by Gordon Cloudman

Scenes edited from “Return of the Jedi” would have revealed a side of the Emperor previously unknown.

It seems the Emperor had a bit of a wild side.

The trap at Endor was set that would assure the destruction of the rebel fleet. The alliance would not survive. He had foreseen it. It was unavoidable. It was… destiny. With the alliance crushed and young Skywalker as his new apprentice, it would be time to relax a little; to “let his hair down”. Waiting in a nearby hanger was his personal TIE Limo waiting to whisk him away on an extreme vacation and some gnarly surfing on Kamino: its droid pilot ever alert for his arrival.

Kamino was waiting for him. He might even have himself cloned... just for laughs. He couldn’t wait to get in the limo, sink into the Moon Pool Jacuzzi, and watch some 3D music videos while sipping whatever the entertainment droid had to offer. His control of the Dark Side was so complete that he could reach out with his senses and feel the ocean spray of the endless oceans of Kamino on his face as he hung ten down the most bitchin’ waves in the galaxy. It was unavoidable. It was his destiny. It would be… most righteous.

Maybe anticipating those monstrous waves distracted him just enough that he didn’t sense that Vader was about to alter his destiny.

Maybe…

The model took its shape from a hand lotion bottle my wife was actually going to just throw away.

It has a ping-pong ball and ten small greebles. The rest is scratch built. The animal print in the solar panels and on top of the fuselage is a see-through fabric

. I couldn't come up with a reliable way to mask off the fabric after construction, so I brush painted the model to avoid overspray. I used Tamiya Acrylics. I also put a few coats of clear over the fabric on the fuselage to help keep it stuck to the model and to make it easier to keep clean.

The storm trooper is sculpted from polymer clay.

My original intent was to make a diorama with this model. It would have been placed in a small hangar with numerous squads of storm troopers and several royal guards, but casting/duplicating the troopers and guards, even given the extended time constraints, proved to be beyond my feeble powers.

Image: Front

Image: Rear

Image: Top

Image: Bottom

Image: Pool

Image: Another look

Image: From outside