BigEl

UCS Snowspeeder? Are you certain? That would be too good to be true

The MOD has been finished, more detailed pictures further in the thread! _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Hello Folks, with my return to Lego Star Wars after 13 years there were some sets/models that I just had to get. One of them was the extremely famous and iconic AT-AT Walker, his menacing design and appearance in Empire Strikes Back can be considered nothing less than legendary. Since Lego never did an UCS Version of the 4 legged Behemoth and the earlier versions of the Lego AT-AT sell for pretty high prices, the decision what lego model to choose was fairly easy and led to the newest one from 2014. Now, I have to say that overall I am really impressed with what Lego did with new AT-AT. Despite the typical gaps and the visible technic frames, the main body and legs are great with fairly accurates shapes and angles. However the greatest weakness for me (and probably a lot of other people) is the head. A shame since its such an important feature in terms of the specific look and feel to the walker. The moment I finished the AT-AT I was instantly disappointed by the look of its head. The proportions were far off, the angles to steep, the gaps between the plates too high. And on top of that the cockpit was a letdown since it couldnt hold 2 AT-AT Pilots as well as General Veers in the background. So even while I can only consider myself as a completely unexperienced amateur in MOC and MODs, I just knew that I had to modify the walker or I would never enjoy looking at it. Luckily there are already some great MODs and ideas for the very model to learn from. Especially the fully tiled up MOD from Maus proved to be quite inspirational as to what can be done and what is possible. So, without further due, here are the first steps of my very first modification. PART 1: The Head Note that for now I have a very low amount of spare parts, meaning i couldnt finish and close up the head with the changed build and had to use a lot place holder parts in terms of color and form. The first step was to create space inside the cockpit without completely changing the construction layout and the connection to the main body. Good thing that it was already possible to use the set parts to shorten the technic brick length inside the cockpit from 6 to 4. The final build holds the main cockpit safely with 1 x 2 studs from the top as well the bottom with an inverted 1 x 4 slope piece originally part of the side plates. This would finally provide barely enough space for the 3 minifigures to be placed correctly as well as mainting space for consoles and control sticks. Next up was the most tricky step, getting the proportions and the angles right for the 4 plates of the head (Front, Sides, Top). Even though it is still far off of movie accuracy, I am really satisfied with how the first try turned out to look. The gaps are a lot smaller and the angles are a lot less steep, meaning that the side cannons now barely face in towards each other. The front plate got 2 studs wider and 1 stud higher, and the difference compared to the original is already huge in my opinion. With the whole head bigger now I also had to reinforce the side plates now. The additional layer of plates/wedges unfortunately leads to a bit of a blocky look, but on the other hand there are barely any gaps left. The top plate was barely changed for now since I still lack the necessary parts to close up the head on the back end. All in all I think that it already looks a lot better than the original and its funny since its not that much more parts that are required to pull it off. As soon as my bricklink orders will arrive I will be able to go to the next step which is to finish the shape of the head, recolorize it, closing it up from the back and finish the new cockpit interior. After that I will go towards the next sections of the walker, first the legs and then the main body. I would be happy for any kind of feedback or suggestions from you guys

This was the only set that really caught my eye for the second wave since its an interesting design and the only real big vehicle. Without being able to compare to the real thing, it already looks very well done. It reminds me of a B-Wing without its horizontal wings. The back side of it looks great and the cockpit loking mechanism is a nice addition. The only complaint I can find for now is that it seems to rely heavily on its numerous stickers... (central front, cockpit and the back) EDIT: btw, is the canopy actually printed?

:thumbup: Bravo Sir, thats what I call passion!

You are probably right, since Luke and Vader already have the Final Duel Set and Lego doesnt want to repeat certain themes too heavy. Still a shame in my books, since I actually think that the Bespin Duel would deserve a Set (Maybe the end with the legendary line of vader), it is even more memorable to me than the Final Duel. I would also love a new version of Bespin Luke with his lightsaber, but the only way now that the scene will ever have a chance of being realized would probably be as a part of a new Cloud City and we all know how high the chances are for that right?

Must have been quite an expensive present you did there for yourself Still, I envy you.

That makes no sense at all. The AT-AT is from last year and came together along with the snowspeeder. In the lego video we see exactly 3 AT-ATs that are 100% identical with the 2014 model. Why would they ever put up a new smaller AT-AT one year after the last ones Release? And they would have to make it smaller, the 2014 model has 1100 pieces, if they bundle a similar one in the hoth base there is not really a lot left for actual buildings. Maybe it was original planned as an UCS AT-AT, but then discarded because they already had one. If anything, they would bundle one of the 2014 ones in there, but I highly doubt that since the AT-AT is already a big set by itself.

Sorry isnt this what makes lego so special in regard of a toy to imagine things. Its not like its asked too much to give the lego head an appropiate face or at least a face of any kind, so that you can use the figure for different things and imagine a scene where Boba actually takes his helmet off?

A very impressive project well done! I especially like that custom brick built satelliete/radar dish texture... looks awesome

The devil is in the detail Even if the matter of being an appropiate face is not that big of a deal, it still hurts the quality of the minifigure and, because boba is such an important part, makes the set less interesting for collectors. I mean come on this is Boba Fett, one of the most iconic Star Wars characters... you cant treat him with that supergeneric angry clone face we have seen a million times by now, especially since there are already unique or at least less common clone faces they could have used.

I am really scratching my head about this set. The fact that the main platform was basically cut in half is one thing, but why is there no vader and luke included? A set of stair should have been going from the main platform towards a secondary platform that is a bit higher placed, so you could redo the 2nd scene, that is as important and as iconic as the carbonite freezing... I also dont understand why they didnt made the center of the plattform into an elevator instead of the one on the side. Kinda lefts out the dramatic slow descent of Han Solo into the chamber itself

Not only is it lazy, but also it also doesnt fit the scene of the carbonit chamber. In the movie Boba Fett only expressed a bit of worrying by his lines towards Vader. So either a new face where he is worried or a speculative face where he is happy to have finally "caught" Han Solo for his bounty. For that they could have used the evil grin face that was used in the UCS Slave 1 version of him. The angry face is just completely wrong and funny enough, at the same time the set features a very fitting and unique expression, meaning Han Solo Face of being frozen in Carbonit, that is the same one on the carbonit block. So why Lego didnt go for a more approriate face of Boba Fett is just not understandable...

Just a spectacular minifig. It is the newest version of Boba Fett from the UCS Slave 1 without the Arm Printing. I guess that is fair so that the owners of the UCS Slave 1 actually possess a unique collectors minifig version of boba. I actually have the figure myself and i think its the best one Lego ever made ever. I strongly recommend to everyone, who likes Boba and likes minifigures in general, to try and get the UCS one, all others really should go for the new one in the carbonit chamber! I just realized they gave him a standard angry clone minifig head, and that is a big disappointment in my opinion. Yes it makes sense that it looks like the clones but at the same time its lazy that they didnt gave him a unique facial expression, ultimately giving him a unique version of a clone head. The UCS Boba Fett for example has a clone head with a strong and a bit evil looking grin. I am not an expert if that one is actually a unique head, but they could have at least go for that one since it can be that commonly used.

I probably like the original one a bit more. I am not a fan of the new colorization and also i prefer the round design of the front engine section. Although the new one looks better from behind with a less blocky/clumsy build.

Well I see that making the Hoth Echo Base into a minifig scale ucs set is difficult since its build in a "real world" cave and consists of many walkways, meaning that the base itself doesnt have many key elements that are suited for a ucs set. I could have seen it as kind of mix between the first "playset" death star and the second "display" death star, meaning to build part of a hillside with the maingate and the ion cannon build into, that looks good for display and on the other hand build parts of the main hangar where the ships and snowspeeder stood with mechanical structures that could be used with sets like the snowspeeder and x-wing. Also i would have loved to get a proper represenation of the command room in minifig scale with its unique look. I can totally see that by approaching those ideas increases the partcount really really fast, but maybe they should have invested more parts to create an around 300 Bucks/ 3000 parts set, that focuses on the base itself without the rebel fortifications, that werent even really part of the base but instead stood on plain fields nearby/ were above the underground parts of the base.

I am really curious as to what exactly will be part of the UCS Hoth Echo Base. If you take what is seen in the Lego Mini Movie without the Snowspeeder and AT-ATs I actually would be quite disappointed for 270 Bucks. The Rebel Fortifications/ Defense Weapons (aside from the forced integration of playshooters) as well as the Shield Generator look decent, but the Ion Cannon and the Entrance of the Base itself look very bland and uninspired, for example the technic parts of the gate are way too flashy and destroy the look. The Minifgures are probably part of a main selling point, but even so I don´t think that it could rival the old Death Star Playset by what can be assumed at this point.

I have question about the longevity of stickers. I recently build a set and applied a Sticker on a Round 2 x 2 Tile Piece. I always clean the parts before I apply stickers on them, unfortunately that time something must have sneaked on the Tile while I was "aiming" to get the stickers in the centre of the TIle. I only realized after applying the sticker that a very small piece of something very thin must have been caught by the sticker and is now sealed under it, visible as a very small, but noticeable dent. I tried to get the sticker off again right away, but no chance as I already pressed it on the piece. Even though it doesnt really annoy me, I ask myself now if that sealed up piece of whatever it is (maybe a dust particle) hurts the longevity of sticker. Is this the case?

I just got back into Lego, specifically Lego Star Wars, after a mere 13 years of not seeing or hearing anything about Lego. The result was that I bought the UCS Slave 1 and the new Force Awakens Millenium Falcon last month as well as the newest AT-AT and AT-AP this month... and alas I am very pleased with the designs of the models, lego improved quite a bit since the last time I had a Lego Set which was the first Republic Gunship in 2002 if I recall correctly