Jabba The Hutt Diorama (The Viewing Frame WIP)

Putting figures inside of it as a container would have been brilliant, it's too bad they priced so many people out of it.

Are you old enough to remember when gas stations were giving away a Noah's Ark, and the animals? It was a promotional gimmick during the early 70s "gas shortage". First you got the Ark, then they gave you a pair of animals with each fill-up. I had some of those as a little kid -- the deck came off and you put your animals inside of it. I LOVED that thing when I was a whee tike.

My wife says I'm "spoiled" when it comes to the 3-room Man-Cave; hard work and a cool wife certainly helps in that regard.

Stryker2011 wrote:Are you old enough to remember when gas stations were giving away a Noah's Ark, and the animals? It was a promotional gimmick during the early 70s "gas shortage". First you got the Ark, then they gave you a pair of animals with each fill-up. I had some of those as a little kid -- the deck came off and you put your animals inside of it. I LOVED that thing when I was a whee tike.

My wife says I'm "spoiled" when it comes to the 3-room Man-Cave; hard work and a cool wife certainly helps in that regard.

No, I am just a little too young to remember that, and besides, my childhood was spent on the other side of the Iron Curtain, enjoying the benefits of Socialism, despotism, and non-consumerism. But it does sound like a really neat promotional ploy. And exactly the sort of stuff this vehicle would be great for. Perhaps if they marketed it as a container and pulled the price way down, they could have sold many more.

Your wife might have a point, but a good man should be "spoiled" in that way.

Well, for the last week or two (can't remember) I've been working on an in-scale mock-up of Jabba's Throne Room, made out of tag-board. This was a great way to work out the bugs, and get a feel for what exactly needed to be done. I made adjustments here and there, but tried as best as possible to get elements as close to actual scale as possible.

The biggest concerns for me scale-wise, was to make sure that the size of the arch over the throne, and the steps to either side of the throne were as close to the real thing as could be reasonably made based on photographs and floor plans, as I explained earlier. Not an easy task as most of the pictures feature cast/characters -- generally in the way. Even so, I still had to reduce the sizes of some things -- though I kept the height of the arch as close as possible. The stairs had to be reduced some, as did the width of the area where the design that goes around the archways is presented. In true scale, the arch graphic would be a width of 5", whereas I reduced it to 3.5". Anyway, building the mock-up was super-helpful, because it showed where my original floor plan had some design flaws, and by changing things up, I think I achieved a better design flow, and was able to add elements that weren't in my original plan (like the short arch with window next to the band).

Plus, I was able to turn Han in Carbonite sideways, like he is in the film -- though I reduced the space between him and the throne by a considerable amount. I have yet to work out the grate (in front of Jabba's throne) design -- it should be approximately 30" wide. Overall the floor space on this diorama works out to 89.75" wide and 33" deep (without the walls which will surround all but the front of the display -- and add an added 1/2" to width, and 1/4" to depth). Still need to figure out how I'm going to add lights to this monster display, and overall what materials I'm going to use for each element. Some of this diorama, due to length, will no doubt have to made out of wood just to support the roof (height of 24" maximum -- hence the reason the arches are incomplete in the center) -- where much of the lights and wiring are going to be hidden.

It’s looking incredible already!! :O

I agree. Many people have done beautiful things with Jabba's palace dioramas in different scales, but even at this early stage, this one promises to be super impressive. Knocking on wood not to jinx it.

skywalkersaga wrote:It’s looking incredible already!! :O

Thanks. It was actually a lot of work to build. When my wife saw it she’s like “Why not just use that?” Because this is just a junky mock-up. “Pffft!”

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree. Many people have done beautiful things with Jabba's palace dioramas in different scales, but even at this early stage, this one promises to be super impressive. Knocking on wood not to jinx it.

Thanks. But, now I’m worried. I just hope I can live up to the expectations (mine, and everyone else’s).

My god, this is looking epic already.  And it's HUGE.  It's so big 1/6 figures look small.  Loving watching this come together!

ReverendSpooky wrote:My god, this is looking epic already.  And it's HUGE.  It's so big 1/6 figures look small.  Loving watching this come together!

Thanks, Rev. I have a feeling it won’t look that big once I start putting other figures in there.

Thanks, Rev. I have a feeling it won’t look that big once I start adding other figures in there.

I think you have nailed it. The scale of the arch and the rest of the architecture is just right. It will have to be painted the same colour as your carbonite display to tie it all together.

One of the problems of working with 1:6 is that you need a lot of space to display or even store anything. This would take up a considerable chunk of my living room.

How much vertical space have you got to play with? Can you do a real trap door with a chamber underneath for the Rancor?

shazzdan wrote:I think you have nailed it. The scale of the arch and the rest of the architecture is just right. It will have to be painted the same colour as your carbonite display to tie it all together.

One of the problems of working with 1:6 is that you need a lot of space to display or even store anything. This would take up a considerable chunk of my living room.

How much vertical space have you got to play with? Can you do a real trap door with a chamber underneath for the Rancor?

Thanks, shazzdan. I had to study a crap-ton of photos (ever since Sideshow announced this new Jabba) to find how the arch looked; where it starts to actually curve, the width of the design around the outside, etc. Including the steps. The ones stage left are wider, and have curved elements, the ones on the right are all straight, and narrower. I still had to reduce some of it due to spacial constraints, but I wanted to keep it as close as possible. According to some photos that I looked at, three people should be able to stand side by side on the left steps at the narrowest point, and two on the right. I reduced the steps by around 3" each side-to-side. The height of the steps is pretty much spot on, based on how the gargoyle heads are situated on the throne (at least according to Sideshow's layout, and stills from the movie). And that back support layer behind the throne is the final height of the landing that made up the barbecue pit room; that room will have to be painted in as a backdrop (or a photographic backdrop if twelveinchfigures over at the Freaks can get around to making one).

The table I have to build to hold this thing is going to have a bottom open shelf so I can store any spare parts in boxes.

I have 95-97" max space to play with in the area where this is going to go (gives me about 5-7 1/4" inches to play with; which I'll need for the outer cabinet to hide all the lights & wiring). If I had to push it, I could go as far as 100". The front will have the window, inside a frame, to hide the space between the diorama walls and the cabinet walls. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, I won't be able to do a "real" trap door, and what little bit of the grate is showing; but I do plan on making 3-D cutouts of those sections so it at least "looks" like there is something there.

Well, going back over photographs from the set, and stills, I realized I made the arches too damn high (by about 4 1/2". Once I put Bib Fortuna in the frame, I realized the error. (My math skills suck!!!) The second photo is closer to where the arch should be, but still about 3/4" too high -- which means the entire arch design will be visible.

If the entire arch design will be visible, that seems like a good thing. Although having to rework this must surely be annoying. At least it was still the mock-up. I was so excited with the 3D shapes that I completely missed how you had made it taller when I looked at your earlier photos.

Yeah, I realize what I did wrong was not subtracting the height of the 3rd step from the overall height of the arch — instead, I added it, like the dysfunctional idiot that I am when it comes to math.

I think you're being too hard on yourself, but I'm glad you caught the error now, rather than later.

Made a new template with the corrected arch height. Set it up to take a picture, but I'll be using that height for the other two arches (the arch by the Frozen Han, with the "curtain", is already shortened to the height I want. I think this looks more accurate...?

It does seem better -- the previous archway was perhaps so high it was dwarfing the figures. This looks good to me.... though, I am pretty horrible at math myself.

Thanks, skywalkersaga. Yeah, and at least this way, as the Guv pointed out, I can have the entire arch design showing.

I agree, it does look more accurate. One thing that I wonder about -- and there might be a technical reason why you have it different -- is the angle at which the arch's curve meets the vertical walls. Should it be just a tad more gradual?

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree, it does look more accurate. One thing that I wonder about -- and there might be a technical reason why you have it different -- is the angle at which the arch's curve meets the vertical walls. Should it be just a tad more gradual?

Yes, a bit. But I found when I was still laying this out before the mock-up, that even though it would be more screen-accurate, I didn't like the idea that everyone would have to bend over at the waist on the steps where Bib is standing; somehow it just seemed like a bad design to me -- but it might have had to do with the set and the amount of space available overhead for the lights and scaffolding. In "real-life" I couldn't see why anyone would build a "house" where they had to stoop to get around in it. I have Bib bent just a bit, anyway (well, as much as that Sideshow body will allow without toppling over). Also, it's hard to tell from photos, but the arch didn't really start all the way down at the bottom where it meets the steps, so it wasn't exactly a perfect oval, anyway. (At least not from the many photos I scanned through; unless there was some lens distortion, it looked more like it started about knee high in some pics and waist high in others. I started mine around the waist to give more room.)

Oh I didn't mean to make the ceiling lower. Just the edge seemed more rounded where the archway comes down to the vertical part of the wall. But I also forgot that your stairs had to be a little bit narrower than they would have been in 1:1 and maybe that makes a difference. At any rate, it is too minute a detail to worry about. The overall solution to recreating the space within specific spatial limitations is still brilliant.

Yeah, I think if I had kept that additional 3” width on the steps, I would have been able to have the arch be a bit more gradual.

What a cool project, and yesssss it looks super promising even at this stage!!! Nice correction on the vault height, it looks much better and gives a real "alcove" feeling.

Can't wait to see it with some toned down lights!

Thanks a lot for sharing!

That does look much closer to your reference pics now mate. Don't be so hard on yourself though mistakes happen, its what you make of them that's important.

Paul

blackpool wrote:What a cool project, and yesssss it looks super promising even at this stage!!! Nice correction on the vault height, it looks much better and gives a real "alcove" feeling.

Can't wait to see it with some toned down lights!

Thanks a lot for sharing!

scalawag wrote:That does look much closer to your reference pics now mate.  Don't be so hard on yourself though mistakes happen, its what you make of them that's important.

Paul

Thanks, fellas. Appreciate the encouragement.

I am often my own worst critic, but I’ll do my best.

Construction has begun -- not progressing very fast, but it takes a while to cut and glue all these pieces together (mostly the gluing process) -- and I'm not working all that fast, as I don't want to rush and get something wrong. Anyway, here's a section of the walls to the right of the Jabba throne stairs. The hole is going to be covered with a grate and a couple of colored gel filters where a light will shine through.
The other piece is the base behind the throne -- the sides of this will be covered with the textured dots that were on all the stairs. Like I said, nothing fancy at this point. The wall at an angle is 1/8" thick Balsa wood, and the other two walls (the narrow one to the right, and the one with the hole are 1/4" Bass plywood. The section behind the throne is all 1/8" balsa wood -- since it's not load bearing, it doesn't need to be super strong. Since most of these craft boards have a tendency to warp, I had to attach struts to the backs of them to get the boards to be flat. The block behind the throne has struts running in the middle of it to keep the pieces straight so they wouldn't bow (much like the studs in the walls of a house).

Looks like a very solid beginning to me. Clearly this is going to be pretty professional and sturdy work.

GubernatorFan wrote:Looks like a very solid beginning to me. Clearly this is going to be pretty professional and sturdy work.

Well, I hope so, anyway... We’ll see once I put the ceiling on if I did the load-bearing stuff correctly. Long way to go before that happens, though. Need to get the main archway over the throne up, and then I’ll start the steps.

Thats looking great mate, keep the pics coming

Paul

Definitely looking good so far. Thank you for sharing the in-progress pics! : )