'Fellowship' from MichaelA: Hoth Fellowship

 Whilst I may not have been the most prolific contributor in the last couple of years, I have always enjoyed the camaraderie, nay fellowship, of the Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  I considered giving it a miss this year, purely because I was concerned that I wouldn’t do the event justice, but the level of support and consideration has been such that it has positively lifted my spirits, thank you one and all.  I can think of no finer example of fellowship than the level of support that is offered by all throughout the challenge months and here we are at the final bonus round with an opportunity to represent that very phenomenon with our own creations. 

To that end let me present my efforts, a selection for miniatures and ships for Star Wars: Legion, loosely arranged to give a sense of the battle that raged on the frozen planet of Hoth during the Empire Strikes Back.  The concept, such that it was, is the idea of never leaving someone behind, here transported to a galaxy far, far away.  As the stricken pilot fumbles with the emergency radio controls, his co-pilot bravely strides towards the towering behemoth that is threatening to crush everything in its path.  Then, and just in the nick of time, air support arrives to halt the advance.

The T-47 Airspeeder, will always be a Snowspeeder to me and even though I have a hankering for a Tatooine themed board, I was struggling to see past the ice fields of Hoth.  I decided that there was only one thing for it and that was to create a second flight stand, so that I could deploy the ship in both climates.  I sourced some acrylic rod and attached a rare earth magnet to the top and fixing another to the speeder; this will mean, I can simply swap out the ship and fix it to another base.  I had tried to get it to tilt, but had to settle for just swivel at the moment.  The obliterated Probe Droid was sadly not an original idea, but one that I had seen on an Instagram account that I follow and was just too cool not to try and replicate.  I couldn’t bring myself to cut up one of my original probe droids, but managed to cast the head of one using insta-mold and some Greenstuff.  A few foam rocks and some pumice gel, completed the illusion. 

The basing technique was repeated with the downed Snowspeeder.  The craft itself is a Revell plastic kit, that I assembled, then broke!  There are available at Amazon for a few pounds and although slightly smaller than the Fantasy Flight model it is not so small to prevent it being used as a terrain piece.  Finally then to the miniatures and again these are 3D prints from Skull Forge studios.  I don’t know how often young Skywalker will be used in battle given the incredibly delicate lightsabre, but again both were exquisitely designed and make really interesting additions to the collection.

When it came to the photography, some fake snow was used and eagled eyed viewers may have spotted the probe droid from my first bonus round, lurking in the distance.  The AT-AT leg, is actually just the leg, I haven’t yet completed the whole Revell 1:53 scale model.  That said it was enough to sell the illusion and I gave it a little shake when the shutter was open to create the effect of movement.  Finally the special effects used for the blizzard, laser fire and lightsabre are all created using LenFX; thank you Barks for the heads up on such a fun app.