Chris Ford’s AT-ST

The kit is a standard MPC/Ertl AT-ST from the Star Wars trilogy, SW VI to be exact. But you know me, never content to build it straight out of the box so I took a cue from my tank model and decided to alter this one too as if on the losing end, well long lost actually, of a major battle.

The title is “Direct Hit!” and depicts, amongst blast marks on the body armour, a huge gaping blast hole on the upper port side and top, the top entry canopy still seen twisted and bent and attached by one hinge. Inside is a full built up interior, (4 walls and floor and partial ceiling). I installed a scratchbuilt frontal dual control console with 2 in-scale stormtroopers inside. One is unconcious and hunched over the console, the other is on the floor at the back of the cab, his right arm still attached to the console.

I need to still add a wee bit of Carrs weathering powder via a fine brush to dirty down their white armour some. The blast detailing is about .40 plasticard heated /bent /melted over a candle then painted flat black with dry brushing fine silver on some of the edges. Then I drilled some holes into the sides and inserted small pieces of fine black wire to simulate reinforced steel.

The head is badly tilting to one side… deliberately. On the neck area, yet more detailing is present, the main central column being made from bass guitar strings. More spring wire protudes from the neck area as well. Getting the model to stand was initially difficult because if you’ve ever made the kit before, you’ll know it’s molded to have the right leg well in front of the left leg in order to stand. Well I wanted the legs to be side by side – this causes the upper cab section to be too top/frontal heavy so I had to re-work the left leg, cutting the molded pivot join and actually make it pivot. This allowed me to position it lower down than the right leg allowing the model to stand properly – it looks totally natural. I was proud of this customized feature.

The kit is painted in auto primer grey and left that way. A light airbrush of black is used to dirty it up and detial the hot solder tip created blast marks, also edged drybrush in silver. Then a liberal wash of diluted rust was applied all over followed by a few coats of black wash. All the paints use are Humbrol, except for the auto primer gray.

The base is a 5 inch dia disk about 1 and a half inches high with the upper edge routed. The upper area containf some herbal tea detail with 2 small blasted tree stumps and more body armour pieces strewn on the ground. Moss and liches litter the AT-ST feet and other small sections of the walker.

It’s taken me the better part of a year to complete, working on and off continuously. It’s a nice little kit, but even more fun to “blast apart”. The final detail is to add a smal brass nameplate on the frontof the base.

Chris Ford