Jabba’s Palace, Special Revision
The recent Lego Star Wars set for the palace is lovely, but it’s small. I’m glad I didn’t pay full whack for it (thank you ASDA) because I would have been pissed off spending a hundred quid on it. The figures are lovely and the overall design is mucho pretty but you can’t get much into it. I know there’s the Rancor add-on, but that goes underneath and while it’s a clever way to develop the model I have height restrictions (like any good ride) and it just won’t bloody fit.
I’ve already had to reduce the height and while doing so built an extension corridor between the guard tower (and tiny front door) and the throne room. It’s not big enough and the design was a bit wobbly since it could be detached from both sides. It also didn’t really carry the theme of the build – I mean it’s okay and I was pleased but I felt I could do better.
The 1st Revision
See what I mean? It’s nice but I still can’t fit much more in there (I’m still failing at that).
2nd Revision (not Special Edition)
This time I took a different approach, dismantling the guard tower so I could integrate the corridor (and lose the immense drop and smashability of the model). I figured it would be better to match the throne room’s base design than the tower (they’re at very different heights) and just step up from the tower. Then I hit the usual difficulties of limited brickage, but I wanted to make it look as seamless as possible by matching the corridor heights and doorways that already existed. That forced the use of bricks in some places but freed up enough slopes to make a consistent roof for it. It’s also much more stable than the initial roof which was patched together really messily.
The Future Return of the Jabba’s Palace
One problem I didn’t manage to resolve at all is the weakness of the guard tower’s base which is four plates held together just with a couple of tiles. Even though the corridor feels like it’s twice as long as before it’s still quite narrow due to limited bricks and the depth of the guard tower. What I’d really like to do next it deepen the whole thing and get a door which is more like the vast wide door in the film (and maybe enable rotation of the whole tower because the front is so pretty but it’s hidden at the back of the model.) Ho hum.
Also ongoing is the droid dungeon project – check out a sneak preview below…
You can see more pictures of the set in glorious colour here on Flickr.
Related articles
- Lego Blog: There’s An Ogre At My Castle (captainpigheart.com)
- Lego Blog: Birthday Minifigure Gallery (captainpigheart.com)
- Lego Blog: Jabba’s Palace (captainpigheart.com)
- Lego Blog: Pigs Vs Cows (captainpigheart.com)
