AT-ST kit by brunnels - Gambody 3d print kit files - 1:35 scale

[brunnels]

I recently got a Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra resin printer, as I have been really impressed with how far 3d printing tech has come.  My first foray into 3d printing was about 10 years ago with a standard FDM printer and at the time the printers had a learning curve to use them and there just wasn't much out there that was interesting to print other than trinkets that didn't look all that great.  The technology on both FDM and DLM/SLA (Resin) printers is amazing now, the machines are almost out of the box ready to use, they are fairly inexpensive, and the 3d models that people are designing now are really good.

After I got my exposure settings somewhat dialed in, I wanted to test the printer on something bigger that I would also enjoy as a model.  I love Star Wars and the Gambody website has a ton of really good quality models that you can buy.  I decided to get the AT-ST, I always loved the walkers in Star Wars and the AT-ST is a great medium sized model at 1:35 scale.  Gambody AT-ST

I started off with the prints in Elegoo White Smoke color, this will be painted over anyways, but I think it would actually be a great base color for many Star Wars ships.  The prints took me about a week to print, I had a few failures here and there as I was still learning the printer and dialing in the exposure settings of the resin.  There are 14 pieces for the SLA version, but the FDM version has many more parts and much more adjustability in movement.  I think if I ever print this again I will print out using the FDM files as I would have like a little more movement in the legs to pose it walking.

As you can see there is no shortage of details that can all be printed as one piece.  

 

Head Assembly

 

The head is probably the roughest looking part I had printed, most of the small details of the head assembly are on the bottom and back, so I put the print supports on the front and top.  I accidently used an old print profile I still had open so the print exposure settings were a tad higher than I wanted and the supports came off a little uglier than I would have liked.  While this looks pretty rough in macro, it really is smoother than it looks and will be easily sanded and covered up with the primer coat.  I may actually deepen some of the divots to make some battle scars, the great thing about Star Wars modelling is imperfections are actually part of the look of the universe.

 

 

I also decided to make a modification to the window hatches.  On Gambodys model the window hatches print attached to the body and are in a close to straight up position which isn't really how any of them are in the films.  I carefully cut them off with a knife and glued them in a lower position with some CA glue.

As you can see on their model, the window hatches pointed nearly straight up.

The head assembly is 7 parts. The assembly is very straight forward with the guns sliding smoothly into their slots.

On the body top assembly, there is a hatch and a utility rack.  I did file the hatch connections down a tad because i felt the fit was a little snug and I didn't want to crack the hatch.  The rack slid right into the 4 squarish slots with a little pressure.

 

Leg Assembly

Next are the legs.  These are very straightforward, just plug in each of the three leg parts to the other and attach to the lower body assembly.  The hardest part about this was just trying to get all the legs angled to look correct.  These types of legs must have been a pain to film for stop motion, as the movements is more complicated than it looks.

 

Final Assembly

Once the legs are on the lower body, the head just pops right on and the walkers assembly is complete.  I was surprised how well it balance on its own.

Next up is painting.  If anyone has any recommendations please feel free to share,  I have to do some research on what color grey to use, I know there are some paint sets out there specifically made for Star Wars colors, but they looked pretty expensive.  This next weekend I will head over to my local hobby store to see what they have in their Vallejo/Tamiya selections.