From the dreaded junkyards of Ord Mantel to the Dune Sea of Tatooine, many young pilots living on the Outer Rim have cut their teeth on an Incom T-16 Skyhopper. A tropospheric pleasure and utility craft, the T-16 comes equipped from Incom with efficient twin DCJ-45 repulsorlift engines for lift and an Incom E-16/x ion engine for thrust. The skyhopper boasts speeds in excess of 1,000Kph and a ceiling of 300 kilometers.

The T-16 is both fast and readily available, naturally this makes the popular airspeeder an equally popular racing craft with pilots customizing their speeders with highly imaginative and sometimes highly illegal modifications.

To save weight this particular Skyhopper bears no weapons and has been stripped of certain safety features, it also has military grade gravity/inertia dampening coils among it's many custom components.

About the Model

This model was my first "true" scratchbuild. It is based on a paper model that I downloaded of the net as a pdf. I started by scaling the pdf to the scale I wanted, 1:35, I then modified the file to use as a template for plastic sheets. I used anything and everything in building this kit, from "For Sale" signs to ballpoint pens, to disposable razors, to numerous bits and pieces of scrap kits and kits I bought simply for parts and greeblies. Some of the kits that went into this model were a Linberg Toyota Pick-up, a dew Macross kits, some mini fighter jet kits, as well as a few Star Wars kits include a STAP and some bits from AMT's mini snap kits from "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace"

There wasn't a whole lot of reference available on this subject, at least not a lot that I could find, that made in hard in one way but very liberating since it left a great deal to my imagination.

Once I had the model built came time for paint and weathering. I wanted the ship to have the appearance of an old backyard racer, sort of like something a space redneck would be working on Monday to Saturday to race it on Sunday. I wanted to build a ship that was barely together and had been so used and abused. I of course also wanted it to have a "Star Wars" used feel.

I started with a greyish base coat and some underpainting techniques, I continued with the trim colors and a few off color panels. Between the deep red, the yellow and the darker grey, I used a liquid mask technique to create a chipped paint effect. I then added some chips to look like bare metal, the rest of the weathering was a combination of washes and pastels, all aiming for a dirty, greasy, rusty look.

Image: Right/front

Image: Front view

Image: Port side

Image: Belly of the beast

Image: Rear view

Image: Closer look at the engine

Image: Pilot