"Vintage" Custom Captain Antilles and The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot!

Another fun custom project - Captain Antilles of the Tantive IV, the putative "consular ship" upon which Princess Leia travelled with the stolen Death Star plans at the beginning of Star Wars.

The opportunity for this project came about a bit randomly. I'd had a beat-up Han Bespin kicking around on my desk for awhile, and when I happened to visit a local antique shop and spotted a loose POTF2 Rebel Fleet Trooper for cheap, it was on...

Unlike the custom Rebel Fleet Trooper I made a little while ago, I didn't want to use the new POTF2 head for Captain Antilles, because I'd already used it on the custom RFT. Instead, I planned to transplant the POTF2 helmet onto Han Bespin's head. So I plunked the POTF2 figure into boiling water and removed the helmet. As shown above, I took a slice or two off the top of Han's head, and Dremeled out a hole in the top of his head to accommodate the trimmed-down stud on the inside of the helmet.

Of course, Han's original head needed some sculpting help to add the chin cup that goes with the RFT helmet. Two-part sculpting epoxy ("green stuff") was just the thing to use.

Here's Han before paint. Painting was straightforward - the pants and jacket were painted GW Zandri Dust, the shirt was done in Steel Legion Drab, the jacket yoke was done in XV-88, the leather in Mournfang Brown, the hardware Mithril Silver, and flesh touchups in Kislev Flesh.

The chincup was painted GW White Scar and strap painted in with craft black acrylic. The white patch insignia was done in White Scar and blue.

Of course the points of articulation were retained, the helmet was superglued onto the top of Captain Antilles' head.

Here's the Captain along with one of his Troopers.

Now to recreate one of the iconic movie scenes!

The other item I picked up at the antique store was this children's book, the copyright date is 1979. I had this book as a child and remember it well. The story is only marginally of interest but the illustrations are really remarkable.

Check this out! The illustrations were done by a young artist called Mark Corcoran (you can Google him for some information about him) and this was his only Star Wars work. The author is uncredited but the story was probably written in-house at the publisher - Mark said that he was just provided the manuscript and asked to do the illustrations.

The visual style here is so good - I love the side-eye Leia is giving the "walking carpet" next to her.

Corcoran really had a great grasp of the whimsy and humour of the Star Wars universe too. Look at this Jawa blaming his friend for some mischief while the other seems to be saying, "who, ME...???"

Definitely worth picking up if you have a chance, this near-mint copy cost me less than $5CAD.