I am For Tyeth, and this is my little lightsaber themed corner of the Galaxy (well, the Internet).
Seven years ago I discovered that I had a bit of talent designing Lightsabers when I won a design competition held by a custom saber manufacturer. That win encouraged me to push my ideas from just pencil and paper sketches into more realistic looking 3D models . But I needed somewhere to display my work so I will be showcasing some of my Lightsaber designs and some from my friends here!
You can find all the designs in the Saber Gallery.
I usually post at least one new saber a week, sometime more, plus I have little bits and pieces that are inspired by various “pop culture” influences – have you ever seen The Ghostbuster’s car Ecto 1 turned into a saber? Well I built one. Want to see what the Mandalorian’s lightsaber might look like? I have one of those too! So please take a look around and if you like what you see leave a comment or like, maybe even subscribe so you never miss a new post or design.
Aargh! Whatever this thing on the Transmat is…it’s coming through!
Er, Hello Everybody and welcome to this week’s post and you are just in time to see the Transmat continuing to operate by itself! Unfortunately non of my saber building tools will fit the casing of the device so I can’t open or deactivate it and I can’t slice it open with my saber…I don’t know how much damage that would cause to everything around me….if only I had a tool that was compatible. “VWORP! VWORP! VWORP!” DW: “Hello my old friend….long time no see! Are you well?….I hear you are having some difficulty with a Transmat….need a screwdriver?” FT: “Doctor? Ah you made it! Er, I do seem to have a bit of a security issue you might be able to help with….see an alien is invading my workshop!” DW: “Well that’s a nice way to greet me…I’m an alien, or are you alien to me…or are we both aliens? This whole scenario is alien! And here am I with a gift for you….would you like it now?” FT: “If it will help me defend Tyeth Towers then I’d appreciate getting the gift now….thank you!” DW: Well I think the pair of us have chatted long enough should I show your readers….Hello viewers…. your new bit of hardware? I think so….Okay viewers get your bag of Jelly Babies ready here is my gift for Tyeth, A Sonic Screwdriver!
Yes, I have ventured back into the realm of Dr Who and am now the “owner” of a Sonic Screwdriver – the favoured tool of the Timelord! Now some of may recall when I built a saber named “The Pryndonian” for my friend “Inspector Who Reacts” I built a Timelord inspired saber and a Sonic Screwdriver as an additional model. You can view both here: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/pryndonian-saber-inspired-by-the-inspector-who-reacts-and-dr-who/ Well that 3D model and file were lost when my laptop crashed a few years back but whilst looking through some Zip-drives I forgot I had…I found a copy of the file folder but it only contained the pictures from the post. Not quite what I hoped for but from those images I remodelled the device and this is it! I think it is fairly accurate to the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker’s) sonic.
I managed to model the body nicely and to scale – and I even added the slanted groove into the pommel section – then created some nice generated textures that colour match with the original prop. This Sonic also has an extending body which opens and closes. Finally to top it off, I added an accurate emitter vane in vibrant red.
I am even more pleased with my rebuilt model as the original I made used guesswork, I didn’t use images as references to mark up and shape the 3d object on top of as a test. I did use an image to match this version as close to the real prop as possible as I’d managed without before. Anyhoo, just a few quick Timelord Tidbits of info regarding the Sonic… 1) The Sonic Screwdriver which can perform dozens of functions was first seen on screens in the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) episode “Fury of the Deep” and was used to …..unscrew some screws! (Of course the screwdriver never touched the screws). And the episode aired in….1968! 2) The Eleventh Doctor actor Matt Smith managed to break FOUR sonic props whilst filming as he was fond of juggling and throwing it into the air and dropping it! Eventually and to the relief of the Props Department Matt finally perfected the technique. 3) Sonics are either constructed by the Doctor himself to tailor it’s functions to his/her personality after a regeneration or replacements can be produced by the TARDIS. 4) Sonics are cool! Nearly on par with a saber just a little behind.
DW: I don’t have a little behind! FT: No…No I meant the Sonic lagged a little behind a lightsaber for being cool….but I need to thank you for coming all the way here to help me out and gifting me a beautiful gadget. I hope my viewers liked t too. May I just ask what have you done to er, prevent the alien from entering Tyeth Towers? The Transmat seems to be still working. DW: Oh I think now you have a screwdriver and saber you will be able to handle whatever is coming through OK? You are a Jedi and the traffic around the Saturn Orbital Ring road is horrendous so I need to leave to avoid the Gridlock and get home early. Tatty-Bye! “VWORP! VWORP! VWORP!“ FT: Yes I have to end this post in a moment and thank all my viewers once again for checking out this Timelord tool. I hope you’ll all call back for future posts as I have more Star Wars stuff to come and more timely adventures and builds. So thank you all very much, I love all your comments and appreciate the support. Till next time!…….
Hello Everybody and welcome to today’s post. Well, I survived last week’s security alert with the mystery object being revealed to be a Transmat beaming device for transporting between a ship and a planet’s surface. As I left you last week something was teleporting through but it seems to be a very slow process…it’s like watching a 3D printer operating! But today I return to the fantastic fanfiction stories of my friend Lord_S_Gray and the spaceship I designed for it named the Liberator. The TIE Liberator is a multi role combat transport vehicle capable of being a fighter craft, a small transporter ship or even a private shuttle. But this new variant I am showing you today was put to a very unique use in LSG’s story, that of a Prison Breaker….or “Liberator” ship. The vessel has been upgraded from it’s basic model with a full armament package including the basic laser cannons but also some special equipment. It also has a new paintjob, so here is Gallery One for you to enjoy….
This Liberator has a snazzy new red “Elite” style paint scheme in scarlet and black which really sets off the carbon fibre look solar panels on the triple wing assemblies. You can see the same laser cannon installations in the wingtips along with the point defence laser turret on the dorsal wing stanchion. These are standard for the fighter version but look closely and you can see warheads of some special missiles stored in the lower wing struts and on the underbelly of the fuselage. This is the “Prison Break Package”. In LSG’s story there is an ongoing conflict and some characters were imprisoned however their friends decided to break them out of their captivity. The ship was flown to the prison complex (under a stealth shield I added) and the missiles were utilised to blow out the perimeter walls, cell blocks and guard towers to allow the Liberator to land in the grounds allowing the prisoners to clamber aboard after exiting the hole in the walls. OK onto Gallery Two for some more pictures…
These pictures highlight the weapons package for the Prison Break mission and you can clearly see the missiles in the lower wing stanchions. These two missiles are the “air to ground” missiles similar to real earth Bunker Buster weapons used to breach the walls and buildings, whilst there is a rack of multipurpose air to ground and air to air missiles on the underbelly. The Bunker Busters can be configured to blow up reinforced walls or set to a lower power setting to breach prison walls (without injuring the escapees behind the wall). The multipurpose missiles are used for defence in air to air combat as the ship (hopefully) makes it’s escape. They can target fighters and even have the stopping power to cripple frigates or cruisers if they are deployed by the enemy to stop you leaving. The final picture shows the dorsal laser turret that is also used to defend the ship while it is on the ground awaiting the escapees boarding.
These last two pictures show the Liberator in action having just blasted a hole in the walls and awaiting the escapees. In LSG’s story this ship was so successful that it gained a reputation and a nickname, “Chain Breaker” as the ship broke the escapees from their “chains of captivity”. To denote this there is an emblem on the ship’s hull of a length of chain with a broken link.
Talking of links here is a link to the Ultrasabers owners forum page where you can read Lord_S_Gray’s story (and others) http://www.saberforum.com/index.php?topic=48101.0 And with that I think I may be close to the end of this post and will need to “getaway” myself. But first as ever my closing thanks and teasers.
Thank you all so much for checking the Liberator Elite and I hope you really enjoyed it. Also thank you for your unending support of me and my site, it makes such a difference and motivates me when you comment or leave a like or two. I hope you will return for future posts as I still have more in store including the conclusion to my “mystery transmat” story with a visit by some special guests (one invited and the others not so much!). So thanks to all, newcomers and regular visitors…Till next time…..
Hello Everybody, today I am a bit worried about that “mystery object” I discovered in the warehouse of Tyeth Towers. There seems to be some strange cosmic force surrounding it – but not the Force I am familiar with. It feels other worldly and almost militaristic, almost as if it belongs to an army. Well I did some research online using my special search engine “Dougal” and it seems to indicate that my feelings might be spot on.
From my search results this object first appeared back in 1963 down in the basement of a school in the borough of Shoreditch, London! The school was named Coal Hill School and that name seemed familiar but why? And how did this thing come to be in my warehouse? It makes me think this is some sort of transport device as it emminates a lot of power. There also seems to be a control interface but it isn’t designed for human hands…
Controls but not for human hands…
The more I look at it, the more I think it is a transport device as it has a platform like the transporters of the Starship Enterprise – only larger. The device is definitely designed to be no nonsense and there is something familiar about the shape of the console columns.
I have scanned this and found that the power beam appears to be directed at some sort of….unidentified spacecraft in geostationary orbit over Earth! Are there visitors coming to Earth from this ship using the device? Is this evidence of an invasion? Luckily there’s no sign of aliens in my warehouse so they haven’t arrived if that’s their plan. And my friend I told you about in a past post has said he’ll be appearing at Tyeth Towers very soon and he’s bringing some special tools with him to help solve this mystery.
Ok, I’m going to take a break and watch some TV to try and relax my mind so I can think about this subconsciously – I find if I don’t concentrate on something my brain will pick out old memories so maybe that will help.. Right then TIME to tune into the Sci-Fi channel on my satellite….
Hang On! What’s this? Is that the mystery object? And is that my friends? Wait…no it can’t be….do I have a Transmat? Oh, oh….I think I can hear it starting up…YES! Something is forming on the platform….
And I’m afraid I have run out of time! Is Tyeth Towers being invaded? And by whom? Have I run out of time for good? I’ll have to end the post here but please call back for upcoming posts and updates…I think I may be called into action. Also my friend should have arrived on Earth and might be able to help.
But for now I’d like to thank you all for checking out this post and for al the support you show me and my site. All your comments and likes are much appreciated. Whether a regular visitor or a newcomer thanks so much. Till next TIME…..
Hello Everybody, welcome to today’s saber offering. After last week’s positive comments about the “Nite Owl Saber” looking pretty in French Blue I thought I would post a design at the opposite end of the beauty scale. A while back I posted the Project Malice (see it here: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2024/01/13/project-malice-saber-inspired-by-resident-evils-red-dress/) design for Milla Jovovich’s character Alice which featured a crystal chamber full of “T-Virus” serum. The T-virus in the film rendered it’s victims as decaying monsters most of the time which led me to wonder what would happen to a lightsaber if it were exposed to the substance, so I tried to build a hilt that was decaying. This was the result of my efforts, the “Decay Saber”….
I took my Project Malice hilt and modified the colours to this sinister black and red colour scheme (which is opposite to the nice shiny appearance of most Jedi/light side sabers). But the most noticeable difference is the now tattered and shredded shroud that wraps the hilt body. Project Malice had a curvy, sweeping tidy look but this new shroud is definitely damaged way beyond normal use. To achieve this I used two Blender 3D functions, namely the Random Selection and the Subsurface Modifier. As you may know a 3D model is made up of Vertices, Edges and Faces that form a Wireframe shape onto which textures are added. Well I took the shroud segment and added the Random Selection to it which picked out random Edges as a collection. I then deleted these selected edges which broke up the model and created “holes” between unaffected Faces (a bit like drawing a grid then erasing certain pencil lines to leave gaps). This created a “damaged” grid that was still very angular, so to make the model appear as if it was dissolving I added the second modifier the Subsurface Modifier. The Subsurface Mod takes the blocky grid and adds extra edges which smooth out the shape so there are fewer 90 degree angles in the mesh grid. This made the shroud look like shredded or peeling tissue. Phew, that was a long explanation but I hope you could follow it and it made some sense. As a treat here is Gallery Two which shows off the saber’s crystal chamber and detailing…
The chamber for now seems to be in good shape and undamaged but how long the T-Virus decay will take to eat into it I don’t know! Anyway I hope you still find this hilt pretty in a “used and worn” kinda way – I suppose it has a lot of history and character. And speaking of character I will soon be posting a series dedicated to another very famous Sci-Fi character if I can persuade him/her to take some time to visit! Hopefully you’ll check that project out.
But for now I have run out of time and will soon be ending this post, but as ever I need to say my thanks and let you know what’s coming up. There are updates to my LSG Liberator spaceship, the mystery object from my warehouse seen last week, will be identified and I will have some high tech tools to display. And now I need to say thanks again to you all for your support. It means so much to me that I’m still attracting your attention with my creations and that you let me know about it. So whether you are a newcomer or a regular visitor, thank you. Till next time…
Hello Everybody and welcome to today’s post which I can safely say is again firmly rooted in the Star Wars universe. I recently showcased my recent Zori Bliss and whilst building it I was reminded of another high flying rocket pack packing character, that being the Mandalorian lady named Bo Katan-Kryze. Bo Katan was the sister of the former Duchess Satine of Mandalore (whom Obi-Wan Kenobi was once enamoured of – maybe) and her loyalties to family and race were stressed. Satine believed that Mandalore should follow a peaceful, educated path whilst Bo Katan thought that Mandalore’s warrior heritage should be remembered and honoured. As a result of this disagreement Bo left her family clan, House Kryze, and became a member of the renegade faction named Death Watch. Death Watch in turn got entangled with the Empire and were connected to Darth Maul at one point. Anyhoo, suffice to say Bo was a warrior and streamlined look of my Zori saber reminded me of Bo and I wanted to see what the saber would look like in her armour’s colour scheme. First, here’s a pic of Bo then I’ll show you Gallery One…
The colours work well I think or maybe the saber just works with all colourways, I don’t know but I know I like it. It is almost identical to Zori’s hilt apart from the colour but I did add a little touch to mark this as a weapon for a Mandalorian…I added the Mythosaur skeleton skull emblem near the pommel (you may remember this logo from my Boba Fett themed sabers named Mandalawrian and the Amban Pulse Saber). You can view these two hilts by following these links: Mandalawrian: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2019/11/16/the-mandalawrian-saber-hes-here-to-take-you-in/ and the Amban Saber: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2022/01/29/amban-saber-inspired-by-the-book-of-boba-fett/ Here are a few more pics including the Mythosaur…onto Gallery Two….
Oh yes, I did also add a few black accent marks on the emitter to help make this section look more like Bo’s helmet (the marks represent the visor opening). The saber also has an internal chamber but it is the same as Zori’s saber so I didn’t duplicate the images as I have been having texh issues once more and am struggling with my laptop to get it working for any length of time (if the laptop receives a Windows update it drains the battery). Anyhoo, hopefully this design made it thru to you before my machine shuts down. And I have still got more stuff that I hopefully will get to share with you on upcoming posts but I found this object in my warehouse and I’m slightly concerned as to what it means….any guesses?
I’m sure I’ve seen one of these somewhere back in time…I just can’t put my finger on where. Finally, the reason I chose the name “The Nite Owl Saber” for this hilt is that Bo Katan formed her own faction of warriors named the Nite Owls when she realised the mistake Death Watch had made and Bo changed her view to fight for the planet and the people of Mandalore alongside Sabine Wren, the Rebels and the remaining loyal families of Mandalore. Bo later became their de-facto leader.
Well while I try to jog my memory and work what that mystery object is I’m afraid I’ve run out of time for today. I’d like to thank all of you for checking this saber out and for all the fantastic support you have sent me. Either through just taking a look, or leaving motivating and kind comments and likes, all the feedback is much appreciated and keeps me battling on and creating. So whether you are a newcomer or one of my regular FT Family thanks so much. Hope to see you next week….Till next time….
Hello Everybody and welcome to another post. Today we stay firmly in the Star Wars universe albeit from a slightly different point of view. I will be showcasing a new starship design I was asked to create by my friend Lord_S_Gray who writes fantastic fanfiction stories (One of which you can read by following this link: http://www.saberforum.com/index.php?topic=48561.0). I have mentioned LSG before with his story about the Aethens and the “Artemis” and “Milaea” sabers I created to accompany it. LSG writes such rich stories and when asking for my assistance with a saber, he normally gives me a good brief of what he is looking for. However this time he asked for a spaceship not a saber and he gave me free license on it’s design. He did say he was impressed by my TIE Defender (https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/tie-defender-elite-skerris-a-recreation-of-the-galactic-empires-new-tie-fighter/ ) model so I wondered how I could use the Defender as a base for the new ship. The wing panels were distinctive so I wanted to use them, but I couldn’t just use them as they were so I did this…
I inverted the wing panels so that they seemed to wrap around the ship. This still gave the ship a distinct trifecta look but the way the wings folded meant I didn’t have to build any landing gear as the ship rests on it’s lower S-Foils (<wings). I added miniature laser turrets too which I took from my Star Destroyer I built a few years ago and if you look at the last image you might be able to tell this ship has an interior! I was asked to build this ship early last year but LSG hasn’t posted his story yet to feature this craft so this is the earliest model I have made with an interior. So I better show you the inside too, onto Gallery Two…
The ship has a fairly big passenger/cargo hold so it can operate as a Multi-Role Combat craft, performing many different mission types. The ship in LSG’s story was used by a group that specialised in rescuing prisoners of war and so was named the “Liberator” and features a “fractured chain” logo on the sides of the fuselage to represent freed captives. Back inside and further forward you enter the cockpit, and here are two crew seats and a basic cockpit dashboard with controls printed on. I built this in the same way Flight Simulator game aircraft are modelled. Having built a Star Destroyer I again was curious to see how this ship would look in the hangar bay so I rendered a few pictures of it with a few friends in the hangar and departing for a mission…Gallery Three!
I think this ship works nicely and looks good flying in formation! Anyhoo…I think I have time this week to just let you know I have managed to watch the first THREE episodes of the new season three of The Bad Batch! The first episode was a bit of a slow burner but episodes 2 and 3 are starting to pick up the action with Hunter and Wrecker beginning their mission to rescue Omega…and some dark secrets and projects are coming to light. According to rumours this final third season should link all the different parts of Star Wars together to fully explain the mysteries, we will see.
Finally, I have some more news, in that I managed to snag another couple of new foam dart blasters from a company called X-Shot. They are a pair of pistols and look really cool as they have graphics printed into the plastic itself so they won’t wear off like paint or decals. Hopefully I will get some pictures of them to share with you in an upcoming post. Meanwhile I am now at the end of this post and I need to thank LSG for challenging me to design objects for his stories and give my thanks to you, my viewers/readers/followers. As ever all your fantastic support is appreciated and all your comments and likes keep me motivated to work on new stuff such as the Liberator. And rest assured I have much more yet to post so I hope you will return to check that content out too. So whether a regular or a newcomer, thanks so much and Till next time…..
Hello Everybody and welcome to today’s post and design, and I’m happy to say that we return to the Star Wars Universe after my little deviation into other franchises. And in this post I set another “wrong” right by recreating a “Lost Design” I did a few years ago but lost when my laptop fatally crashed. The saber in question was a pair of hilts in fact that I built for the mysterious Zorii Bliss whom we met in the movie The Rise of Skywalker. I noticed that this mysterious woman had a costume and helmet that reminded me of “The Rocketeer” character from the 1982 comic strip by Dave Stevens – which paid tribute to the Saturday Morning Matinees of the 30s through to the 1950s. As a result the Rocketeer had an Art Deco style and here is a poster to show that again…
Fast forward to 2019 and Zorii Bliss started to appear in media and trailers and such wearing a Burgundy coloured bodysuit and a large gold and black helmet with a kinda ventral fin on the crown and back of the head. Here’s Zorii and a few of my original renders of the sabers I made…
I was really happy the way the sabers turned out so was devastated when my laptop crashed before I could save backups of them. I had to rebuild them and as new Star Wars content was unavailable to me I took the time to recreate the sabers while I waited to watch Kenobi and Mando etc. I will say that this new design is about 90% of what I wanted, as I intended to add new details and features but then realised I’d missed previous bits off. So this should really be Blissful 1.5 but anyhoo here is Blissful V2….
I made a mistake and forgot to add the moulded shapes to represent the helmet breathing filters that form the fin but I still had the streamlined shape overall. However I remodelled the switch area which I think worked nicely. At the pommel end I again had the rounded handgrip and this time I added vents around the Covertech Wheel (the wheel clips into a buckle clip on your belt to carry it when not in use). The blade features a flat blade edged in yellow and features plasma storm streaks within the borders. Finally, and the reason I forgot about other previous details, there is a hidden access panel on the side of the hilt which comes off to reveal the saber’s inner components and circuitry board! The black inlaid panels on each side of the original hilts featured an Art Deco geometric pattern etched into them but I also lost the reference pictures so couldn’t add that embellishment on this current version…but I will search out the pattern I need and I will update this offering to a version 3 in the future.
And with that I’m afraid this rocket of a post has reached it’s orbit and is about to glide back down to earth and the end for the week. I do want to say that I have another variant of this saber for a relatively new Mando character and that along with more sabers and “Other Franchises” goodies are coming up in future posts so I hope you will call back to see those. Thank you so much as ever to all readers/viewers and followers, new and regulars, for all the support – your comments, likes and encouragement keep me creating and is much appreciated. Till next time….
Hello Everybody and today especially the people of Asia and China on your Lunar New Year’s day. I believe today marks the start of the year of the Dragon and I felt I needed to offer a tribute to the event. Very long time followers of my site may recall WAY back in 2017 that I designed a lightsaber to celebrate. This was when I still used the old software I had access to, provided by a certain manufacturer of replica sabers. If you are a newcomer then here is a quick peek at the “old” design I did….
I built a saberstaff because they were extremely popular back then with Chirrut Imwe and his staff weapon in Rogue One. I did my best with the parts I had available to use in making a staff that had the red colour for good fortune and I made the emitters look like Chinese Lanterns. But you know me I always feel I can do better – however I got distracted for six years and never did anything to improve on this staff. So I apologize, but I have good news because I have a new saber for 2024! Here is Dragon New Year Saber….
I took the Bruce Lee tribute Katana I built last year and have modified it for the celebrations. I gave the hilt a traditional Red paint scheme to represent the famous red envelopes of good fortune, along with nice contrasting black and gold accents. Behind the Tsuba handguard I replaced the Bruce Lee logo with a dancing Dragon symbol which also appears in the pommel cap. I discovered that the diamond shaped ports near the base of the handgrip look even more like the Chinese lanterns I tried to emulate with my saberstaff, in this new colour scheme and I really like them. Hopefully the wait was worth it for this new year gift.
So, to all my viewers and friends who celebrate at this time I wish you all peace and good fortune now and for many years to come.
I am afraid time has beaten me once more so I’ll leave you all to celebrate but I will be back next week with my next scheduled design. I hope you will call back to check it out as I return to the Star Wars universe again. Thank you all so much for the kind support, be it in the way of comments, likes or even subscribing to the site, it all helps motivate and inspire me to keep creating (and as I’m expanding into other franchises there’ll be much more in future, past and present). Whether a newcomer or one of my regular followers you’re all much appreciated ….Till next time….
Hello Everybody and welcome to this week’s post! After last week’s visit to the Battlestar Galactica realm I take you to the edge of the Alpha Quadrant in Federation space and right next to a wormhole for today’s design. As I’ve mentioned my cable TV was fixed recently and I got to watch much more TV than normal over the festive period. As I was finishing my “Montoya V2” saber I saw out the corner of my eye something on screen that looked like a rapier sword’s basket guard, but it was on a sci-fi show! The object (or character depending on how you view it) in question was of course the space station known as “Deep Space Nine” from the titular Star Trek series. It’s amazing, Deep Space Nine had it’s syndicated first broadcast way back in 1993 but seeing the station out of the corner of my eye last December was the first time it struck me regarding the potential to build a saber inspired by it. And it must be a memorable or recognisable object as many of you seemed to know the origins of my little teaser I posted…
The show centres around the eponymous space station and the encounters between it’s inhabitants and visitors. You see the station is located at the entrance to a wormhole that links the Federation controlled Alpha Quadrant and the “unexplored frontier” of the Gamma Quadrant. Needless to say there was frictions and hassles but Commander Benjamin Sisko dealt with troubles well (with the help of his Shapeshifting lawman Officer Odo). Unfortunately tensions rose throughout the show’s run and a war broke out with Sisko and his crew in the middle. I won’t say who won or what happened but I will let you have a look at my version of this famous outpost, this is “Deepspace For”…
This is a bit of a stretch of the imagination but the space station does have some features and details which work well on a lightsaber, As you can see I built a facsimile of the station’s circular array structures and the claw-like docking pylons to form a functional handguard. From there I did have to take a little license with the superstructure and I extended the length of the centre hub and axle to enable me to create a handgrip and emitter socket. The handgrip also sports the custom activation switch, which is illuminated and features an outline of the station layout (when looking at the starbase from above). OK it’s time to showcase Gallery Two…
Having zoomed in a little bit on the saber you can now see all the little details and accent lights that I added to create the “space-station” look. There are modules, hangar bays and even the pylons have mounting points for ships to attach too! And all this detail was added using one function – the Discombobulator! The Disombobulator takes an object and divides it’s surface into panels which are randomly reshaped to create protrusions. This results in details that look like panelling or doors and windows. If you then randomly illuminate some of these protrusions you get the effect of a sci-fi structure or ship hull. I think it worked kinda well. Finally, I mentioned I had “stretched” part of the station to make the handgrip? Well I also made a sub-model…here’s a look at what DS4 looks like in “station mode”!
I have to say I have a bit of a soft spot for this space station as it stands out from most vehicles/ships/bases seen in the Star Trek universe as this was built by a race called the Cardassians before the Federation acquired it. And sadly once again the wormhole of time has closed and I need to end this post. But don’t worry I am working hard on solving my time issues but more on that in upcoming posts!
Thank you all so much for checking out this design in tribute to Star Trek and please make sure to call back for much more content. I have more Star Wars, Star Trek and other franchises lined up, Whether you are a newcomer or a regular visitor you are all appreciated. Till next time….
Hello Everybody and welcome to today’s offering. And firstly I think I’m either still suffering from that infection I had recently OR I’m getting old! I forgot to mention last week that the post showcasing the Darth Logos Speeder was my 700TH! I think I must have just been distracted as I posted that design last minute and was rushed a bit. However fear not, whether I am under the weather ill, or getting old (I am) or otherwise…I am still creating new stuff. Today I take you all back to the Battlestar Galactica universe with a saber for the Cylon Centurion warriors.
As I have been watching some classic Sci-Fi on my repaired cable TV I’ve come across things I had forgotten about and in particular in BSG, the fact that the Cylons did in deed carry a bladed weapon along with their blaster rifle and pistols. There weren’t many face to face skirmishes, most were blaster battles but here’s a pic to show the weapon…
The weapon is similar to a Roman Centurion’s sword crossed with an oriental Samurai style. I felt that this might make a nice crossover saber into the Star Wars universe so I built one. Here is Gallery One…
As the onscreen prop wasn’t used very often there aren’t many clear pictures of it so there is some artistic license taken but it looks maybe 95% accurate. As you can see the hilt is imposing and is modelled in monochrome silver and black to match Cylon armour. The blade has a “Darksaber” styled cutting edge. The handgrip is chunky to allow the Cylon to grip it despite wearing thick ice-hockey style gauntlets, and the pommel is oversized to balance the weight of the blade. Normal lightsaber blades don’t normally have a metal core to them so the balance weight was needed. However I did make the blade detachable because when I first started modelling it I couldn’t decide whether to make a pure plasma blade or the edged metal blade. Ok here is Gallery Two with a few detail images….
In these pictures you can see the emitter and blade socket when the blade is detached. The weapon still looks imposing without the blade. Next you can see my first attempt at an activation switch but I thought a Cylon helmet faceplate didn’t look right so I took it off, but I didn’t discard it totally….I saved it as a decoration to use in my post’s title header image. Again not 100% but enough to leave you in no doubt what it’s meant to represent.
So watching this classic Sci-Fi reminded me of something humorous that could be the first ever “Easter Egg” I ever saw in another TV show. So…Dirk Benedict portrayed the hero Viper pilot Lt Starbuck…
But he also appeared as Templeton “Faceman” Peck in the 1980’s hit show The A-Team and this happened in one episode…(and the intro sequence)….
As a kid I thought this was hilarious! In the A-Team George Peppard’s character Hannibal Smith, worked as a part time movie extra and Face had to meet Hannibal at the Universal Studios amusement park and he bumped into an old friend!
Oh! And if you wondered what the initials BYC stand for…it is the Cylon acknowledgement of an order…they always replied “By Your Command”!
Soo, I hope you enjoyed this design and my little nostalgia trip and Easter Egg. I am currently working on more Sci-Fi inspired designs from other franchises so please stay tuned for those (as always I’ve been leaving little hints and teasers so you can have a guess at what’s coming up!) but as always time has now beaten me.
Thank you all so much for checking this post out and for all the fantastic support over the last 700 posts. It really does keep me working on new stuff and I’m glad you find it entertaining. Please call back and see what I have in store and remember, whether a newcomer or a regular…you’re much appreciated, Till next time….
FTSabersite 