0
I was first in line in front of the Copenhagen LEGO store. Impatiently counting the seconds until the store doors opened and I finally could get my dirty hands on the 10221. In my mind I went through the more than 800 bricks I had bought on BrickLink in the days before. Epic as I knew the official Super Star Destroyer was, I knew it had it faults - and that it needed tweaking. I had spent the preceding months looking at SSD MOCs and the actual model used in the films, deciding what issues to address and where I simply could be a bit creative…
BAM!! Finally, the store doors opened and an entire mob of crazy LEGO nuts crashed through the gates in a tsunami of expectations and glee… Ahem… Well… Actually it was only me and two of my friends - they couldn’t quite muster my level of enthusiasm… But in any case, that was how I felt ;)
Quickly, I flung out my VIP card, told the clerk my reservation number and demanded getting the set in the shipping box. The friendly clerk smiled at me, shook her head and then went into the store room.
It was mine! Finally! Now I just had to go the 50 meters back to the office and wait (work?!) for 9-10 hours until I could go home and get bricking…
Fast forward to the weekend...
This thing took up the entire dining table...
So here are a few pics of the unmodified model - for comparison:
This angle shows off the nasty gab between top and bottom of the model and the strange holes next to the engine that leads nowhere
Another engine angle
Directly from behind - flat bottom all the way baby!
The "city"
On to the mod. The first thing on the agenda was the mini ISD - making it look better and fixing its scale. I really appreciate LEGO making scale models, but they never seem to bother to actually make them to, erm, scale...
The modded mini ISD: I have exchanged the 6x3 wedges with 8x3 ones and added a few extra bricks to get the right angles and to underline the top superstructure. I also changed some of the bottom wedges, to be more in line with the new 13 stud size. I rather liked the design ideas behind the existing mini model, but it seemed it was simply not completed and the scale was 2 studs off. At 13 studs in length the modded mini ISD as close to scale as you can get.
On to the top "city". Even though the "official" greeble was actually quite simple, I like that it retained the modular city design from the reference model. However, I still thought it neede just a bit more "omph" so I added close to 100 bricks on the top - using a few more types of bricks to make the scale more plausible, while trying not to go overboard:
It is probably difficult to discern in this picture, but there is a substantial amount of detail added to the "city"
Closer view. I like levers, binoculars and taps, but I have also added more of the existing greeble bricks.
Closer still
One of the main complaints about the 10221 is its bottom. Compared to how it is filmed in the movies the bottom on the 10221 seems waaay too flat. However if you look at the film model itself (there is a link at the very end - but dont go there just yet
) you'll see that, while not completely flat, its bottom angle is very shallow. Still, I wanted to lower the entire bottom at the end of the model a bit - also to make more room for detailing the engine space. My solution is admittedly not the most elegant (stepped plate on a four foot model! - perhaps some day when I'm old and grey...), but at least the bottom isn't completely flat and the engine section has the appropriate amount of "vertical space":
At least it is not completely flat anymore. I have also exchanged the SNOT panels detailing down sides, with gear bricks. Dont know why LEGO choose to use SNOT here - I stole the gear idea from Anio's MOC
But enough excuses! On to my favorite part - THE ENGINES!
If you have seen my ISD mod, you know I like engine detailing and greebling ( see it here )
As seen above, the engines had a little bit of detailing - at least compared to the ISD (UCS) which had none
. Perhaps the designer thought that when a stud is supposed to be more than 120 meters in real life, making intricate detailing could throw the scale off? - that was at least my concern when I began 
I knew I couldn't do too much piping - like a had done on the ISD, because that would quickly make the model look smaller with too many recognizable "moving" parts - it is supposed to look 19.000 meters long! 
. Thus, I opted to give the engine section more "texture" where there were "clean" plates, and fill the strange holes and gaps with interesting looking greeble:
More engine deatils
. I have also closed the gap between the top plates and the engine housing with greeble. The gap between the entire right and left top plate section has also been closed - even though it is hard to see in this picture.
There is no longer a black hole under wing, but instead some detailing way back in there :)
Close up - I like wrenches :)
Here is is evident that I have lowered the entire bottom a bit - and filled the (expanded) gap with greble
I have a ton of more pictures, but I think there should be enough for now
Let me hear your thoughts!
One more thing! Before Fallenangel beats me in the head with it, here is the link to the real model used in the films
Film Model
And click here for pictures of me in the LEGO store (can’t imagine why anyone would actually click here… unless you like ugly hairdos
)Morten at the Copenhagen LEGO Store
Edited by mortesv, 05 January 2012 - 11:37 PM.
The relative lack of greeble in that area was my initial gripe about this set, especially since the original 282cm miniature trounces any other model in kitbashed detail. With all the small parts on both models it's nearly impossible for all the bits to match up, but your mod more than looks the part. 
