I took a break from my regular job at Croc Games today to slap some paint on 2 old landspeeder conversions that have been sitting around unfinished for a long time. They are the Rodian Runabout and the customized Flash Speeder.
I've posted the Rodian Runabout before, detailing how it was built. I wasn't happy with the paint job on it, it was too dull and really did not bring out the best of the actual conversion, but I had spent so long on the darned thing that I had to put it away for a while for the sake of my sanity! Well, it's been many months, so I came to the model today with a fresh outlook, and gave it a fresh coat of paint. I stuck with a simple color-scheme inspired a bit by Greedo's costume in Star Wars (this is supposed to be his landspeeder.) I also used a couple decals from an old japanese robot model for the hood and sides of the speeder, and then weathered the whole thing with Doc O'briens 'Gritty Yellow' weathering powder. The standing Greedo miniature is from WotC's Star Wars range, and the seated Greedo in the landspeeder was a simple conversion using the head of one of the cheap 'common' Rodian miniatures. A little putty and paint, and done!
Here are some more pictures:
The custom Flash Speeder is a conversion on the Flash Speeder toy from the Galoob Star Wars "Action Fleet" Micromachine range. It is basically the same thing as the WotC Flash Speeder, but it is a tiny bit larger and has much better detailing -- and, it is made of hard plastic, better for conversions. I wanted the speeder to look faster and a little more aerodynamic, so I cut the big awkward square engines off the sides and replaced them with 2 round turbine-style engines I made from some parts from my bits box. The original toy had a cannon mounted on the back, and I removed this and cut the top off of the 'roll bar', then extended each side up about 1/3 of an inch higher, to make it look a bit like the tail fins of a jet-fighter (specifically the awesome F-22 Raptor.) I added a bit of rolled up fabric to represent the convertible top being down. Last, it was mounted on a base taken from a WotC Flash Speeder. Construction complete, it got a simple paint job and some further weathering to finish.
That's it for now! Enjoy the pics!
--Fitz
