Capture of Ko Sai

[Incom]

Okay, one of the reasons I haven't been able to complete more custom figures, is because I devoted much of my time on this diorama. It was my entry for the ISY.net tribute to Karen Traviss contest. What we had to do, was make a diorama of a scene of one of the four Republic Commando novels. I'm a huge fan of those books and there are many excellent events to immortalize in customized form.

What I really like about the novels, is how Karen explores the human in the clone. They're not just copies of Jango, bred for the sole purpose of fighting and dying for the Republic. They're just as human as any other, perhaps even more so. Karen envisions the hardship of the training regime on Kamino really well and how that effected the beloved characters.

The capture of Ko Sai in True Colors (pages 285 and 286) was a highlight for me and I immediately picked that event to make a diorama of.

Key characters are Kal Skirata, Mereel and Ko Sai of course. She was hiding in some underwater lab, guarded by Mandalorian bodyguards. My diorama shows Kal and Mereel in her office, Mereel revealing himself to a shocked Ko Sai.

Pictures of Kal Skirata and what his armour looks like are abound, however less so of his boys. I asked around a bit and some guys felt green was a pretty good choice of colour for Mereel's armour. Ko Sai was easy to make of a Lama Su (or Taun We?) figure. I even got her to sit her aiwha bait shebs down

Anyway, enough talk, here are the pics:

I actually won 2nd prize, by the way! Here are all the entries together: http://www.imperialshipyards.net/nycc/cc2010index.html

Clearer pictures of Kal en Mereel can be found in my Customs Thread.

 

[DanOfTheDead]

I didn't realize this was yours when I saw it at Imperial Shipyards!

It's so great! Should've taken first IMHO.

Just finished Order 66 (REALLY disappointed it took more than 3/4 of the book to get to the titular event). I've plowed through the first 4 books so I'm a little burned out and getting through Imperial Commandos.

But this is a great rendition of that "scene". You did a wonderful job!

 

[The Professor]

Kamino dioramas are few and far between. This one's awesome. I love the pipes on the wall as well as the detail on the chair. Quite impressive.

 

[YAK_Chewie]

Wow... I'm pretty much speechless. This looks fantastic, and I'll have to head over there to see what could have possibly topped this?

The details are so clean and pristine, something that is so hard to accomplish with environments like Kamino... simply in awe of this.

Great work Incom... can you go into more details on how you made this? Especially that table and chair... damn!

:wink:

 

[Incom]

Guys, thanks so much for the praise. I had lots of fun building this dio. I took detailed notice of the events and surroundings described in the novel. Like the fact that Ko Sai's hideout lab was very much like her office on Kamino, her wearing a white dress and wearing the three black cuffs on her arms.

I figured it'd be cool to have a desk and chair on a gravity field. I first cut the desk out of a cd jewel case (I kid you not :shock: ), but in the final stages of cutting, it broke in half :| So I switched to styrene, material I'm comfortable working with. Making it float proved too troublesome, so I made a post to support it.

I also had to make Ko Sai sit of course. I cut out a little wedge shaped piece of the back of her knees (geez, if it weren't for us talking customizing, that'd sound really gruesome :mrgreen: ). I bent her legs in a 90 degree angle and glued them. After that I sculpted her skirt with Fixit Sculpt.

The office was made out of foamcore and foamies (the window frame for instance). I scored lines in the floor (thanks to Daigo_Bah for showing that in one of his Cloud City dios!) to resemble tiles. I had a bunch of those insane GI Joe bazookas which were perfect for decoration. Add a few coats of white spray paints and lots of high gloss clear coat and you've got yourself a Kamino style office. I found a neat underwater pic on the net, printed that on photopaper and placed it behind a piece of blister from a TF figre.

The last thing I made was the chair. Also completely from styrene (and leather for the seat and back padding). I bent the chair into shape by carefully moving it back and forth over a flame.

And Dan, Order 66 is great just because it takes so long for that order to happen. I really had to stop myself from time to time to skip to that chapter :wink:

 

[blaster_e11]

i love this dio, i can't believe i missed it before

i think it should have won the 1st prize too

everything looks great in your dio,

 

[jedistyle]

OSIK!!!!!

that is amazing incom, i am in awe.....

-the overall scene presentaion itself is spot on to what i pictured as i was reading "true colors". the clean sterile styling of a kaminoan is captured perfectly with all the white walls and floors....id really love to hear the materials and technique you used on the floors, the desk and chair are nothing short of amazing and the back lit window port is a nice touch, incredibly well done.

-that is a very cool that you managed to get a sitting pose out of that dirty "awhai-bait" ko sai and you did a great job capturing here smugness as she just sat there while 2 mando's strolled in assuming she could by them off until mereel took off his bucket, wow, i have to say again great scene capturing!

-kal'buir and mer'ika look nothing short of spectacular as well, i commented on them inyour customs thread but i'll do so again here, the kal custom has got to be the best one i have yet to see, the color palet is spot on and the diffrent trims and scuffs you applied look great, mereel is the well done also, you even included the electro prod he carried in to "persuade" ko sai to help them, i also really like the added stripe on the top of mereels helemt. good stuff man....

i checked out all the other entries as well and they were all cool, but man i have to say i think you should have taken 1st spot, you did a incredible job, this captured not only a scene from the book that i completley pictured in my head but also the charecters themselves, this is the sort of dio that rivals the legendary "owen d.".....so once again man really well done and impressive work...

"OYA!!! rem'ika...." :twisted:

 

[Incom]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

And thanks so much for this very detailed reply, Erik! The materials I used were as follows:

base: picture frame with foamboard as a floor and walls. Drew tile lines on the floor with a ball point.
left wall deco: GI Joe friggin' big guns and lego tubes
back wall deco: pieces of foamboard, foamies, piece of blister with a picture of some underwater scene I found on the net
Ko Sai's desk and chair: completely handmade out of styrene.

The whole setting was spray painted white several times,, with greys and metallics for details. Then I coated it several times with a gloss spray coat.

 

[Darth Kikinou]

How did I miss this??? WOW! Well done!!

 

[lugo_matapollos]

havent read that novel but it sound like a good story. tat diorama is great. for once I tought there was a real fish tank in the back. lol :mrgreen: