Chronocidal Guy

Little more progress, I moved the tall angled bricks one stud toward the center, and swapped every alternating one for a pivoting plate to mount a new side panel on. Still experimenting with tiling the hull, but the tiered layers of plates on the nose section don't look right. Might need tile versions of all the angle plates before it would work, I think.

So I realized the LDD file I found has a few errors, the wing cannons being one of them, so that's why they're backwards. I'm planning a complete rebuild for them anyway, I just haven't gotten that far yet. Far as the studs go, I've flipped back and forth on this repeatedly. A lot of the upper surface of the nose is easy to replace with tiles, it's just that the panels on the sides begin to look bulky, and it changes the curvature. At the moment, I'm still trying to solve the fuselage shape, and might wind up swapping out the slopes for leaning plates. That'll solve the ledge around the edge of the front panel more cleanly, but also means finding a new solution to all the curved bricks along the top edges of the stock hull. This might easily wind up being more of a complete rebuild than a mod by the time I'm done.

Hi folks, I've only recently gotten back heavily into building, and decided to finally have a go at doing some minor (growing more major by the moment) upgrades to the UCS Imperial Shuttle that I've had laying half in pieces for a couple years. It started as a planned mod to the engine section using the 3x3 quarter domes in the US Capitol model, and grew into something a lot bigger. I've so far rebuilt the engines, and the entire front section of the ship to more closely resemble the filming model and full scale sets. Still hoping to work out a better option for the scoops on the side of the hull as well.. The curved canopy shapes used on the stock engines would be perfect if they were 3 studs wide instead of 4. My kingdom for more 3-wide cylinder elements. My next big project is redesigning the wing folding mechanism, and hopefully closing up the monstrous gaps in the stock version.