FINISHED SW Hoth Speeder Bike Scout Trooper with bike (Guns built and camouflaged, panniers on) Galactic Marine Heavy Gunner (finished) WIP's.

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice job on the bike (you really are so thorough!) and the scout is coming along nicely even in mock-up.

Thank you! These are still nice relaxing builds for me lol.
Done most of the speeder bike weathering and put it back together, some dry brush work next and maybe a bit of ink wash in some crevasses that didn't take as well as I'd have liked in the dunk tank. Hard to weather a white vehicle in snow alone so the browns represent grease and oils mixed with melted snow and ice blown across the speeder during travel; no one's going to be washing any vehicles in these conditions or fixing any leaks brought about by materials contracting and distorting in the cold I'll add some snow.

Amazing work!

I think you've done a great job weathering it up. That's a tricky thing, doing it right and doing just enough of it. Bravo!

Great work and a really authentic weathering!

BAMComix wrote:Amazing work!

GubernatorFan wrote:I think you've done a great job weathering it up. That's a tricky thing, doing it right and doing just enough of it. Bravo!

Darth_Hogge wrote:Great work and a really authentic weathering!

Thanks guys! Weathering's always a mix of experience, techniques and luck!

Moved onto the rider for now, added and/or replaced the elastic with grey elastic to fit/blend in better with the snow theme, took a while. Used another bead (from a Christmas cracker) drilled out as a neck connector, modified some old school glove insert hinges for wrists. Faffed around with armour parts then permanently attached them to belts etc.. making a pistol holster for a suppressed blaster pistol as an analogue to what snipers here on Earth use as back up weapons if someone gets too close and needs to be quietly neutralised (like an HK MK23 from the 80's/90's or Ruger .22 in the Vietnam days, more likely a suppressed Sig nowadays or HK MK25). I still need to make his neck and glove seals out of wider grey elastic, also his rifle, communication gear, survival panniers and bivouac/tent/shelter etc..



















Weathering not finished





Heater system with power supply in large pouches











Might need to change the blaster as it's blatantly a DL44



Custom grey suspension harness replacing the regular white one, this contains self inflating floatation devices should the rider fall through ice etc..

Your inventiveness knows no bounds. Poor Christmas bead never dreamt of being this crucial! And you gave him a great worn and weathered look.

GubernatorFan wrote:Your inventiveness knows no bounds. Poor Christmas bead never dreamt of being this crucial! And you gave him a great worn and weathered look.

Agreed, really clever stuff!

GubernatorFan wrote:Your inventiveness knows no bounds. Poor Christmas bead never dreamt of being this crucial! And you gave him a great worn and weathered look.

BAMComix wrote:

GubernatorFan wrote:Your inventiveness knows no bounds. Poor Christmas bead never dreamt of being this crucial! And you gave him a great worn and weathered look.

 Agreed, really clever stuff!

Cheers! LOL, I remember I had to dig through the trash that Christmas day to retrieve the 'baubles' as my cousin's new husband hadn't known I wanted them for builds! I've always been the black sheep of that side of the family who are VERY prim and proper, I'm sure me dumpster diving on Christmas day was a great introduction to my 'excentricities' for my cousin's new husband; combine that with my Biker looks and lifestyle back then (before tattoos and beards were fashionable, I still hate hipster twats who did that!) and the guns I brought with me and I think he was pretty confused as to how I was related to any of them!

Done the neck and wrist seals, that grey ink is really useful!













Test pose on bike



Going to need stirrups! I guess for 'in universe' you could say they are needed for the ice.



Started work on his sniper rifle, I want to keep it 'in universe' but as a gun collector I want it to be practical too.



The white is part of the winter camo.





Stirrups









More parts for the rifle build inspired by the Cheytac M200 sniper rifle.





Red looks cooler for a lens and implies movie night vision but would stand out like a sore thumb in a snow environment...

Superb work. The stirrups were a nice touch. The gun camo is also pretty cool and unexpected.

GubernatorFan wrote:Superb work. The stirrups were a nice touch. The gun camo is also pretty cool and unexpected.

Cheers! They are needed lol!

Modded and painted the guns into a sort of WW2 'razzle dazzle' snow camo with a bit of Vietnam era 'tiger stripe' too, not sure how well it would work IRL but fits the SW aesthetic better than our contemporary camos if you think of the Clone Wars etc.. Certainly better than big black blocks would anyway (I made a real 1:1 sniper camo from scratch using non perishable materials and completely removable from the M40A1 Marines' sniper rifle and that took over a month, working on it every day, to complete!).
I also attached the panniers which are a pair of Snowtrooper survival backpacks, figuring he'd at least need two since he's off in the mountains alone a lot. I'm making his long distance communication and observation gear next. I've dry brushed the bike's grey parts with silver but not taken pics yet.







Super Glued and hot glued







I haven't put the 'gortex' grey pannier flaps on yet







Modified sniper stock with monopod and Star Wars Esque bipod (they never make a lot of sense in any of the movies lol).





Went with the sensible white lens option



Suppressed the blaster pistol to differentiate it from Han's and snipers like/use silenced weapons for up close work to keep their positions hidden.









Other bits attached too



Snow camo started in earnest now..



Ripped narrow strips from my wide roll of masking tape rather than using the already narrow pinstriping tape because I wanted ragged edges, extra work but worth it to me





They'll be sprayed primer grey to have a triple shade effect of black, grey and white.





Just like Christmas... well if I celebrated it..





Shame about losing the nice detail on the suppressor (came from an old hobby knife hilt) but it'll be in his holster anyway, that needed to be modded again..









Just some quick improvised pics

I had to go through this over several days, but WOW! Impressive work.

Very nice touches with the additions to the bike and the weapons.

Stryker2012 wrote:I had to go through this over several days, but WOW! Impressive work.

Hey thanks!! Thought I hadn't seen you around for a while, I hope your health's not giving you grief! We're all starting to get old now...lol

GubernatorFan wrote:Very nice touches with the additions to the bike and the weapons.

Cheers! Not sure if the camo's everyone's cup of tea but thought I'd give him a chance of surviving after all this work!lol.
Ironic story: I only ever really tried two PC games as an adult, LOTR ROTK(?) and SW Battlefront 1. In the latter I chose to be a snowtrooper sniper, I was doing great until I got stepped on by a bloody AT-AT!!! FFS...

shovelchop81 wrote:Ironic story: I only ever really tried two PC games as an adult, LOTR ROTK(?) and SW Battlefront 1. In the latter I chose to be a snowtrooper sniper, I was doing great until I got stepped on by a bloody AT-AT!!! FFS...

Rebel sabotage, I'm sure.

GubernatorFan wrote:

shovelchop81 wrote:Ironic story: I only ever really tried two PC games as an adult, LOTR ROTK(?) and SW Battlefront 1. In the latter I chose to be a snowtrooper sniper, I was doing great until I got stepped on by a bloody AT-AT!!! FFS...

Rebel sabotage, I'm sure.

Nope, just Imperial incompetence or outright disregard for Troopers' lives I think, then again I was camouflaged!

Did some more weathering on the grey areas, added material covers to the panniers, returned the wires back to black (insert AC/DC video here) and gave him a fluffy white roll that could be a tent or bivouac etc.. Started on the communications array too, going to use some extra 1/4 scale parts as a spotting scope and camera combo to feed intel back to his commanders.







And weathering the panniers







Thrusters, flaps, controls too etc..





I'll add some ice and snow encrusted on that will hide a multitude of sins lol..











Scavenged joints from some Japanese model extra bits that are also great for greeblies!





This material came from a padded cap you use to wear under your steel helmets!















1/4 scale parts (head for size comparison only)





Tempted to use Han's binocks as they're white and more importantly I only have one of each of the others for the figures they belong to.



Might add some cube shaped containers/power modules to the speeder as he would need them for all the heating and support gear plus he's travelling quite far in terrible conditions so the speeder could use extra fuel too!

Very cool look, just like one might expect something painted white to rust and wear and tear. It bears saying again, it takes good skills and practice to make that look right.

wow, really excellent work! The weathering and details are simply outstanding!!! I have a lot of respect for your work!

I wish I had the skills and the patience to do somthing like this. Very cool custom project!

GubernatorFan wrote:Very cool look, just like one might expect something painted white to rust and wear and tear. It bears saying again, it takes good skills and practice to make that look right.

Darth_Hogge wrote:wow, really excellent work! The weathering and details are simply outstanding!!! I have a lot of respect for your work!

ZombieTestSubject wrote:I wish I had the skills and the patience to do somthing like this. Very cool custom project!

Thank you very much guys!! It's just a matter of patience (started to run out with this one tbh because typically I made things more complex for myself lol) and past experiments.

I think it's all done now (might still put those power/storage containers on though) I just need to work out how to attach everything!
Communications equipment built and weathered, did a bit more on the Trooper's weathering to and added some snow/ice I made from plaster powder, plastic shavings and PVA glue to the bike itself.









Old Action Man I think but does the job.











Weathering Is more graduated now





Snow materials







Applied and drying, PVA will be clear like ice holding snow hopefully, haven't done this in a while!lol.











Less on the engine parts for obvious reasons..





Super sharp knife!!

Great job on the communications device and very inventive application of snow. I should hope you know how to put everything together! But it does look completed.

Great to see all the updates. That looks awesome. Well done on the additions too.

GubernatorFan wrote:Great job on the communications device and very inventive application of snow. I should hope you know how to put everything together! But it does look completed.

cdn_rhino wrote:Great to see all the updates. That looks awesome. Well done on the additions too.

Thanks guys! I'm talking about loading up the speeder with all the extras, with motorcycles for example, you can't just throw things on willy-nilly, you have to keep heavy stuff low and each side in balance, the front and back suspension need to be in balance too or you'll lose traction and braking capacity, also get tank slapping that can lead to a loss of control. Riders get tired physically far faster than in a car etc.. so the last thing they want is to wear a backpack for long distances! So this is all about the new stuff I'm adding to the bike's loadout and not just putting the bike back together. There's also the fine art of 'bungee cord' application! Not sure if they have those in the SW universe .

Okay not putting the power pods on, too back heavy already, at least that's my excuse for now, maybe later, bored I want to move on with another project tbh. So all done (made a custom cargo strap), didn't take pics of him using his communication gear but it's not rocket science, he can wear the backpack safely even with his armour's speed hump due to the foam I added, the stand unspools and the camera/spotter scope connects onto the stand. The sniper rifle now clips onto the communications backpack for storage during riding or hiking from the speeder bike to the perfect hide to set up base. I plan to mount him and the speeder to the front of a shelf using rods after I've drilled some holes into my ESB display shelves so I won't be using the stands on this one.

The bike and rider are very cool and while I’m not up on SW universe, this is going to look so epic mounted on rods. Great work again!

Tanzenwolfe wrote:The bike and rider are very cool and while I’m not up on SW universe, this is going to look so epic mounted on rods.  Great work again!

Thank you very much TZW!! I can't remember where these guys appeared either!lol, they did make multiple toys of them though, must be video games.

Wow! Just WOW! That turned out really cool. Excellent work as always, Alex. Sorry I haven't been more active in this thread (you were right about my health). I'm just glad I finally got to see the end product.

Congratulations on another completed project. I love it, and I don't know why (since there was never any doubt), I think it looks even better than I expected. I think it would look best displayed against a dark gray background, but I know you're pressed for space and want to group it with the others.

Brilliant!