look washed out like she usually does and actually shows the work I put into her. That's a nice bonus.

Right then, let's start with the obvious part. I reconsidered how I want the door frame and that side of the door to look. It occurred to me that since I have hinged doors that I want closed, there is no point in worrying about how the panel's sturdiness decreases because of the holes. Additionally, I figured it would be neat not to go too low tech here. Star Wars cells are oftentimes locked up with force fields. Cutout allows me to put emitters in the door frames. Two per side, four per door.

The outside is just the framework for the doors so far. I may not have done the best job cutting the plasticard to the right shape, even considering my generally limited ability to cut straight and even more limited ability to cut curves. So that's going to get a liberal green stuff fix, the start of which you can see already. Then the door standards, that is to say buttons, a manual lever and hinges, and that should be it.

The whole thing is just dry-fitted for now and in case of one of the composite pictures held up by the officer. I really need to get the bottom half of the doors sculpted or else I won't be able to reach everything properly. I may or may not extend that approach to the top half. We'll see how that goes.

 Geifer wrote:
The idea is that it's a box under the bench that slides out at the push of a button, and that can be returned back under the bench with another push to get back what little space is available in the cell. I'm thinking of reinforcing the idea with a dual floor design: patterned for most of the floor, and smooth in the back where the box moves across the floor. Possibly paint it with some light marks on the floor as well.

Under the bench/bed makes more sense - I was trying to figure out how they retracted into the wall, given they backed into each other!

It took a while but I've left the bottleneck behind:



The wall is installed now. I opted for something a little fancier for the door controls since they're supposed to look secure, and there is need for at least one force field control button. That happens to double as a test run for the back ramp and external airlock door controls, which I also intend to give a little more attention than the rather simple interior door controls. Not that there's anything wrong with simple, but I like to think you want to play it safe with the doors that keep bad space weather out.

As for the aforementioned force field, here's a view of the field projectors:



Simple and smooth, I wanted something that fits inside the door frame without getting in the way of walking through. So I kept it simple. I'm likely going to paint the little indentations, aka the projectors, red to draw attention to them. I expect the cells will be painted more pragmatic and colorless, so the projectors along with the toilet box buttons will likely be the only colorful spots.

So, it took a while to get here, but I have not been idle. I'd like more tangible progress of course, but I used the time to start planning out the cockpit. Which made me realize how helpful it would be if I was an elder god, because boy is there going to be some weird geometry and exotic angles between the windows and exterior decor. And indeed, the interior is in such a good place now that I'm starting to work out the first exterior details in earnest now. There are still lots of little bits to be done, but before long I won't be able to push back the exterior any longer.

Now that the cell wall is installed I can look into installing the floor. As I said a few updates ago, that's the gateway to continuing the sitting corner and the next logical step. That will lead straight into the cockpit as I want the simple chairs of the sitting corner before I consider how I want to go about the fancy pilot seats.

Awesome progress is awesome! Looking forward to seeing the cargo doors. Love a bit of well realised industrialised shenanegans.

Oof. Well realized, too? No pressure!

The ramp in the back is going to take a while to get to, though. I need the enter framework there for it to work and move, and that includes the exterior hull. For that I need to construct the cockpit, as that's going to have the most exotic shape and also determines how the ship is going to look in the end. Also I need the landing gear to construct the ramp. Plenty left to do. Heh.

The floor has been installed:



Moving on from the scenic shot to a top down view to see the layout:



Everything now has a floor except for the cockpit, which I have yet to work on, and the airlock whose base construction is still in two parts. I'm going to have to see when best to fit in the floor. At the very least it needs a reasonably finished outer bulkhead construction before I can really start thinking about that.

As mentioned before the next step is the table and accompanying chairs. I should get a few extra bits sculpted alongside that, like clean up the rolling door, get the back ramp some door controls, wrap up the interior of the airlock's inner bulkhead. Little things here and there that have been pushed back to work on bigger, more pressing stuff. Now that the interior of the ship is such an advanced state, it's time to take care of that. After that the big thing that remains is the wing access hatch in the starboard wall.

The top down view shows pretty well some of the warped parts. It's one of the things that with my previously limited exposure to plasticard I just didn't have a clue about. I'm relaxed about it and it certainly doesn't bother me enough to rip half of the ship apart to fix it. I could do better, more precise work now than I could a month and a half ago but as unfortunate as it is, that's just part of the learning process, being able to do a far better job after you're done than before. I don't let that bother me these days.

The thing that does need fixing in this regard is the starboard wall that comes up a millimeter or so short. That problem is probably best solved with an appropriately sized strip of plasticard. I mentioned earlier that the toilet door frame suffers a bit of bad construction as well and needs a fix. Both of these things are easier to do now that the floor is installed as the cargo compartment now has something to slot into and doesn't slip or move around so easily anymore. That should give me a solid base to work on. And thinking about it, I might add a bit of extra detailing to that corner of the toilet to hide the slip up and make it look a little more elegant.

Wonderful and inspiring!

Thank you.

A note on updates. For the past week real life interfered with my plans in a big way and I've been unable to get any meaningful work done, so it'll be a little while longer until the next update.

Ah, real life. Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

So, back on track. Furniture:



The table and chair are the obvious additions here. The chairs need some padding and a foot sculpted, in case of the latter only once they're glued to the floor. It's easy enough, but will take some time with all the various green stuff bits that need to cure.

The cargo compartment now has door controls and I added plastic strips to close the gaps in the bathroom walls that I mention earlier. That's going to require some more refinement, but it seems that layering on thin plasticard is feasible as a fix.

I've been looking into the wing access a little and I think I can add a door and some detailing around the hole at my leisure. That is not likely relevant to any adjacent bits so I can do that whenever I have some spare time. And, I guess, when I've made up my mind on how deeply recessed I want the door to be. So maybe it's all still a little hazy for now, but technically there's nothing physically in the way of developing that part of the ship.

The next big expansion will be the cockpit, though. Nothing to show yet, but I've drawn some exotic lines on a few pieces of plasticard and once I wrap my head around how the partially slanted walls actually fit together I can start the wall construction.

That's a cool project, will there be 3D "chess"?

Thank you. I considered a space chess table akin to the Falcon's early on, but dismissed it because I wasn't excited by the idea of a round bench to go with the table, the space requirements of it and how it would fit into the framework I'd already established. For the sitting corner I actually prefer what I'm building now, inspired by similar designs that were popular back in the 70s and 80s, at least around here.

I could however put a smaller, portable version of the game on the table for flavor. Run a cable from it to the nearest power port in a wall. Actually add power ports to the walls, I guess. Thanks for giving me that idea.

The sitting corner furniture is complete:



That concludes the sitting corner for the time being. As per the previous post there's a decent chance I'll add fun little details and stuff all over the place, similar to the starboard bed, to bring the ship to life a little more. I did the bed early on because I didn't know how long I'd keep the different wall pieces separate, but since there is currently no rush to glue them in I will have plenty of time to fill these things in without slowing down construction.

That said, I started work on the wall decoration for the sitting corner. I noted down the relevant measurements on the walls some time ago but only got around to actually doing anything with them now. Originally I thought I'd put up a poster or two, but changed my mind to paintings with fancy frames and all. Those frames will take up most of my sculpting time for a while.

As mentioned the next big step is the cockpit. I've been fiddling around with plasticard but I still have to draw up a comprehensive plan for the wall construction. It's slow going as I have a lot of trouble visualizing it, but I'm hoping to get there in the next half week.

The furniture style matches the Star Wars aesthetic very well!

Another entry in the humble beginnings category, I started work on the cockpit:



That's a necessary frame to build on. I've been going through my options and with how thin plasticard is prone to warping I think I just need the whole thing enclosed and joined to the bulkhead to get everything to line up properly.

The plan is to build the pilot and co-pilot chairs first as the size of these are the only thing I have to match to anything established, which is to say the size of people. Anything else isn't set in stone all that much. After I have the chairs I can build the control consoles around them. I may try to fit them to the front window and wall extensions that will follow in order to keep a piece of the cockpit separate for painting. I'll have to see how that works out. The slanted walls I want for the cockpit unfortunately make things a bit complicated.

The back of the cockpit is going to get separate computer banks and stuff that should be entirely separate from anything else, so I can fit that in at my leisure once I have the exact position of the chairs.

On the original plan I have an escape hatch in the floor. I'm not sure how to go about that just yet and it might have been more convenient to cut a hole in the floor before the walls were attached, but without an exact layout of the cockpit that's unfortunately just not possible.

Considering news of "Rogue Trader" and old "Wing Commander: Privateer" fame - very fitting.

Yes, thin plastic does warp. The only bad thing about it when choosing between plastic and MDF or other kinds of wood. Sometimes using lots of narrow strips as reinforcement around all holes and across any space larger than 3 inches helps, but not always. :(

But the progress is good!

Heh, I've worked with MDF way back when and I've had my fill. I very much prefer plasticard, no matter the downsides. I'm cool with stickking laser cut MDF together as intended, but anything that involves cutting? No, thanks.

The reinforcement idea is a good one. Not the least when you consider that exposure to plastic cement, too much enthusiams and too little care even warped the floor plate a little. It's not too bad and should be fixed by gluing everything I have firmly in place, but it's something that really requires attention. The idea for the hull is to have an inner wall and an outer wall, both of them connected and spaced out by plastic sprue pieces. It would have probably been a sound idea to start with that and get a solid foundation to build on, but it's a little late for that. But yeah, I think giving reinforcements a bit more thought in the future might help.

A little progress:



The pilot chairs are currently only the frames cut straight from plasticard and glued together. I have yet to make up my mind which edges I want rounded, if any. I'm bound to give the corners of the seats and armrests some treatment, but it might just be 45° cuts to blunt them a little. I'm also not sure about the backrest yet. I might keep the sharp edges since I went with an octagonal headrest and I'm not sure if it still looked the part with rounded edges. I somehow doubt it. And if I have an angular backrest, I may be better off echoing that design on the rest of the chair.

The chairs are larger than the ones in the back not just to make room for the armrests but also to look more comfy. I'm considering letting the padding on the seat spill over the front and subtly pad the armrests as well.

I'll probably add a few reinforcement bars to the back to make it look more interesting. And also to make the chairs look heavier. I put them on rods as a matter of course, but I think piloting a ship is easier if your chair doesn't swivel, so I'll either reinforce it as well to make it look firmly installed or sculpt something that looks like a solid locking mechanism to give the option to turn the chair if needed, even if it's not something you would do in flight.

The fancy frames for the pictures I mentioned in a previous update are coming along nicely. I went with a flowing lines inspired by the designs on bigwig Pantoran characters in the Clone Wars show. Being as fancy as they are, they remove a little bit of space from the canvas. Ideally that won't make it harder to freehand the paintings later on.

It's so detailed, it will be amazing to play on/in when it's done.

One can only hope.

Some progress on the stuff from last time:



The frames are finished now. Next time I'm priming any models, I think I'll just put some primer on these as well. No idea when I'll get around to actually painting them, but I'm fairly sure I want to paint them before gluing them to the walls.

The padding on the chairs is nearly complete. The headrests are a bit more work, especially on the one pointing away from the camera. After the padding I'll add flashy lights on one side of them and a switch on the other. Then run a cable from the switch down the back to connect for the locking mechanism I talked about earlier.

I'm starting to get an idea of how I want to mount the chairs. That's going to take a bit of extra time, so I don't expect to be able to do more work on the cockpit for a little while longer. To give me something to do in the meantime I put some work into the wing and gun access tube. I'm using Mantic plastic pipes for that. They're pre-cut and modular in length, which is convenient. The biggest issue for now is what to do with the hatches that close the tube. Two part doors like the cockpit door but smaller were my first thought, and on the fuselage side that won't be an issue. But since I don't have a clear idea of the size of the gun turret, I've been wondering if it wouldn't be better to have an iris hatch instead to save space. Either one isn't likely going to be a joy to create, so I'm not even considering what's easier. So while I'd like to get physical work done, I think I'm going to have to channel some more brain power into planning first.

Wait, is that a spot of color?



The first wall decoration is finished. I just couldn't resist painting it. It's a framed poster from the Pantoran Blue tour of the glam punk band Dye Dye Dye. I had the idea fairly early on and all the elements I wanted are there, though the composition has been adjusted a little because my mind can paint smaller letters than my brush. One more to go, and I might just work on it next. I'm kind of in the mood.

Behind it you can see progress on the wing access. I ended up going with the iris hatch as it's the most elegant solution. The tube has a metal beam with embedded light strip on each side, and both of these are already finished. Bottom and top of the tube are going to have leather padding that I'll set up as a wide central strip each with two narrower ones to frame it. The hatch controls will be added onto the wall extension of the forward metal beam. I may add a few handles above the tube to pull yourself out or help you crawl in.

I also adjusted the top of the cargo compartment's door frame as it was a little too long and therefore bent. The whole component now fits smoothly in the floor gaps.

Progress on the pilot chairs slowly continues. I had hoped to be further along, but they're hard to hold and not mess up fresh green stuff, so I have to work in more, smaller steps. It won't take that much longer now, though.

Its looking really cool, and yeah, even just that small is pretty impressive!

Spaceship is looking good!

Thanks, guys!

Progress on the cockpit:



Slanted walls are hard for me to wrap my head around, so the window panels took a while to plan and cut out. I think I mentioned before that I have to build the full cockpit wall to make sure the whole thing fits and doesn't warp. Since I can't really work in that space anymore, the cockpit interior will be handled with two or more inserts that I'll finish and likely paint separately. I'll start with the forward insert with the chairs and instruments, as seen above. Behind it I want further computer stuff on the side walls, and I'm not sure yet if that's going to be a single piece or two separate ones with a third one just for the floor between them.

The chairs are finishes except for the floor connection. There will be a console between them with the hyperspace lever thingy we all know and love, pilot and co-pilot controls to the front and some modest techy stuff on the sides. That should take up most of my time for the next bit.

The walls currently cap out a 4/5 of the ship's wall height, and because the cockpit is cramped I'll have to decide if I want to leave it like that and make the rest of the wall part of the ship's roof assembly. I'm going to have to put some models in there to see how I feel about it. It's not a certainty yet.

As for the wing access:



It's finished. Hurray!

More paint!



This one is more personal than the other picture, showing the captain's closest friends. From left to right: Gloomy, Bouncy, Bawdy, Skull Girl, Horror Show, and Action Girl (the captain).

I didn't keep exact track, but around twelve hours went into the freehand. I never thought I'd spend that kind of time on a two by three centimeter canvas.

Similar to the other picture, this is the smallest I can paint. I used my finest detail brush that's worn down further by two years of loyal service for even thinner lines. Between keeping my hands steady and paint wet on the brush, this was a real tough one to pull off.

It's also one of the reasons I've slowed down a bit recently, pouring my time into painting instead of further construction. With the picture done now I'm hoping for that to pick up again.

Wow, that painting is REALLY impressive!

Very cool, very impressive, very spacey. Please continue!

Thanks, guys!

Edit: I just noticed that Bouncy's and Bawdy's left arms can't interact like that. I'm going to have to fix that.

Edit 2: Or not? Maybe I'm just be seeing things. I'm going to have to look into it when it's cooler. I don't brain so well when it's hot.

It looks great to me, mate, really solid work here.

Thank you.

I was absolutely loving this already, and then that painting sent me over the edge! Absolutely brilliant work, subbed and can't wait to see progress

Thank you, glad you like it. Last month didn't go well for me in so many ways, but this week I've been able to put daily work into the Handmaiden again, so hopefully updates won't be so slow anymore. Next one should be before the end of the week.

Work on the cockpit continues. But first:



The group picture got a few touch ups after spotting a couple of rough bits in the zoomed in picture. Nothing major but an overall improvement in quality. This dry fitting picture also doubles as confirmation that I got the dimensions of the pictures right. I had the measurements from cutting the pieces of plasticard, of course, but the green stuff frames add a little extra to that. I guess that would have been a good thing to check a month ago, but hey. They still fit fine.

The interior of the ship has a lot of doors that add enough texture to the walls, but notably the walls in the bathroom and the side of the cargo hold are pretty bare. I'm not sure yet if I want to add much in the way of textured detail or leave it bare for a bit of contrast with only the eventual paintjob adding a little interest. That's something to think about. If I want to top off the walls with something, pipes or cables for instance, I have a little spare room above the pictures to make that viable.

As for the cockpit:



I had to go back to the floor insert and cut rails into it. It occurred to me that it would be good to be able to adjust the seats to accommodate people of different heights. That would have been easier to do had I thought of it before gluing the chairs on. But at least the addition of the rails made it trivial to settle on a design for the chair mounts.

I also added the central console. It has all the control elements it's going to get including the lever that makes the ship go whoosh. Okay, maybe it won't make anything go whoosh until I also install the engines. But we'll get there, too.

I'll probably add a maintenance panel or two, and maybe a vent to the sides of the console. The top is probably going to stay bare as its on the level of the windows. There's no real point in putting anything there, but maybe a few rivets or vents may be in order so it doesn't look too empty. Next step is to extend the control elements outward and add pedals and footrests below. Then some computer thingies on the sides and that should wrap up that part of the cockpit.

Also in the picture is the outside end of the wing access hatch. I think I mentioned it before, but I'm using Mantic pipes and connectors for the crawlspace in the wing. This assembly is just there for the pipes to slot in and won't have much bearing on the final shape of that part of the ship. It will get covered up by hull plating eventually and built up to look interesting.

Don't you love seeing sprue pictures of models? Here's one:



As a slight deviation from my plan to work on the cockpit, I felt the need to do some structural work on the bottom of the ship. I mentioned it earlier, but thin plasticard can lead to warping issues. That doesn't go well with switching off my brain, which is exactly what I did when I glued the floor pieces to the base plate and failed to put weight on the pieces until the glue dried. Which leads to issues with walls not fitting well anymore, the whole thing looking off and draining my motivation because I think I'm not doing a good enough job. Just things snowballing out of control. You know, the usual. So that needed fixing.

For now the purpose of the sprue is to reinforce the base plate and keep it straight. Later on, as was the plan from the beginning and will be see all around the ship, the sprue will act as a spacer between the inner and outer hull. That allows me to work on the inner and outer walls separately and gives me some space for the ship's inner workings, both seen and unseen. In the case of the base plate I picked a sprue with ample space for the landing gear. The sprue is only 2mm thick and I'll have to see if that's all I want, but I have another identical sprue that I can layer on top if I need deeper recesses for the landing gear. Either way, right now I'm thinking there won't be much ground clearance. The base model of the ship is a commercial freighter and supposed to land on nice, flat ground like a landing pad.

Side note, it's mighty nice of GW to make that sprue the exact width of my ship. Convenient!

With this out of the way I can resume work on the cockpit, I hope.

That is convenient that it's the same width. I'm also not used to seeing the sprues so symmetrical.

Yeah, it's the Cargo-8 trailer sprue, so it's all very symmetrical. It's kind of ironic. I kept sprues around for years that looked promising and instead of sorting through them I pick one from the latest box I bought. It's just a good fit.

This is amazing! It's the kind of thing I wish I could do for my 28mm comic.

Thank you kindly.

It's never too late to learn, although you might not like the results if you're anything like me. I did a few one shot comic panels with model photos in the way back when. I never meant to expand that to a series, but it got me to thinking just how much work I'd have to put into new models and scenery to get new scenes right. These days I have more skill to put into my work, which comes at the cost of even more time. I'd never get anything done*...

Respect to you for getting a series like that running.



*On topic of getting things done, I'll be happy if the Jaunty Handmaiden gets finished this year. I've only had about a quarter of the hobby time I would have liked to put into it for two months now. But hey, it's not a race.

Some work on the cockpit insert:



I added a vent and maintenance panels to the central console. There's a little gap filling left and the transition to the forward console, but other than that it's finished.

I installed pipes to frame the upcoming pedals with the idea that they house cables to connect stuff. They also double as footrests. The pilot's side will get a mirrored setup.

It's a bit difficult to figure out the various heights and distances for the wheels, front and side consoles. I may have to find a sitting Legion model like a pilot of speeder bike rider to get a clearer idea of that. I'm terrible at estimating distance without visual aid.

What has amazed me throughout this build is the thinness and narrowness of many of the pieces of greenstuff you've created for consoles and other fine detail work. My very limited experience working greenstuff for a limited ranged of pieces (mostly tarps, packs and bedrolls) is that it gets extremely cranky the longer it gets worked and very picky/sticky the thinner it gets.

You've created some tremendously detailed pieces and even with frequent wetting and being careful not to get a lot of direct light on the material, I can only imagine the patience you've brought to the game.

Well done. Looking forward to forward motion.

Those chairs look honestly comfy, I wish I could sit in them. Very nice work again

Thanks, guys!

Heh, I wouldn't have thought of my sculpting as particularly patient in this case. I usually struggle with large projects and I'm aiming for a solid, if occasionally rough finish that's going to get evened out during painting so as not to get bogged down. I'd like to finish the model before I die of old age. I suppose since I love sculpting and have been using green stuff almost daily for a decade and a half, I have a decent idea by now how to get it to do what I want. And it helps to have a good tool.

A few bits got more work:



The cockpit insert got encased pedals as well as some pipes on the pilot's side to get both sides on the same level. Nothing fancy, but necessary before I can work on the consoles that would stop me from reaching those bits.

The other thing I made are the speeder bikes I talked about early on. Originally I expected to scratch-build something, but not too long afterwards I became aware that a swoop biker kit was going to be released. It would be too much to say that I waited for that, given that I'm not exactly building at the speed of light, but I did decide to hold back. No point in doing the extra work if there's a perfectly good kit available.

I converted the smaller bike into something a lot more compact so as to be able to fit them inside the cargo compartment. The conversions were really easy to do as well, only requiring a few cuts and no rebuilding. I've played around with a mock up a little:



The bike on the right will sit on a wall mount I have yet to make, as simulated by the officer. There's a leftover cross like bit in the kit that looks promising for that purpose. The front end will sit right under the door rail and the back end should be a few comfortable millimeters above the floor. I'll mirror the wall mount on the other side of the cargo compartment, but I'm thinking of leaving that bike on the floor. Possibly poking out of the compartment to a yet to be determined degree, maybe with a rag and some tools added to the floor around it. Then the back of the compartment is filled with boxes.

Not a cargo cult but cargo cool indeed! Good progress, congratulations!

This is brilliant work.

I'm primarily a toybasher. The greebling is mostly done and I just have to figure out how to chop it up and reassemble it.

This sort of from-scratch work is a whole other level and really impressive. Looking forward to seeing the final result.

Thanks, guys.

Ship is shaping up, looking forward to seeing more...

I should also take the opportunity to write myself a reminder about making the holochess game board that was suggested on the last page. I keep forgetting about that. Plus take the time to figure out where I want to place the odd power socket around the ship. And perhaps look into a techy bit or two in the bunks, like a wall mounted screen or something.

In fact I should keep an actual to do list for all those little decorative bits that I want to put into the ship now that the interior is so far advanced.

 Geifer wrote:
I did a few one shot comic panels with model photos in the way back when. I never meant to expand that to a series, but it got me to thinking just how much work I'd have to put into new models and scenery to get new scenes right. These days I have more skill to put into my work, which comes at the cost of even more time. I'd never get anything done*...

Respect to you for getting a series like that running.

Thank you, Geifer.

More work on the cockpit:



I got the side console framework done on both sides. I'll no doubt sculpt buttons and stuff before long, but I think I may have to at least make a start on the forward consoles to see where they meet the sides.

The construction is not particularly neat as I'm at the point where the chairs get in the way of getting the parts in the right position. Slanted surfaces are a pain to begin with, but that only makes it worse. For the most part it's not a big deal as it leaves a few gaps in places that get filled with green stuff anyway, but I won't get around doing some cosmetic work that wouldn't have been strictly necessary if I could just reach in there properly.

Before I put the forward consoles in, I'll sculpt some end pieces for the pipes to give them a more elegant appearance.

I stopped work on the wall mount for the first speeder bike when I realized that the plastic bit I was talking about earlier would make a good base for the steering wheel. So I think I'm going to use it for that, but that leaves me to figure out a suitable wall mount.

Progress with a little bigger visual impact:



While sculpting all the little controls and details on the cockpit insert takes time and plenty of sculpting sessions, I figured I could make a start on the starboard wall computer and get some more progress out of those sculpting sessions.



It needs a lot more buttons and dials, and the blank lower part is reserved for the access port for astromechs. The computer on the other side, when I get around to it, will be suspended from the wall with the lower part removed to make way for the escape hatch I have planned for the floor behind the pilot's seat. Since part of that wall is still missing, it will be handy to have the full sized computer as a template.

About that wall, I wasn't sure what to do with the top fifth of the cockpit wall, but I think I'll have another row of windows. Probably angled to allow a better view of what's going on above (and to the front of) the ship. That will take a bit of brain work to figure out, since I'm still not good at exotic angles.

More cockpit progress, now with a novelty top down view to conceal how little work I got done:



So, real life has been getting in the way of things again (hurray!), but at least I got a fair bit of sculpting in on the computer consoles. For the forward insert that means the side consoles are now as finished as they can be without also installing the front consoles. Those will start as a simple flat piece of plasticard that I'll build on, since they have to allow room for the crew's legs under them. Currently the plan is for a central dashboard with the wheel and some instruments and some buttons and dials and stuff between it and the center console. Then a monitor or two in the corner between the dashboard and the side console. The consoles I have already take up a decent amount of space and have a fair few controls, so there isn't much room or much need for a lot more of it on the forward console.

The computer in the back is making good, albeit slow progress. There's a lot of stuff to add and since I only had a rough start in the last update, also a fair bit of polish to straighten things and get crisp edges. With more yet to come. The lower half is mostly getting the astromech port and some ventilation, I reckon. I want a number key pad in the empty area above as well, just to have that covered. And I mustn't forget to sculpt a loudspeaker above each monitor for that sweet 2-bit sound to go with all the black and white line action on those screens. Or maybe I'll have green screens. We had one of those when I was a kid. Nostalgia!

I remain in awe of your skills, Geifer.

This is amazing! Love your work and I'll continue to follow this thread.

Great work on the cockpit!

Thanks, guys!

Progress:



I'm slowly building the framework for the front consoles. Not much progress so far as much of my time went into sculpting on the starboard computer.

I didn't want to decide on the exact location of the astromech port without an astromech for comparison, so I converted a spare R2 to a standing pose. The conversion was pleasantly simply with only two cuts on each ambulatory strut and a tiny bit of gap filling required. Let's have a marketing shot of the cockpit with everything I got so far and the little visitor added for flavor:



That's just for show as the space behind the seats is meant to stay empty to allow model placement.

I didn't convert the model just for fun, though. R3-Q7 will be a permanent addition to the airlock:



Granted, right now it's just a trashcan in the corner of an empty room. I plan on building a recharging station for him into that corner. Nothing too fancy as the astromech is the focus of that part, but I'm thinking a low wall or rail extending outward from the wall, some plugs or ports or techy bits, and maybe a diagnostic screen above him. The outer airlock door is supposed to be centered, which leaves room to put a locker next to the recharging station for space suits, tools and other assorted bits you might want to grab before you go breathe some space air.

There's a good chance that R3 is going to be the next piece that sees some paint. It's probably best to do that separately.

More work to a fascinating project. I am still in awe. Also, your little astromech is a nice touch.

Thank you.

Small update today with the distinction of finishing another part:



That's the starboard computer done, except for fitting and gap filling. I'm happy with the ratio of techy bits and empty space. I should probably follow up with its port counterpart, which I plan to give some different elements. I want the pilot and co-pilot controls mirrored for obvious reasons, but the random computer stuff in the back should not overtly duplicate functions.

As for the aforementioned controls, the instruments on the dashboard are done. So are the mounts for the wheels. I'd like to assemble the wheels next but it's fiddly work and my hands haven't been steady enough recently to get it done yet. Even if that keeps going for a while I can still fill the remaining console space with the elements I talked about in a previous update. Either way, the forward cockpit insert is nearing completion.

That cockpit is amazing with just enough detail to look realistic without being cluttered.

Excellent sculpting work, agree with the above. Nice level of detail.

Thanks, guys.

This update is a bit of a "the project is still alive and well" post.

I've had very little hobby time recently and what little I had was oftentimes rushed and left me wondering if I could work to a decent standard.

Still, I did make modest progress:



I filled the gaps in the sides of the consoles and eventually settled on a monitor and a radar screen to take up that space. I may add a few buttons and screws to the latter. I'm still a bit undecided about that.

On the side facing the windows I want the consoles to have a curved finish, so all of that will be done with green stuff. I haven't figured out how I want to cap off the side of the dashboard yet.

What you call 'modest progress' I call my quarterly report- the build gets better with every update!

Thank you.

Top notch, Geifer! How on earth are you going to paint that?

Very carefully?

With regard to method or order, the plan is that once I finalize all the inserts I'll paint those and adjacent interior areas that I can't reach with the inserts in place. I expect gluing them in will make a bit of a mess that needs cleaning up, so there is something to be said for taking it easy on the rest of the ship until the glue has dried and I see if I need to fill any gaps. From there I want to paint the rest of the interior before I attach the pictures and the astromech.

Somewhere during construction I'll have to put magnets that hold the roof somewhere between the inner and outer walls and polish the top so the roof has a flush fit. I suspect that I can only do part of that once all the walls are firmly in place so the magnets are locked in tight. I'll also need to at least build the base plate of the roof.

The exterior should be pretty straightforward to paint. I'm not planning for significant recessed areas that I need to work on separately. I will have to figure out the cockpit windows closer to the time, though. I want to have inner and outer frames with clear plastic sheets inserted between them. That will call for a bit of precision engineering (yuck! ) and I'm not sure how I'll go about assembling and painting that yet. I just know that it's going to be a headache.

In terms of colors I want a mix of shiny and worn silver for the metals, beige walls and red stripes for decoration. Plenty of hazard stripes around the doors. Probably a fairly unified design for the basic ship, but with little spots of color all over with buttons, decorations, inventory and assorted bits standing out as their own things. I don't have a vision for the exterior yet. Nothing dull, but maybe not too flashy either. I'll worry about specifics once that exterior actually starts existing.

If you haven't watched Adam Savage's YouTube videos on Star Wars ship paneling, they're very informative, especially the one titled "Adam Savage Demonstrates Miniature Spaceship Paneling!" He demonstrates at a much smaller scale, but the concepts should work for you. The one thing that keeps ringing in my head is his advice on visual asymmetry in the Star Wars universe.

Edit: Oh, and fabulous work, by the way. I really enjoy seeing this come together.

Thank you. That's a cool video. I'll have to remember all that and/or rewatch it when I start working on the exterior.

This is really amazing work, haven’t read though it all yet. But page one was Impressive!
And the progress shots each one look so detailed.

Just really so cool.

Thank you.

Behold the emergence of civilization! The cockpit now has cup holders.



Well, I finally got around to making that important detail happen. The techy stuff is all well and good, but you have to make sure to add essentials like that at some point. And here we are. Finally.

On the instrument side that leaves a small gap that I'm going to fill with something simple. Just a dial and a button or two. You can see on the starboard side how the dashboard casing is supposed to look. It's still a bit rough and needs a little more building up, especially to fill the gap next to the cup holder. But the general shape is there.

The pilot side isn't quite as far along. I held back because I didn't want to accidentally ruin the cup, which I figured would be good to have. After all, what's the point in having cup holders if you don't have a cup?

I kept the central area empty and added a lip so there's a place you can put something down if need be.

I need to remember to fill the small gap between the plasticard bits behind the wheels before I install those. And as far as the latter goes, the first one is assembled and, well, of course I forgot to take a picture of it. Regardless of that, it's not too much work from there. I don't think I'll add much more than a couple of triggers for the ship's guns. After that it will be easy to install them.

So here we are. The forward cockpit is nearing completion.

The cup holder is such a small but pivotal detail.

That cockpit is coming along nicely!
That cup holder and bits tray helps turn it into a work vehicle...
Something I see on warships bridges/SCCs that may help is a thin box for documents, literally velcro'd to the side of a console for easy access...

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure that can easily be translated to Star Wars, though. To the best of my knowledge the setting doesn't use paper. I could stash a datapad somewhere, but I'm not sure there's much sense in it between the ship's computer and the astromech.

Seems more like something I'd put in a leisure area or a (saddle) bag for when the bounty hunters leave the ship.

Final update for the year, and as chance would have it that coincides with the completion of the forward cockpit insert:



The wheels that I repeatedly forgot to take WIP pictures of are finished and attached. Along with some green stuff work to wrap up the consoles that's all that was missing.

If I ever have to do something like the cockpit again, I'll make the chairs detachable until final assembly. I've been able to work around them, but not very well. They're also not placed as symmetrical as they should be. It's not terrible, but in hindsight I could have gone about it more cleverly.



So. that took a while to do. I like to focus on things that need finer details, to the detriment of other projects or in this case other parts of the ship. It's usually better for quality. With this part done I can finally move on to the next thing. At this point it's probably best to finish the cockpit with another computer console and the floor and move on to another area of the ship later.

That is some next level greenstuff wizardry there

Seriously, this project gets exponentially more amazing...

Thanks, guys!

The cockpit floor is finished:



I kept the escape hatch simple and reasonably small (you probably don't want to wear anything too bulky in an emergency). I went with a green stuff frame as it's just too thin to cut plasticard strips and expect them to remain straight through cutting and gluing. Green stuff is easier.

The door itself is just the base plate under the floor plates. Nothing fancy as I imagine it to retract as a whole towards the center of the ship. I'm thinking of painting hazard stripes around three edges and two small arrows on the remaining one pointing in the direction of where it opens.

The final bit is the hatch control which is just a closed box. In case of emergency you open the lid, pull the lever and the door opens. Hurray!

With the location of the hatch now set I can figure out how I want the remaining computer console to look.

Utterly amazing.

Alright, let's get the important question out of the way first. Yes. I'm a bear. I hibernate through winter.

Building in winter isn't fun. Now that it's getting warmer and sunnier again I plan on getting more work in again. Here's the first taste of that:



I got the box assembly of the port computer console done. I'm currently considering how to cap off the top and bottom. I've already settled on a big central monitor, round like a radar. The rest should be easy to fill with buttons and stuff.

Since the console is installed above one end of the escape hatch I'll have a handle underneath it to pull yourself up or lower yourself down, just to add a bit of convenience.

At this rate I'm also going to have to start thinking about adding the upper row of windows

I remain completely enthralled by the progress of this project.

Nice to see you back at it!

Yeah, it feels good to work on the model again. Would be such a shame not to finish it.

Small update on the computer console:



I meant to take a progress picture three times before I finally took this one, which is the state of things right now. So much new shiny around to distract me that I don't put as much time into the Handmaiden as I would like. But, I am making progress. The central bit of the console is mostly there. A few lights or buttons around the radar screen should wrap that up. Unfortunately I've so far been terribly undecided what to do with the blank areas. That's been keeping me from putting more work in, too.

However, slowdown there got me to look into the top row of the cockpit windows. I started cutting plasticard pieces for that, although I haven't cut out the windows yet. I can never seem to get a day where my mind is clear and my hands are steady enough for that kind of work.

Which also led to work on a new piece. Remember the holochess table that was suggested a page or two ago? I've started work on the game board. As mentioned back then, I'm going to make it a portable game. So far I have the base plate with a rough green stuff frame which, by the way, I could have put in the picture if I hadn't forgotten...

Anyway, stuff does happen, albeit at a leisurely pace.

Still a great control panel. There's a real art to making something just detailed enough without crossing the line into busy.

 KidCthulhu wrote:
Still a great control panel. There's a real art to making something just detailed enough without crossing the line into busy.

Yeah. Happy go lucky me had a bit too much green stuff left over the other day, so the top panel had two small monitors and two lights added on a whim. I might actually leave it at that instead of adding clutter precisely because it seems to fill the space well enough, even if it only covers, I don't know, a total of a third of the surface area?

Mustn't forget that Star Wars is from the era of computers the size of a room. Even if the user interface leaves a lot of empty space, the innards may require every little bit of space the housing has to offer.

 Skinflint Games wrote:

So, you know how there are people who happily work on a project for months only to get to a point where they say, "hey, I got this new and shiny thing, What's the harm in the spending a few days on it?" And then a year later they realize that the new and shiny thing has taken over for a really, really long few days? I'm just mentioning it because I'm not one of those people the thought that anything like it could ever happen to me is preposterous.

Which is why I'm pretty sure this is a perfectly regular update with a perfectly regular gap since the last one.

On to R3-Q7:



I finally remembered to buy a few paints I was missing recently. I had settled on the color schemed for a while but didn't have much in the way of purple. With supply issues sorted out, R3 is now painted and ready to go in his alcove whenever I get around to building it.

I didn't do much more work since the last update. A bit here, a bit there, but largely I spent my hobby time on other stuff last year. Though looking at the last picture of the port computer console, I guess I did make some progress considering it's actually finished. I'll have to go through the thread again and remind myself what I was working on and what I meant to do next. When that's done I'll post another update along with a picture of the console.

So, does that mean the Handmaiden is going to get regular work again? I certainly hope so, but no promises. I'm in the mood and feel recovered. These large projects have a way of wearing me out. I still feel good about the project, but my hobby moods have been very swingy of late. Not in a bad way, but too much excitement for too many different things gets in the way of finishing stuff, too.

Good to see that even if this project is stalled, it is not forgotten.

Hobby progress and motivation is often mercurial and fleeting. Do what you can when you can when the muse has you.

What he said.

And loving the colors on R3!

 Nevelon wrote:
Good to see that even if this project is stalled, it is not forgotten.

Hobby progress and motivation is often mercurial and fleeting. Do what you can when you can when the muse has you.

Quite so. I'm not very good with projects that take forever, unfortunately. There's always the next great idea that threatens to draw my attention away. It's kind of frustrating.

Vejut wrote:
What he said.

And loving the colors on R3!

Thanks. I've been considering a yellow/purple color scheme for my Clone Wars clankers for a couple of years. R3 is technically unrelated and a standalone model, but I'm quite happy with how the color scheme turned out and likely to adopt it as the baseline for my seppies.

Great to see you back! And I always love me some R units, such an iconic droid. It would be cool to see more of the Jaunty Handmaiden, but like the others said, no pressure.

Yeah, between distractions and real life it's a bit rough finding time to work on the Handmaiden. Yesterday I gave the next steps some thought and remembered that the cockpit needs another row of windows. Which involves exciting angles and perhaps a measure of precision engineering. I'm starting to remember why I may have slowed down...

Here's the promised picture of the port computer console:



As I mentioned earlier, there was the question of how much detail I wanted on the console and I went with the lighter side. It's not the full height of the wall and is on the same side as the floor escape hatch. It should look decent with the amount of detail on that side of the cockpit spread out while the starboard side has a lot concentrated in a smaller area, and provide a bit of contrast and asymmetry.

I haven't done any physical work on the remaining cockpit windows yet. So far I only worked out how I want it to look, roughly what angles the various part are supposed to have and how the whole construction connects to the back of the ship. It's going to be a bit of work cutting the parts accordingly, once I actually get to it.

Nice looking console!

Planning is good, should make doing the windows when you get there easier, looking forward to it!

Again, I envy your skills; you always know how to put in just enough detail without cluttering it.

I fiddled around with a few bits of plasticard yesterday. I think I'm going to need three, preferably steady hands to figure out the middle piece in the window assembly. Geometry is not my strong suit and angling the surfaces back just gives me a headache trying to figure out how to cut the pieces so they line up. I'll have to find a calm moment before I can really go to work on that.