When the Star Wars Clone Wars Rebels sets were introduced I was a little excited. I am a fan of Star Wars, even though they seem to reproduce models a lot with only minor improvements, the space ships are generally quite good.
Now I’ve not seen any of the series, but I do love an underdog and so their space ships interested me a lot. Specifically the Ghost and Phantom ships. With the Ghost a bit out of my price range for a ‘on the spot’ purchase I started with the Phantom.
This was my first set with the new missile launcher brick, but I also liked it because of its cargo hold which could hold the accessories that weren’t being used such as the helmet or hair. Also at £20 I thought it was pretty reasonably priced.
Now, do not get me wrong, I think it is a very good model and from what I’ve seen of pictures from the upcoming TV show it represents it very well. So please do not think that I am bad mouthing the design from what you are about to read. Everything to follow is just my own opinion.
Here is how mine looks now;
Here is how mine looks now;
To start, I was a little disappointed that this was one of the sets that Lego has produced where they haven’t really taken the size of the mini figure into account. By that I mean the cockpit. They have had a few sets where to actually make the mini figure sit inside, especially if they have hair or a neck attached accessory, the character needs to practically be laying down.
That is where the inspiration came from to start modding this set, getting the character to sit up.
If you do not want to change the set too much – and I understand that a lot may not want to as it does lock into the larger Ghost ship – there is a simple mod you can do to give you an extra ‘flat’ height. That doesn’t affect the over all external dimensions.
These bricks are already coloured from my changes, however, once built you can remove the 6×4 panel quite easily from the base of the cockpit.
The instructions have the blue 1×4 strip two studs to the left, with the two 2×1 strips in the gap (one stud to the right).
set up as shown in the picture you will end up with a 2×2 square where the character can sit, one ‘flat’ lower.
This does not allow the character to sit up straight, but it helps. There is now also room to add a steering wheel or handlebar piece within the cockpit so as not to rely on the decal inside for the controls.It is now I should probably go back to an earlier statement of mine, in that I always imagine ‘rebels’ to have to salvage scrap to make what they need under the oppressor’s noses. Which is why I always like to randomly colour the bricks and to make the design un-symetrical. To me it makes it look like the ship has been repaired / constructed by whatever the rebels could get their hands on.
The rear, removable, cargo section of the ship in this sense has not changed from the original design, it’s just had the white bricks replaced for a different colour.
The biggest change is in the fore cockpit section. Another of my grievances was that if the cockpit was meant to be a small craft in itself, should the cargo section be jettisoned, there were no engines of any kind.
Now the ‘real’ ship might not be able to fly without the rear section, but I wasn’t happy with that as a concept. So in making the cockpit bigger it allowed me to add some bricks that have the Technic holes through them. Not only did this let me put some light bricks at the rear for engines, but also some bricks inside the cockpit for a head rest.
I had to increase the depth of the cockpit by another flat to ensure a mini fig could sit up straight. As you can see from Emmet being inside, this now means a mini fig can not only sit up, he can also have hair and a neck attachment without impeding the shutting of the canopy.
This did raise another issue though. The angled side plates of the original model covered up the gap around the base of the canopy. Now my canopy was essentially one flat higher, the gap was now visible. This was unacceptable to me. So I delved into my work desk (as this is were a lot of my modifications happen) and found two hinged 4×4 bricks. as you can just about make out in the picture above.
When opened these allow you better access to the cockpit, but when shut the angle into the canopy giving the cockpit shape.
Purely by happenstance, the re-use of the angle panels being angled in themselves now makes the whole cockpit look like it has one clean edge from top or bottom;
The cockpit then had to become longer as being one flat higher made it look stunted, so i elongated it slightly. I also did not really like the length of the front blasters (again, this is a personal opinion) so i flipped the ‘sticks’ around and pushed them in fully.
I understand that a lot of what I have done here may not be to everyone’s tastes. And trust me, it is one of those models I shall continually go back to and tweak for many months to come. It surprised me just how far from the original I strayed, and although this will never fit into the Ghost ship I still really like the outcome.
What started with just being able to get the mini fig to sit up right turned into a model that ANY mini fig can sit in, even one with body armour on, and, for me, a more playable set with the addition of the engines to the fore section.
I really should start doing some real work at my desk one day…
Let me know what you think? Have you got any bug bears about Lego sets, such as laying down minifies or bad brick use that keeps popping up? Do you modify sets, keeping them as close to the original as possible, but making them more playable? Or are you a hardcore fan that leaves as is? I find myself a bit of both. There are some sets I will not betray in the slightest, but some, like this I like to tinker with.
Let me know if you would like any more details on what I did and I shall help you out as best I can.
Until next time!
