Dearth, do you think you could make some star wars dioramas? From the tantive 5 hallways, and lukes grage?
Scaled to the Muppets? Or just scaled to regular Star Wars figures?
I have a huge Star Wars collection and have done a few simple dioramas. For some reason, I've never tackled the Tantive IV. Which is kinda surprising...
You see, the guy who gave that name ("Tantive IV") to Princess Leia's Rebel Blockade Runner was author Brian Daley, when he adapted the films into excellent Radio Dramas. I love how widespread the term has become in recent years.
I am fortunate enough to call Brian Daley a mentor. We never met in person, but we exchanged many phone calls and letters in the last few months of his life, and in fact I conducted the final interview he ever gave, published in a friend's fanzine back in the early 90's. Sadly, just a couple of months later, I was also writing a eulogy to him in those same pages.
It was a tremendous loss to me personally. A few years later, my oldest son was born eleven days earlier than predicted, coming unexpectedly on Brian's birthday, and as a result he had the name 'Daley' added to the names we'd already selected. (I'd previously considered Daley as his first name, but decided it sounded better as a girl's name, and thought to keep it in reserve in case I ever had a little girl. Good thing I used it when I did, as to this day I only have sons.)
The third play that I ever directed, about eight years ago, was dedicated to Brian. I cast myself as one character who gets word via a letter that his mentor has died, because I'd actually lived that experience and knew exactly what I wanted it to look like... so in performance the prop letter that I took from the envelope every night was in actuality a photocopy of a letter Brian's widow sent me after he died. No acting required.
Then about four years ago, I was going through a life change. Someone asked what did I plan to do with my life now, and I listed two things I desired, one of which was, "I'd like to get back into my writing." I distinctly recall wishing silently to myself that I still had a mentor like Brian, to give me guidance and encouragement.
Coincidentally, on behalf of a friend's website, I had sent an email to Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet asking for clarification about a detail in one of his upcoming books. His response floored me... "Alex Newborn! I certainly remember your name, from your wonderful eulogy to Brian Daley in the old Star Wars Collector! You should be writing for the Insider!"
So, thanks to my literary guardian angel Brian Daley, and to Steve Sansweet for making that connection, I had my first real professional writing assignment. A second followed, but the first (a seventeen-page history of the original Star Tours attraction) is pretty hard to top. You can see why, despite the fact he's been gone for fifteen years, I still tend to refer to him in the present tense.
Anyway, excuse the tangent. Back to the dios... for my shelf of Rebel Fleet Troopers aboard the Tantive IV, I just used the packaging inserts from some action figure multi-packs, basically they're just shots of the corridor set from the movie.
But I have seen some fantastic Tantive dios made, and I still hope some enterprising customizer will make the whole thing out of wood and then vacuform some wall sections as kits. No such luck yet.
Prowl around over there at the Rebelscum threads in the diorama section. One guy even did one scaled to 12" dolls, and it was amazing.
As for Luke's garage, I've never attempted that one either, aside from drawing the scene with a blue ballpoint pen on the inside of a shoebox when I was, oh, around ten years old or so.
An old buddy of mine who calls himself Sillof made a pretty good one, though. I got to see it in person when it was on display at one of the Star Wars Celebrations in Indianapolis. Either in 2002 or 2005. He's on the Rebelscum threads too, or you might want to check out his website, Sillof.com
Sillof's Luke's garage dio:
http://sillof.com/images/Dioramas/D_garage2.jpg
Browse around the whole site, he's also got part of the Tantive IV in there, at least the bridge where Vader strangles Antilles, and the escape pod areas.
He's totally self-taught, very talented and an all-around great guy... even if he did marry into a crazy family.
(Little joke there... his wife is the first cousin of my ex-wife.)
Alex
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