STAR WARS Republic Gunship LAAT/i

[JCK]

Hi all,

I´m a small fan of STAR WARS and my dream was to build the Republic Gunship (also known as LAAT/i - Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry). But not a plastic one but papercraft.

I found this model on a website with free papercrafts to download. So I instantly decided to take it and to make it! It still needs some modifications. But anyway it is a very good model to start with.

I didn´t find much pictures or plans of this model in the web. So I decided to make some screen pictures from the movie of Episode II. And also I´m using the Book " Incredible Cross-sections of Star Wars Episode II".

During the work I saw that I made a small mistake. The scale of this model ist 1/48 but it would be easer to build it in 1/33. And it would be the same scale like my other paper planes (from Maly Modelarz and Fly Model). Maybe some day I´ll built it again. Here are now first pics of the Republic Gunship (The first 6 were made by webcam).

[imcold]

Hi, looking forward to see more progress, this looks promising

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Would this be the one from Paper Replika? You've got a good start on it so far.

[vipers7]

this looks great: especially the nose section looks great (and gave me a headache)

[JCK]

Yep,

this model is for free from Paper-replica.

I also got some troubles with the nose. You have to form it in a quite unpossible curve and glue together. So first I cut the right wall through. That´s because I could then better form the nose from inside. I glued the left side of the nose and simuntaneously the right side of the nose. At the end I fit the sliced parts together. This was my Idea. Maybe there is much simple trick, how to do it. But for me this one worked well.

[JCK]

Now,

here are some pictures of the progress. You can see the cover (red) with the cockpit and the nose section. The glas of the cockpit was made by tranparent foil of course. I get the impression, the nose section or fuselage is the most difficult part of this model. If not, I will let you now .
I also prepainted the hole section and prepared it for wheathering effects thats follow later. I never done this before in such big dimensions, so I made some tests on a blanket paper (see pic below). I used some sort of thinned oil colours.

[vipers7]

Great tip for building the nose section. Also very interesting is the view of the cockpit with transparent canopy. I was thinking of adding some more instrument panels and adding some color to the inside of the canopy-cardboardpart. So the white cardboard is not visible. However I chose to do this in the 148 sclae.

Your model looks excellent like a plastic kit, especially with the added panels etc.., simply great!!!

I must admit I am curious how you solve the "glassbubble cannon" pods.
I will trying to use foil and clear tape an lets wait what it looks like.

[JCK]

Thanks!

But there is still work to do. I also don´t know until yet, how to solve the "glassbubble cannon" problem. I was looking for some transparent balls, but the problem is they´re all to thick.
Once I made something like this for my B-17, the turret bubble. This gave me little experience in making bubbles. It was only made of foil and paper, was a hell of work. And it looked damn good! But the paper plane got an accident and didn´t survive . Tomorrow, when I´m back from work and well-rested, I will try to put further pics of the fuselage. I had to improve something on the nose, where the two front guns will take place.

[Dyaus]

Doing own isn't so difficult, when you prepare adequate tools. ;]

Wyt?aczanie oszklenia

[JCK]

Thanks a lot! This would be great help. I was thinking about it but didn´t know how to do this. I will try it next week! Bardzo ci dziekuje!