Custom alterations to convert the BOBF throne room into Jabba’s scene (WIP 2/7)

[Daig]

Hey, friends- I’m late to the game with this, as I only recently got the BOBF throne room on Black Friday, to take advantage of the discount. Like many of you, I want this to be the Jabba scene, so I knew some changes would have to be made. First and foremost, I had already made a dais years ago, to which I hot glued pillows, Leia, Jabba’s tail, and various other things into an arrangement that I liked; not to mention, I prefer the color and stone look of mine over the plastic toy. Problem is, it’s too wide for replacing the plastic one in the playset, and stood higher than the one that came with the playset, so it wouldn’t fit under the shelf behind the dais. So the first thing I decided to do was raise the playset higher than it is, so that my dais can fit underneath. I took a piece of double thick foamcore and cut an additional stair step for the right and left sides of the dais, and hot glued them down to a thin board that will serve as the front floor of the throne (which I only wanted a little bit showing, rather than the full alcoves, since I like displaying forward-facing scenes). Here is that step:


And here is my older custom dais placed to show how much bigger it is than the space allotted for it:


I took a knife and (as tough as it was to do, lol) cut off the right and left side of the dais’ Styrofoam and plaster, and slid it into the slot for a perfect fit. However, I’m going to cut a bit more to even out both sides and re-attach the older custom side walls of the dais to try and get the gargoyle heads as evenly spaced as possible.


An upcoming step is going to involve the arch details above the throne; one thing that bothered me when I first saw it, is that they made the “crescent shaped“ details as holes, rather than up-raised features. I thought the best way to “correct“ that was to cut foamie pieces that I can then place inside the holes so that they are raised up above the surface of the plastic, at which point I can repaint them. More to come soon!

 

[Droidworld]

Looking amazing!!! Love the added details. I’m in the middle of creating a home for my BOBF playset. Looking forward to seeing what you do!

 

[yodashizzle]

Always a great way to start a year with something you do!

 

[Daig]

Thanks, guys! So I reattached the sides of the dais that I had cut off, with a sliver of the original width removed from the right and left sides; after which I put the first coat of plaster on. I’m gonna let that dry a day or two, and then sand it down for the repaint.




A test fit:


And then I started the foamie archway details; I have about 1/3 of it done, and you can see how each crescent shapeis raised above the surface just a little bit so that I can paint them apart from the surface surrounding each of the shapes.

 

[Droidworld]

Looks amazing! The foamie shapes look so much like rock already. (Also love the washes on Jabba!).

 

[Daig]

Thanks, DW! Today I sanded down the plaster and repainted the dais; I’m going to probably add a couple more details like another pillow and animal skin or two, as well as a few more detail paints. I’m pretty happy with how it came out though. Then, I finished the foamie shapes in the archway, and I want to try and melt a few corners of the pieces with my hot glue gun tip so that they look less like they were cut with scissors!

 

[yodashizzle]

Coming along really nicely! I noticed your Jabba's tail is different and reread your first post about that.....it looks much better with a sharper curl, how'd you do that? Just straight cut and glue?

 

[rogue1]

What about lightly passing a heat gun over them? May be easier than the glue gun.

 

[Daig]

Thanks, guys! If I remember correctly, I may have curved his tail around with a wire inside, but I definitely put a nail through the “skin“, hidden from view, down into the dais to keep it in place

 

[Droidworld]

Looking sooo much more realistic…of course! What is your animal skin recipe?
And Salacious’s attitude and (custom?) pillow is chef’s kiss!

 

[Daig]

I’m actually going to use one of the animal skins that came with the playset!

 

[red4]

This is looking beautiful, as always!

Although, if I may, I don't think the crescent glyphs are raised or indented. It looks like these are painted on the archway, and not a relief in any way. I'm kinda thinking that Hasbro made them negative spaces to give interest to the arch, because their paint apps aren't quite up to snuff these days.

How did you do the original animal skin? It's fantastic. I should probably hunt that thread down...

 

[Daig]

Your info is very timely, red4, as it’s something I noticed in watching the scene again last night! It sure does look like it’s painted, and therefore flat (in fact, the scene in which I noticed this was when Luke is about to enter the throne room and is intercepted by Bib; above Bib’s head, it clearly looks like a flat painted series of details.)! Some angles in the film make it appear as though there’s a shadow next to them, as if they were slightly embossed, but I think that’s an illusion! I’m going to see what I can do to make it appear flatter than it does now! Thanks for the confirmation

Edit: this one, to my eye, suggests a slight upraised appearance to the crescent, but I don’t think they really are when looking at other scenes!

 

[yodashizzle]

I think you could go raised, flat or recessed and it'd look okay to be honest. I always thought they were recessed but I really can't tell for sure. It's funny how difficult it is to nail down details in Star Wars.

 

[Daig]

Yes! Just added a pic above your post where it looks as if they are upraised

 

[Daig]

OK, I ultimately ended up doing this: to get as close to the appearance of that pic I have a couple of posts ago, I decided to put a strip of foamie on the inner curve and the outer curve of the arch, framing the inner crescent shapes just like the film set. I started to press some plaster into the cracks between the foamie and plastic with my fingertip in order to make it smooth and seamless, and liked it so much that I decided to just go ahead and paint the entire front face of the archway with plaster. This eliminates the need to do any melting or extra cutting, as the shapes seem to blend in better (and once it dries, I will lightly sand a bit more before painting it).

 

[Binary_Sunset]

That looks terrific.
The original glyphs are just a mess (I mean the playset, not the movie set).
Looking forward to see how you work out their faint appearance.

 

[red4]

I think the areas that look either raised or indented are from the spots where the paint pooled, or it's heavier due to the outline of the brush stroke when creating the original shapes. I've been studying it myself as I want to customize the set as well, and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to solve it (and I've always loved the forensic nature of analyzing these things in this world). I'm also a painter (artist and fine art sign painter), and to me I recognize those type of strokes as an outline.

Either way we may never know, I love how you're resolving it and it's much better already! I can't wait to see it finished!

 

[Daig]

Thanks so much guys, and sorry about the slow updates lately! It’s gotten really busy around here, so there will probably be few new steps for a while compared to the holidays. So here are a few pics of the first pass paint job on the archway; I still need to add a little bit of weathering to the front facing portion, but I was happy with the overall color and some of the weathering underneath the arch.

 

[OutcastJawa]

That's some amazing work right there @Daig, everything's blended together so well you'd be hard pressed to tell what was modified!

 

[yodashizzle]

Yeah, that's seamless, beautiful stuff!!!

 

[Tyranusspotting]

Great job!
Did you modify the lower half of the 2010 Jabba in any way?

 

[Binary_Sunset]

Outstanding work.
Have you thought about covering some of the holes and cracks in the back wall? The damaged look is definitely too extreme for ROTJ.

 

[Daig]

Thanks guys! Yes, for Jabba, I did a full repaint (to my eyes, he’s far more orange/brown than the green they usually paint him with), curled his tail around, and tried to stabilize it with a small nail to hold it in that curled position. After that, strategic placement of pillows and blankets that I made from pieces of felt and other things were able to cover up the obvious stuff. As for the cracks in the back wall, absolutely agree, though it’s a lot of work. I hope my repaint suffices, because I was able to cover up much of the darker tans that they filled the holes with, and replace it with some lighter weathering. Here are a few pics of today’s progress; I gave the entire base a “beachcomber beige“ repaint, followed by a very light tan brown wash in a few places. The base production color is kind of a strange, pinkish brown, with darker brown paint filling all of the various cracks.I wanted to be sure to paint over the vents in the back wall, since the ROTJ throne room was presented that way. The weathered paint is subtle, so hopefully you can see it in the natural light pics below!







Comparison to before:

 

[Binary_Sunset]

That's perfect.

 

[yodashizzle]

I'm gonna use some colorful baseball analogies here. I've seen people weather the BMF, lots of good recent work by folks dirtying up the Ghost too. These kind of things take not only skill, but real courage. You gotta realize that these pieces of plastic aren't cheap and you can ruin a considerable investment. Then dude steps into the batter's box. Daig always hits the like he's got a pair. Knocks it out of the park actually. Touch 'em all, Daig, and tip your cap.

 

[Daig]

Got a tiny bit done today; I drilled a hole in each of the two “red vents“, and drilled little tiny holes in the pair of control panels next to them. You can see in this pic the background light coming through each. Then, I put a tea light in the back vent holes and hot glued a piece of foam core to serve as a lever that I could reach to turn the lights on. Here they are without any other lights, and they might be a bit more prominent in this pic than in person, since the iPhone camera tends to enhance the image a bit!

 

[Daig]

I forgot about the opaque art paper I had, and knew it would blend the lighting better than it was with direct light illumination, so I cut a couple of circles and pushed them in front through the vent opening, and I think I got a better red glow. This is similar to what I did with the lighting in the carbon freeze chamber . The overhead light is not necessarily in the correct position, that was a left over from the original display.