STAR WARS Original Trilogy AT-ST Driver (Imperial Army) custom / kitbash

This was long in coming, and although much of it could have been ready for a while now, things kept coming up and keeping me from completing it. I know many people thought the Mudtrooper from Solo the hottest thing since sliced bread, but from the moment I first saw it, I thought there's our chance of getting a high-end AT-ST Driver, which was really an overly-specific task-related description of the regular imperial army troopers (as opposed to stormtroopers, scout troopers, and naval guards). The Mudtrooper would be the same thing, but in partly specialized gear... I have kitbashed these before, using much-customized helmet pieces from Hot Toys and Sideshow snowtroopers, but those required a thorough repainting, and my feeble skills are no match for the excellence of Hot Toys' paint job. Although more weathered (or rather distressed), the Mudtrooper helmets were already the right shape and color. So I couldn't resist another kitbash, even though it involved another indecently expensive purchase on eBay.



The helmets are modified to fit (getting rid of the magnet and framing specific to the Solo Mudtrooper heads), and to look right (with the addition of a couple of metal greeblies, repainting the disks on both sides, and painting black the molding around the edges); the chin-strap is modified to look right (as on my custom "Death Star Trooper"); the belt is modified too (it is from Krennic); the boots are DID jackboots; the jumpsuit is from Sideshow's AT-AT Driver, with added imperial cog emblems at the shoulders; the gloves are from Sideshow's TIE-Fighter Pilot.



While the helmet is very close in appearance to the Return of the Jedi original, it should be noted that as with other recent reprises of the Star Wars universe, it is not an exact replica. The molding, for example, is actually a new feature, whereas in the original the black coloring (tape?) simply overlay the rest of the helmet's sculpt. The Mudtrooper helmet also lacked two of the original's metal greeblies (the antenna? on the right side of the head and the bar on the back), and its communication? unit (on the right side of the head) is actually a little different in its details than the original.



The goggles took me a long time to find, as most were the wrong size or shape.



I painted them black with acrylics from the inside, allowing the exterior to remain nice and shiny, and the color to look even.



So back to Endor, where troopers Hank and Dean have made a frisky new friend.



Whom they promptly shared with the rest of the guys.



A sudden noise startled them all, allowing the creature to escape the friendly tickling, while everyone started yelling and aiming blindly into the forest.



It took them a few moments to realize that the culprit was just naval trooper Kavil, whose unexpected arrival had gone undetected. Rumor has it he has his hands full with a certain very exalted lady up in the Death Star. Ever the gentleman, he would not confirm it.



While we're at it, a simple change of headgear (using Sideshow officer caps), gloves, a belt, and the addition of some pocket cylinders and one screen-accurate communication pad, would transform our army troopers into a Death Star "scanning" crew technician (Left, with the black cap) and a Star Destroyer naval crew technician (Right, with the olive cap).



Looks like someone's still looking for the keys...



What do you think?

#starwars #custom #kitbash #atst #driver #fiction #scifi #male #military

I like them, my favourite part are the goggles and how you just painted the inside to keep the shine, clever. You had to scavenge and modify quite some ( not always cheap ) equipment.

Can't quite place the heads (which is good for 'Normie' characters), the first one looks like Mark Damon/Matt Wahlberg/Mark Whatneyburg, the other like Cruise.

It's good that you made two of them, they make more sense in a pair of anonymous looking totalitarian goggled guys.

They look great. And their faces really lend themselves to awesome and mostly funny story-telling, which you've been known to make good use of! Thank you!  

Ovy wrote:I like them, my favourite part are the goggles and how you just painted the inside to keep the shine, clever. You had to scavenge and modify quite some ( not always cheap ) equipment.

Can't quite place the heads (which is good for 'Normie' characters), the first one looks like Mark Damon/Matt Wahlberg/Mark Whatneyburg, the other like Cruise.

It's good that you made two of them, they make more sense in a pair of anonymous looking totalitarian goggled guys.

Thank you, glad you liked them. Yeah, I was pretty proud of the goggles in the end, after a couple of false starts and less-than-satisfactory experiments. They are pretty eclectic in the end. The heads are actually (I think) Matt Damon (Soldier Story -- either FBI HRT or CIRG) and Christian Bale (Easy & Simple -- SMU Rescue Team Halo A). "Hank" and "Dean" are references to the Venture Bros, because the Damon (?) head sculpt reminded me a little of Hank Venture, and the Bale one of Dean Venture, especially if you are thinking of them as a pair.

Well, they are troopers, so you ought to be able to have multiples of them, and two is the minimum of that; besides, they drove their machinery in pairs. There is/will be a third one, but with different clothing, extra armor and greeblies, their commander (like Veers in the AT-AT in Empire Strikes Back), just as soon as I finish the third helmet. I had kitbashed him before too, but this is a better helmet, so I can't resist.

AerynDiana wrote:They look great. And their faces really lend themselves to awesome and mostly funny story-telling, which you've been known to make good use of! Thank you!  

Thank you very much! I wasn't much in the mood for a full-blown story, but glad you liked the bare outline I did do -- it makes some sense to me when setting up photos to show off figures, articulation, comparisons, etc, to have some semi-sensible sequence in mind -- or to make up one after the fact.

Well, I asked in the other thread how you did this, and now I have the answers. Nice job, Guv. They both look good.

These look excellent! The outfits are great, and the headsculpts add that perfect touch of 'character'. I didn't immediately place them, which is a good thing. Even knowing 'who' they are doesn't change that. So, good choices, there.

And I like that quick costume /scene change at the end. It's great that you were able to make them versatile like that!

Stryker2011 wrote:Well, I asked in the other thread how you did this, and now I have the answers. Nice job, Guv. They both look good.

Thank you very much! Glad you like them. And that I was able to provide pretty full answers this time. Just don't ask which goggles these are! At this point, I'm pretty confused.

skywalkersaga wrote:These look excellent! The outfits are great, and the headsculpts add that perfect touch of 'character'. I didn't immediately place them, which is a good thing. Even knowing 'who' they are doesn't change that. So, good choices, there.

And I like that quick costume /scene change at the end. It's great that you were able to make them versatile like that!

Thank you very much! I'm glad you like them and the choice of heads. See, known actors can still look the part. Yes, a certain amount of interchangeability is possible and welcome, thanks to continuity/economy on the part of Lucasfilm. I just wish I had enough parts and costumes to have all the characters displayed simultaneously. But they are both relatively rare and expensive, as you know.

I think they're absolutely great. The original trilogy stuff gets to me much more than any of the flashier streamlined new stuff and this is no exception. Moveover mudtroopers! And despite their relatively simple look, it looks like you had to modify a lot. I wish these were made in quantity and for sale. And I, for one, caught that Hank and Dean reference. Well done and nice presentation too.

ZombieTestSubject wrote:I think they're absolutely great. The original trilogy stuff gets to me much more than any of the flashier streamlined new stuff and this is no exception. Moveover mudtroopers! And despite their relatively simple look, it looks like you had to modify a lot. I wish these were made in quantity and for sale. And I, for one, caught that Hank and Dean reference. Well done and nice presentation too.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you agree and that you caught the Venture Bros reference. But, yes, there was plenty to modify, in fact every piece except the boots and gloved hands. Technically speaking, these boots should have been the shorter jackboots, but I only had one pair of those from DID and they were in danger of falling apart (from older set? poorer quality?). I have some Sideshow molded ones that are about right (from the TIE-Fighter Pilot, like the gloved hands), but then I would have sacrificed ankle articulation, which I didn't want to do here.

Good old Hank and Dean, they should really wash their hands after touching those ewoks, god knows what sort of diseases they might carry. These guys look sharp in those uniforms, it's really cool how a cap changes their specialization, really shows off the empires standardization.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Good old Hank and Dean, they should really wash their hands after touching those ewoks, god knows what sort of diseases they might carry. These guys look sharp in those uniforms, it's really cool how a cap changes their specialization, really shows off the empires standardization.

Yep, that's why they wore gloves! Now we know... Thank you, I'm pretty happy with them too. And, like you, thankful that so much of the imperial (and not only imperial) costumes in Star Wars overlap/reuse the same type of equipment/garment (whether for continuity or economy or both).