Endor Shield Generator [MOC]

[BalrogJ]

Hello everyone.

This is one of my first attempts at MOC'ing and I decided to go for the Endor Shield Generator, a design I always loved since my childhood.

There are several versions of the same design depending on the artwork, concept art or actual movie design, and I took inspiration from a bit of everything until I got a result that satisfied me. :)

This was my main inspiration for the actual "body" of the shield generator.

And the result :

Obviously it's not to scale with the bunker, but I have my Battle of Endor set included in a diorama with a limited space so I had to choose a smaller scale. My main intent was not to portray the building in its true size but to create something with the same design and keep its "spirit" to represent this pivotal scene in the movie and one of the epic moments of the trilogy.

Another difference with the original design is that the secondary smaller dishes around the main dish are not normally "outside" the main dish, but I made a few attempts and finally decided to go ahead and have them outside because I felt it gave the whole antenna a more threatening aspect, probably because it looks more arachnean that way.

As you can see, the whole thing is simply "grafted" ontop of the existing bunker from Battle of Endor, simply using a few plates and a pillar of bricks underneath for support. The main structure of the shield generator is able to rotate 360 degrees by using a rotating part 4x4 under the large octogonal plate. The "dish" part of the generator cannot currently be angled differently on its own, but it can be done by simply replacing the current 35% angle connector with another angle (45% for instance).

This isn't really the final version of the project, I threw it onto the rendering software as an attempt and figured I'd get some opinions from this community. I ordered the bricks required on Bricklink and will make this project a reality in a few weeks time hopefully. I'll make sure to post more pictures of the real thing when it's done.

Edited September 4, 2014 by BalrogJ

[arc]

Looks great! Wish the official set had something like this.

[Robianco]

I really like this... I think the scale is actually pretty good to sit alongside the bunker.

If I ever get a room to display all my stuff then I'd like something like this to expand the 8038 set into the Ewok Village.

[Zerobricks]

Not bad! What I really like are the blast doors!

[mechamike]

Nice, not that often You see this built and I like stuff thats SW and not a ship for a change.... however I think it's a little to bit to small disc of the antenna compared to the center structure inside the disc and the smaller discs placement now gets outside the disc and not on the rim..

[BalrogJ]

Thanks for all the comments!

@mechamike : Yes, I'm also surprised by the lack of this build in the MOC community but maybe it's because it's not very challenging or spectacular? I am thinking of changing the central part of the main dish to look thinner and more pointy than the inverted 2x1x3 slopes so that should help with this issue. As for the secondary dishes located outside the main one, that's on purpose (for now) but I also ordered bricks that should allow me to put them on the inside perimeter of the dish if I want to (I'll be using claws instead of those bricks to connect the 8 secondary dishes).

I'll post more pictures to show what I mean when I've received all those bricks!

[BJM]

You have inspired me. The bunker really needs a roof anyway, but actually, I think the bunker should be wider too - I have planned for a while to get a second bunker and combine them, so that this all sits better with the ewok village. Great job and looking forward to your final effort.

[BalrogJ]

Hello everyone.

Just an update with the "real" version of my project previewed earlier on the page, made with the bricks I ordered and finally received.

Let me know what you think!

[Manx]

Awesome, great work with background, also.

[arc]

Looking good! Especially like the scene you've set up around it.

[MontyPython]

Nice scene!