Star wars diorama Jabba´s Palace

Well, here it is, my Jabba the Hutt diorama. First of all, This diorama isn’t an attempt to make a movie screen accurate diorama, Its meant to look good and to be fun to put it simply. 
My english isn´t that accurate either but I´m pretty sure that most people who googles on Star Wars dioramas want to read this in some sort of English language and not in Swedish, even if the grammar is really out there.


As you soon will see, its a bit different from other Jabba´s Palace dioramas on the web.
I really don’t want to crowd my diorama with just a bunch of weird and strange looking aliens because some of them aren’t that attractive if you know what i mean. And hey, the figure Ephant mon takes half the diorama space itself..
However, If you would like to insert every single strange creature that appeared in Star Wars Episode VI Return of the Jedi its easily doable since Hasbro strategically releases every thinkable star wars character that ever appeared on the big screen.


And since I don’t have any intention to do a Mos Eisly Cantina diorama i thought, Hmm wonder how the palace would look on a Saturday night with more humanlike star wars characters showing up to have a nice time at Jabbas funky place. It can´t always be "aliens only night" right?:) Anakin having a drink in the bar, Yoda digging and listening to Max reebo´s band, Queen Amidala on the karaoke.. Jabba sacrifices a green skinned girl to the Rancor. Everybody in the Jabba house just having a blast.
And sure, I know Yoda isn’t likely to attend this kind of party, But hey, I need to place my figures somewhere don’t I? :)

So it’s a Jabba´s Palace/Cantina bar diorama. And yes, outside the palace a land speeder arrives, complete with Obi Wan, Luke and c3po and r2d2 being questioned by a group of sand trooper. Just as their arrival at Mos eisly in A new Hope. But at writing time I’m waiting for the right figures to arrive in the post, so no photos of that event until later.

So what’s my diorama made of?
Well, I recently bought a flimsy cardboard "star wars Jabba´s Palace 3-d diorama" from the power of the force-Line from the late 90´s. I bought it merely for the textures, the paintjob so to speak that I found was pretty good. And then I bought a second set of the same paper-diorama and started to rebuild it.

If you want to take a look at a review of the diorama, check out Micahc6v8´s YouTube clip. He has several interesting reviews, comparing new and vintage Star wars toys. Not toys, collectibles is the word in looking for. ;)

Anyway, here is a picture of it, just put together, Its pretty simple and basic but I thought it would be fun to try and improve it.

First of all I scanned all of the front pieces and the whole back painting because I knew that I had to destroy the original. Then I could just print some new pieces. Neat huh?
I glued the cardboard on Styrofoam, the walls, the floor and the valve. I also made the staircase a lot firmer since it was so wobbly no figures could stand on it on its own.
It’s made to fit an Ikea Lack wall-shelf so its 110cm long/74 3/4 "long thats why we see it all from the side.

Here are some work in progress photos; you can see that I started to "sculpture" the base so it would be more 3-d then the original paper-thin 3-d. I also glued decorative sand on the surface to give it a sandy, dirty feel to it. Then I added paint on the whole thing. And I changed the design a bit for the final version. All for the best.

I needed to make the stage for the Max Reebo band a bit bigger so I used the paper "throne" to make it bigger. The final band and bar area is a bit small and crowded but since I needed the whole diorama to fit on a Ikea LACK shelf I couldn’t go on forever.

The shape is coming together on the left side, still a lot of work need to be done.

And in front of the throne in the floor, I painted and built in I a vintage Jabba the hutt throne with trapdoors. Simply since the painted trapdoor on the cardboard from the original diorama looked awefull.  In the future I will make the Rancors pit below and then I will make a hole on the bottom of the vintage trapdoor throne so you can look down directly into the pit..or throw someone down there. I also bought a vintage death star elevator to take me down to the prison dungeons and that android torture scen from the movie. But that is for future projects.

Here I´ve added a valve front, put on some moss that need some paint, metal rings and chains and black net as a drape on the roof and Reebo stage. It´s actually a women net-stocking but I simply couldn’t go in to a store and buy women stockings. So I sent my girlfriend Stina. Wow, she is so supporting with all my crazy projects.

Well, I digress but here are the final photos.

Above: The bar and music stage. The ugly Han Solo carbonite figure that came with the 3-d diorama set makes an excellent bartender, here cleaning a glas for the thirsty guests. R2d2 and c3po serve the drinks. C3po is hard to spot, he’s behind Padmé Naberrie . Some Jawas are roaming around the set. I might put in a hammerhead figure or something to break the tatooine night club gang.

 Above: Yoda uses the force on his wine glass.

Above: Ladies and gentlemen and weird looking creatures, The Max Reebo band!

Above: R2D2 projects a hologram of Jedi Luke Skywalker to Jabba the Hutt. Just a funny ideá I had.
I need to put a lightsorce from R2d2 to the hologram..but this have to do for now.

 Above: The left side of the diorama. I put Carbonite Han solo up on the wall, guarded by 3 Gamorrean guards, Amanaman in the back. The vintage Amanaman was the first Star Wars figure I got when I was a kid, well the ONLY one I had as a kid since I DIDNT LIKE Star wars until the late 90ths!! Then I actually got forced to watch Star Wars a new Hope on Laser Disc. Then I was hooked. Weird or what? Thanks Andreas for the introduction to a galaxy far far away :)

Above: Sandtrooper, ready to inspect the oncoming Land speeder. Jabba´s Palace Dancer didn’t fit on the music stage so here we are. The Left side of the diorama needs some entertainment too don’t you think? Malakili Rancor keeper also in the back, Leia and chewbacca are a important element. Also Boba Fett just arrived. Nice. Nice.

Above: Jedi Luke confronts Jabba himself. I usually try to keep my figures untouched and original but 2010 Jabba the hutt legacy collection needed un updated paintjob to look more familiar to the movie Jabba. But the sculpt is real good. The sculpt on slave Leia is probably the best so far of all the slaves out there. A Jawa waves a palm leaf to cool Jabba a bit, just as in the movie. What? Movie accurate? It’s unheard of in this diorama. Oh well, squid face, c3po and Bib Fortuna and on the far left we got Greedo and Lando Calrissian as skiff guards. Olaa is dancing around somewhere there too.

Jabbas throne from the front.

Above: The whole diorama. It’s a shelf diorama so it’s pretty flat. There are some great huge dioramas out there on the web and probably ten times more accurate and better than this. But hey, it looks pretty awesome here in my room :)

Hope you enjoyed watching it too. Until next diorama..