Jabba The Hutt Diorama (The Viewing Frame WIP)

Stryker2011 wrote:Interesting idea about the 3D, but I think I’m going to stick to 2D since that is what it was in the movie. I wonder if that liquid mask would take the paint that’s already on off... I might have to give that a try on a test piece first.

The heads, etc. are by Cagoda over at the Freaks. There’s also a guy on Shapeways that does SW alien heads and hands (a few of the aliens most prominent in the sail barge/skiff scene) that some guys are getting, but I haven’t gotten any of those.

Cheers for the names! Got most of the Cantina patrons and Jabba guards, pilots etc.. did I ever show you those? Might help with your figure builds for the Jabba dio. Liquid mask is designed for use with water colours originally so won't tear paper if you carefully peel it away, I've used it to make 'chocolate chip' camo years ago on a scratch built Iron Man 2 Artillery Drone I made.

Nope, I don’t think I ever saw your Jabba palace figures or Cantina figures. I’d love to see them. There are a couple customizers over at the Freaks who’ve been making some of both, there’s even a guy who’s been making Rogue One and Solo background aliens — neat stuff. I recently acquired a custom made Gamorrean Guard (from Son of Dengar) that’s poseable — the body’s already painted, but I have to paint all the other parts; it’s not perfect, but it is kind of cool. He’s also working on a Hermi Odle figure, but he’s a bit too big for my dio.


I’ve been researching liquid mask since you brought it up, and I’ve found varying reviews when it comes to +/- results — paper tearing, paint lifting up. I found info from a now defunct site that mentioned using over the top of acrylic (what I’m using) works ok, but you have to be very timely with the stuff. I’m a little concerned with the uneven texture of the vinyl wallpaper that trying to not only get areas covered sufficiently, but the difficulty in getting it all off when finished. I might just have to draw the design on and dry brush the dark areas as best as possible — if it comes out too dark, oh well. I’ll just pretend Jabba’s interior decorators came by to spruce the place up!

If you can knock up some sort of stencil using pictures of the design printed to the right scale for your arch it could be the way to go or free-hand it with pencil then use light colours first, let them dry and then see if it needs to be darker. Sorry not a lot of use without it in front of me but then again there are only so many ways you can do it really. Have you tried googling ROTJ stencil patterns? You never know what you might find! LOL.

That last picture above of the Hasbro arch (the closeup detail) is actually at the size I need (gives a 3” border), but I’ll search for SW stencils and see what I get. I do think making a stencil to at least draw the pattern on would be the way to go, and a lot less time consuming for that part; I was even thinking of making the shapes smaller so I could dry brush “outside the lines” to see if I can’t get the edges to look softer.

You can always print on different materials to get the effect you want right away then just attach that to the arch as a complete section, ink blotting paper might work well looking like plaster or that rough recycled paper etc.. fabrics can be printed on too, I've done that a lot in the past for 1/6 projects.

AHA! Googled myself for finding pics and found the perfect thread page to show you all the things I've talked about with you on this thread technique wise! Just scroll down for: EL-panels (under my Titanium Man's chest armour AND HELMET, he's all lit up in green EL-Wire), liquid mask used on the desert camo on the Drone for each colour so removed from various paint layers safely, My large Iron Man Dio I had forgotten I'd made (plenty of pics of that), also my scratch built Mandarin figure (way before HT did theirs, I made everything myself even the furniture) for plenty of examples of custom printed fabric I did just using a regular ink printer on silk and cotton printable 'sheets'. You'll need to scroll down a bit before they start but they go on all the way down the page. Saved me loads of work finding this link!

Link to loads of examples of my techniques in 1/6

Will do. Thanks for the link.

Shovelchop, I too would love to see more of your Jabba-related figures. Interesting suggestions for how to approach the arch decorative pattern, although I suspect they are often more advanced than most of us are ready to play with. The liquid mask idea sounds brilliant, but it not only needs to work as intended, it also would work best with a sort of stencil that would have cut out the parts that one shouldn't paint dark. And if you're going to have that stencil and cut out those cut outs, you could just use the cut outs to protect the underlying surface (supposing that you can attach them securely yet keep them removable).

Stryker, I'm very excited about your additional characters. Depending on what is available and how far you're willing to go, I have a couple of additional suggestions. You already have or are getting Jabba and Crumb, and Bib, slave Leia, Jedi Luke, Gamorrean Guard, Squidhead, ReeYees, and Amanaman, all of whom are iconic. There are two other alien types that were also very frequent in Jabba's palace -- there were multiples of each. These are now described as two subspecies of Niktos. Originally one subtype was called Klaatu (which has subsequently been reduced to the given name of one of the characters, the other being renamed Wooof; now the subtype is called Green Nikto; and in a remarkably infelicitous development even by Star Wars standards, the very similar-sounding "Klatooinian" has been applied to a species previously called Barada); the other Nikto (now called Red Nikto). You can see the former Klaatu (Green Nikto, Wooof) in the iconic photo below at far right, and a (Red) Nikto in the background on the left (above and between two Gamorrean guards' heads). If you were able to assemble these, you would have an even more fully representative set of Jabba's palace denizens; I do realize that the photo, however iconic, shows a scene that would be looking inward into your diorama, so you would not be likely to try to recreate that for display purposes. Just thinking out loud and excited for your project. Of course, where does one stop? The same photo also shows one of Greedo's "cousins," and also a "starfish" or "birdlizard" alien later called Ishi Tib.

Yep. Nikto, Weequay and Barada are the ones that I can remember that are available as head and hands from Shapeways. The cost for unpainted heads isn’t cheap, and the hands are generally separate purchases.

I didn't think they would be cheap. Anyway, it is definitely up to you and what you like and are willing to spend -- obviously. We don't see much of Weequay and Barada in the "audience chamber," so if you "had" to choose between them, Nikto would be a more desirable choice.

I like the Nikto and Weequay, and I’d like to get them at some point. The Barada, however, looks like a lame bulldog, so I don’t really have an interest in him.

Stryker2011 wrote:I like the Nikto and Weequay, and I’d like to get them at some point. The Barada, however, looks like a lame bulldog, so I don’t really have an interest in him.

I agree completely with you, although for completeness I would get them all -- but luckily for me, when it comes to Jabba's court I'm sticking to the "classic" scale of 3.75 inches. There were at least two different Baradas as skiff guards, but even more Weequays and several Niktos of both kinds.

Yeah, the smaller scale not only gives you more characters, but also infinitely cheaper. Whenever I see the small dios built for a them, and all the figures that have been made just in general, it’s kind of a bummer that the only route for 1/6 is really expensive customs.

Been working on drawing up some templates to use to put the arch design down. Decided to go with colored pencil to draw it on, then dry brush the negative spaces. Also decided to go with a combination of things: the center of the arch is using the Hasbro/McQuarrie design element, and the rest is using the roundest section of the Black Series arch design I could find. On the screen arch, they flipped each of the "circle" parts to add a different design touch, which is what I plan to do. The template will basically be flipped over and over as I draw it onto the arch. The center design will only be present in the one part. I plan to cut the negative spaces outside the lines that are currently present, that way I can dry brush over the pencil marks (hopefully hiding them) and make the edges of the design "blurry" to help give the illusion of fading. (To get the designs, I had to Photoshop smaller sections, blow them up to the appropriate height, print them out, trace the design onto separate pieces of paper, and then use carbon paper to lay it out onto tagboard.)


The template in progress, the upper right piece with the parallel lines is what I'm talking about as far as cutting outside the lines. The dark lines are the actual design, the lighter lines are where I would cut the template.




The finished drawing of the template:




The line running up and down indicates where the template would have to be flipped to start the opposite side of the arch, each circle will be a mirror of the one preceding it:

that looks really good and with dry brushing will work out just fine.

Looks very promising, can't wait to see it applied. Fingers crossed.

Well, I have the design drawn on the main arch, I started out trying to use a brown colored pencil, but honestly, my old eyes can barely see the marks, so I had to switch to a regular pencil. If it turns out the edges are sharper than I would have liked, oh well.

In the first pic the colored pencil marks are on the left, regular pencil on the right:

These are looking quite good, and I think they will serve you well as guides for the paint application.

Well, here it is. I did, indeed, have to make it a bit darker than I wanted since the pencil marks were pretty obvious. Hopefully under subdued lighting they won't be as noticeable as they are up close.

Looks quite good actually -- in fact arguably a tad too neat, like the Hasbro decor. But I think it will be fine under the more subdued lighting. If you wanted to weather/fade it, you could always give your "facade" a bit more of the lighter color coat (it doesn't even need to match the current one completely) with some very dry brushing or perhaps very wet light thin application followed by a quick gentle wipe. This could fade and roughen up the design and get you closer to the screen look. But it is your diorama and whatever you prefer.

GubernatorFan wrote:Looks quite good actually -- in fact arguably a tad too neat, like the Hasbro decor. But I think it will be fine under the more subdued lighting. If you wanted to weather/fade it, you could always give your "facade" a bit more of the lighter color coat (it doesn't even need to match the current one completely) with some very dry brushing or perhaps very wet light thin application followed by a quick gentle wipe. This could fade and roughen up the design and get you closer to the screen look. But it is your diorama and whatever you prefer.

I was just about to post the exact same suggestion, lol.

Yep, that’s a good suggestion. I’ll try that and see what happens.

Great job getting the pattern on there! If you want to weather/blend it in a bit you could delicately and faintly drybrush over the pattern with the same colour as the background, just an idea. Actually dry sponging it would work better.

Thanks for the tip, Alex. I'll have to experiment a little.

Stryker2011 wrote:Thanks for the tip, Alex. I'll have to experiment a little.

That's how I learn, always experimenting, stops it getting boring too!