[M4-23 - Minifigure Habitat] - Dark Trooper Maintenance Bay

[de_rumble]

Hi, all. This is my submission for the Minifigure Habitat section.

The build is a 16x16x16 section of one of the numerous Dark Trooper maintenance bays in General Rom Mohc's Arc Hammer, the ship featured in the beloved 1995 DOS game Dark Forces.

I built it to take place directly after the Empire's victory on Tak Base, with a Phase 2 Dark Trooper undergoing a maintenance session by an Imperial Technician and a Gonk droid, while General Rom Mohc is giving Darth Vader a tour of the facility aboard the Arc Hammer. He's currently in the middle of explaining that while the Phase 2's are extremely combat capable as proven on Talay, they are a maintenance nightmare to work on, which further funding from the Emperor will help mitigate in between the development of the Phase 3 Dark Trooper.

The set has multiple play features, with the housing for the upper torso of the Trooper being able to swivel, along with the spot welder's articulation to ensure the Trooper's combat readiness. It also has a clip for the tool used by the technicians to run diagnostics on the Troopers.

The blast door is closely modeled to attempt to match the blast doors on the Arc Hammer featured in the game. It also slides up and down and has little pegs that can move in and out to lock the door in either place, up or
down.
 

 

Right below the balcony, there is a hub where technicians can work on the Trooper's various equipment. From left to right, there is a station where the Trooper's jetpack is housed for refueling. This trooper must have spent most of its time on the ground, and it's only half empty. To its right is an emergency fire extinguisher, in case anything (most likely) sets aflame. General Mohc probably should have invested more in a work-safe environment rather than a high-speed conveyor belt system spanning almost the entirety of his ship (if you played the final level you know what I mean). Finally is the table where the Trooper's overpowered Plasma Cannon lays, where a screwdriver and spare Plasma cells lie in wait. 

 

Here is the complete minifigure lineup used in the build:

From left to right we have:

The assembled Phase 2 Dark Trooper, the Gonk droid, the Imperial Technician (ingame he's apparently the Imperial Commando, but he always looked more like a techie to me), Darth Vader, and General Rom Mohc. For the General, I used Tarkin's face and body, as I couldn't quite find anything else as fitting. If Lego ever made a Winston Churchill figure, I would certainly use the head. The torso mostly fits, as Lego hasn't made a General ranking print for Imperial officer torsos, and I figured giving him Tarkin's was a compromise. It was that or a Captain's, and I didn't want to piss off the General .

 

I want to spend just a bit more time on the assembled Dark Trooper design, as it's probably the thing I spend the most time on. Here's a closeup of the front and back. The arms are articulated from the shoulder, giving a nice range of motion, the wrists can turn, and the legs and feet can also move. The torso can also swivel around quite nicely. I got the jetpack design from the Dark Trooper from Battlefront II (the good one), and the short comic Sand Blasted. And I also want to mention that Studio didn't have the helmet I wanted to use, so I just colored a shadow trooper's helmet dark grey and moved on. Pictured is the one I wanted to use, and for all intents and purposes what the rendered helmet should be.

To wrap things up, here are some fun alternate scenes you can do with the build.

Here's the technician working on the blaster. Let's hope he doesn't shoot his eye out.

 

Here's the Gonk droid lazily waltzing in. The technician must wish someone higher up would hurry and upgrade the class of power droids on the ship to literally anything else.
 

 

During the standard procedure for reassembling the Dark Trooper, it looks like something went wrong. Very wrong. Whatever it was, it was probably the Gonk's fault.

 

And that should just about cover it. While I've probably included way too many photos, if the judges or anybody want a different angle of the model feel free to ask. And just to note, not sure if it matters but what I'm entering is the scene from the first 3 photos shown: the alternate scenes are just for fun, and just an example of the other things you can do with the set.

If anyone wants the studio file for the build, also feel free to ask.

This is my first ever proper MOC, and I wouldn't have entered it without help from my friend thebrickshipyard. Thanks, buddy!

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by de_rumble

[MKJoshA]

Love your brick-built Dark Trooper! Great Dark Forces MOC.

[Brickshipyard]

I am honored to have motivated you buddy! You have created a cool and unique entry. Who doesn't love them some Dark Forces? ;) Best of luck in the contest.

[de_rumble]

Thanks, guys! 

[SATSOK]

Great build !!!

[Jody Meyer]

this is either studio or blender rendering...the build is clean, great figures, wished you had two versions of the dark trooper. I know how long this sort of things take with doing it digital. excellent.