Star Wars: Lava Flea 1/18 scale unfold

Revell-Fan

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Hi guys,

a few years (!) ago I found a very cute model of the Mustafar lava flea at the SketchUp Warehouse:

lava flea.jpg

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=b1a85304dbf9687c3f217b945a063dd2

The model was converted and uploaded by abdyla.

When I took a closer look at it I noticed that it is a very sophisticated game model from "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" with a hyper-realistic texture and that it had absolutely NO intersections! I told to myself, this is an ideal candidate for unfolding.

So I swang into action and began tampering with the mesh. Other things intervened and the project got buried under a huge pile of other projects. A few days ago I found the original project's folder again and took a look. I started work when I did not have a full Pepakura license, so the parts were exported as a series of *.pdf files. Unfortunately I did not write down the final size of the model and the dimensions of the SketchUp file did not reveal any clue about it.

So with the knowledge I have today (and a full Pep license ;) ) I began anew. It quickly became obvious that there would be a huge parts count and that the feet would become very tricky to build, but I did not give up and tackled one element at a time. Proceeding methodically really makes a difference and so I was able to unfold the whole damn beast without any major trouble.

In order to keep the parts not too small and fiddly I chose a scale of 1/18 so that you will be able to make a Mustafar Sentry ride on its back . And believe me, this is gonna be a HUGE ride: 25 x 38 x 43 cm! Of course you may re-scale it according to your needs (and available space ;) ). (I chose the Wookiepedia entry for reference ;) ).

lava flea2a.jpg

I still need to tweak the unfold of the feet and the flap positions a bit which won't take long. Then the *.pdo it will flea-jump right into the Resources for anyone to have fun with it. :)
 
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bigpetr

Designer/Master Modeler
Nice work, Revell-Fan.

But guys, please, stop making these great new models to buil, or my head will soon blow off, because I want to build them all :bulgeeye::bulgeeye:
 

Revell-Fan

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One note regarding the flaps: Whenever possible (and logical) pieces of one group were attached to each other. The flaps follow one direction then. Groups which could not be attached because they bend into different directions feature flaps on alternating positions. This should make sure that the parts are glued together correctly. This is a trick I have seen on many Canon models. Of course you may swap flap positions according to your liking. ;)

BTW, this is my 48th model. Two more and I have the 50. :)
 

zathros

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Excellent, man, I just don't know how you do it. I love it though! :)
 
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