Hi all;

I posted a while ago, a play mat for SW:XMG a friend and I did in a single night. The one below…

Well I, with the help of my AWESOME wife, have decided to try and up the ante as it were. I have taken the plans and instructions for cutting out and building the Cardboard Star Destroyer, and have tried my best to apply that to MDF. I'll apologise here for any problems anuone has with my pics (size, etc).

The following will be my 'blog of sorts' on my trials and tribulations of trying to do such a huge amount of work. I'm sure it'll end up (probably 'start') terrible, but I'll give it a go. Anyway… on with the show.

Having obtained the files and instructions for the cardboard SD, I found myself short of access to an old school overhead projector. The best I could do was get the use of a friends cheap and old digital projector. As it has turned out, the newer projectors aren't as good (go figure) and after all the measuring, drawing, and jig-sawing, we realised that the digital projetor skewed some measurements (oversized bridge, lower front deck, overall length and width anyone? GRRR). Ah well, too bad so sad. I have stuck with what I have since it was already cut out and all. Anyway, this is what I ended up with….

After getting everything cut out (over the period of 2 days - the work was being done in one of the rooms at the LGS. Oh and I am a procrastinator of the worst kind), I packed it all into the car and took it home. Over the period of a couple of days spent looking at the pieces all temporarily in place, I thought it looked too 'flat'. I didn't want to paint the finished item two different shades to try and have the illusion of the angled top, so I decided to try it another way. I added a triangular shaped 'spine' down the centre of the SD. In hind sight, it was probably a terrible idea. But as my wife said…. Just claim artistic license… LOL. So before detailing and permenant placing of decks/walls/raised sections/bridge, neck etc… This is what my naked SD looked like….

….More to come….

Cheers

A few more days pass, and finally I decide it's time to make things more permanent. So I decide to glue everything in place. I also decided at this point that I'd have the bridge/decks permenantly attatched to the rest of the ship. I have found out since, just how hard it makes it to move it from room to room when I work on it. Another mistake. Pfft, not the first, wont be the last. LOL. So with everything centered, walls attatched to the decks, and everything glued and nailed… the SD started to take shape…

The walls are 30mm high and 20mm high (for the low walls), and the MDF is 3mm thick all over. Will take this moment to thank my wife, again, for allowing me to use the kitchen table as a workbench.

*This has to be the absolute worst forum software in history. posting on here and editing a post over 20 times to get the spacing right is just wrong. A terrible choice for Forum software FFG.*

More to come…

Cheers

By now, many many more days had passed. Procrastination, and being unable to decide on what materials to use, led to a long delay in getting started on the detailing of this beast. We ended up deciding on 600gsm cardboard for the 'skin' (plates/pattern). For the walls, and more detailed items we will use pasticard, I-beams, Platicard tubes and pipes, bits from models, GW bits, etc al. But for now we had to start laying down the pattern….

It takes alot longer than one would think, to cut out templates, draw a pattern in rough-hand, then redraw it all square, then cut it out, place it, then lift and glue. A very tedious and time consuming job.

What you see done in this pic and the one above, took hours per section. There's some spacing discrepancies, but as we do more, hopefully those problems will minimise.

…more to come…

Cheers

With the raised sections patterned, we couldn't decide on how to do the 'walls' of each section. At only 3mm thick, there wasn't room for a wall as such, especially not with view ports. So we figured we'd just go with a plastic mesh. Maybe during painting we might black out each window interior, but we'll wait and see when the time comes.

With the edges of the raised areas taken care of we got stuck into some heavy duty pattern'ing. It took nearly a week (any spare moment we had before/after work, in between house jobs, etc al.) but we got the first half of the 'nose' of the SD done. The majority might think it stinks, sucks, looks too GW'ish… but I am really liking the effect at this point.

Another week later, and the other side was patterned.

Now the fun stuff. The finer details (small raised sections on the SD hull, dress up the 'spine' a little so it stopped looking so flat and boring.This is what we ended up with…. so far. There is still other small details to add, later.

…More to come…

Cheers

And now my lat post, for a few days at least. While we work on some more of the beast. We are up to the stage of doing the pattern to the rear half of the SD. The hull, the deck 'roofs', the neck, the bridge, etc. I'll also (hopefully) be starting on the deck walls over the coming days, so if I do get anything done on that front, I'll be sure to post pics. This is where we are up to at this point in time…

Please. Comment, critique, praise or belittle our progress thus far. Feel free to ask questions if there's something I haven't mentioned. If you have ideas, feel free to post them. I'm open to peoples thoughts. I know that I for sure wont think of everything, so all feedback, ideas, are accepted. All I ask is to keep in mind that this is effectively my 'gaming mat' for SW:XMG… so I can't add too much to the surfaces… otherwise the models wont stand on it.

Thanks for looking at the pics and reading my dribble thus far. I hope it's been even remotely interesting.

Cheers

I'll be following this project with interest. It's looking great!

It's looking incredible so far so kudos on the work being done. I don't know where you're located but that would be a great addition to any local minis gaming or scifi conventions you have locally. The only suggestion I'd make is that you cut it up into 2 to 3 pieces for easier transport. Unless you've got a large SUV or truck, I suspect it'll be difficult to transport to the FLGS or cons (assuming you attend or play at either).

First, great work on the project thus far.

One quick question for you: is it your intent to have the fighter-scale miniatures operating on top of your destroyer?

How will you handle the elevation changes with movement templates?

being involved in a DIY Star Destroyer project, I heartily approve of this fantastic work! how long is it, all up?

Good morning all;

Firstly, thankyou for the kind words. I've woken up with a new found vigor this morning, so as soon as I have replied to posts, I plan on getting stuck in to working some more on the SD.

@ Sanguinary Priest: The SD is already in 2 pieces, the nose section and th larger rear section. I do have plans on it eventually going to my LGS for use, but our local SW:XMG playing group is only 4-6 players total. With that in mind, most games will probably be played at my house, in my gaming room, where I have an 8'x4' purpose built gaming table/cabinet. I do have an SUV btw, and the 2 sections do fit in it comfortably.

@ Schoon: Yes that is the intention. The SD is the tabletop itself. As I stated to Priest above, our local XMG group is quite small and the game is only played in a casual manner (no tourney players here - closest place for tournies is over 5hrs away), so movement fudges etc aren't a major problem. My plan to get around movement discrepancies will basically be guesstimating locations of bases (using top down view - literally) or using black MDF bases as rough guides. TIE ontop of bridge wants to fly into a position that would end it's move on the highest deck - place MDF base on deck as close to relative position of TIE on bridge above it, measure for movement from position of MDF base, place TIE. That sort of thing. Again, a small gaming group equals minimal problems when working out tricky movement problems.

@ Cillonelle: Measurements are = 88.5 inches long tip to tail, 42 inches wide at it's widest point, & 10 inches from hull to top of bridge.

Cheers

Awesome work! Keen to see it at 100% with a nice squadron of TIEs flying defense

DarkFather said:

Cool, glad you thought of it first. I was worried that a nice piece like that would snap at the base of the tower if lifted by a single person. Bringing and hosting that will definitely make some kids' and even plenty of adults' day at a local convention.

As for movement, I'd probably just recommend an increase in elevation taking off 1 from the movement as measured from directly above. i.e. if you want to move 3 forward but that takes you over a one step elevation change, you must declare a 4 forward but use the 3 forward for actual movement as measured from a top down perspective. Firing is a bit harder though since the ruler is different… maybe and elevation change equals half a range bracket as measured from above? i.e. shooting at someone one elevation up/down and over two and a half on the range ruler means the ship is out of range.

Since elevation is abstracted in this game, I wouldn't think it would be a problem to simply move the full distance or shoot down off a higher plane (or vice versa)

Hi all;

After a ridiculously long hiatus from this project, I have decided to get it finished and up to the LGS in time for the new wave to hit town (and re-releases of older waves hopefully).

Watch this spot for updates over the coming weeks.

Cheers

wow, wonder if one could build this with rigid foam insulation board? would be a LOT lighter and cheaper. have use rigid foam insulation boards for terrain on my Model rail road for years, works great BTW... They even make special HOT knives to cut it..

Since elevation is abstracted in this game, I wouldn't think it would be a problem to simply move the full distance or shoot down off a higher plane (or vice versa)

I have to smile when I see that a few people have put their ships on very tall rod'; "They understand how this game works."

Wohoo!! LGS is getting Core sets and Wave 2 stuff into stock this Friday. Don't 'need' core sets anymore, but another Interceptor and A-Wing will round out my wants quite nicely.

Have been busy doing more work on the Star Destroyer. Still a lot to go yet. Not having access to spare model bits, I have had to go the cheap way for a lot of stuff. I figure it is more an abstract version of a Star Destroyer anyway. So with that in mind, and the realization that gamers will undoubtedly wreck the thing sooner rather than later, I give you my progress thus far on my Star Destroyer...

All surface plates on the hull and decks are now done, and a small amount of detailing has been done. Trying to make the flat surfaces look 'right' and remain flat and usable is a pain. So again, remember the word 'Abstract' as you look at the pics.

I decided to use some artistic license here, and put the Star Destroyers name on a plaque. A Cookie to the first who gets the name right. LOL.

Some of the deck wall details. Not fantastic, but passable, and plenty (IMHO) for a gaming table that'll get abused and slammed with dice constantly.

The start of the work on the Bridge and neck areas.

Closer view of the 'finished' nose of the ship.

More wall details.

Hope you like. Any ideas/thoughts... Criticisms/critiques? Please feel free to voice.

Cheers

stunning work there .......

Looks awesome!!!!

Boof! This is fantastic

Can you make me a Super Star Destroyer?

lol j/k

Seriously this is fantastic work. I would really enjoy playing a game on your Destroyer. You have inspired me to attempt my own ship. Well done DarkFather. Do you mind if I ask where you hail from? I'm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Cheers!

Thanks for the kind words guys.

@MantoF18; I hail from a dingy little town in Queensland Australia. Town called Bundaberg. Nearest main city to us is 2+ hrs away, nearest capital city (Brisbane) 5+ hrs. Hence my lack of access to good 'bits' for the SD. So I press on with whatever I can get my hands on basically.

I'm happy that you guys can see through the parts used possibly to the finished and painted product. I just figure a black undercoat with a Grey topcoat will help tie everything together once the painting is done.

Cheers

Avenger . Good choice in names.

Fantastic work

I love the enthusiasm and creativity, not to mention lack of angsty behaviour in this community