Building the Perfect Beast - Anatomy of an AT-AT

OK, OK, so it took me longer to source the parts than I expected.... Last time I wrote things were going swimmingly, with only around 50 parts left to get hold of. And then I double-checked and realised that I'd made an error when collating the parts listings, and in fact I actually still had more than 200 parts to source. You can be glad you weren't there when I discovered this - I was not a happy bunny.

So here we are three weeks later. My epic parts grab is finally done and all the parts are in hand. I hope. So with LDD files in hand and more than 6,200 parts sourced and waiting to be part of something big, the scene was set.

As anyone who has embarked upon a big build will know only too well, locating the right parts for each building step from within a vast sea of other pieces is often the most time-consuming and potentially frustrating aspect. My strategy for dealing with this involves some rudimentary sorting of parts prior to the build to make life a little easier. Specifically, I dump all of the small parts into one clear plastic crate, the plates into another, and everything else into a third crate which becomes the proverbial dumping ground. Given the sheer number of pieces I was going to be dealing with on this occasion - the AT-AT is made up of considerably more parts than any official set - I decided to use a couple of additional crates, one for tiles and one for larger Technic elements. The ultra purists might consider this to be cheating, but I have my mental well-being to consider....

So here they are : 6,200+ AT-AT parts, sorted and waiting to be fashioned into a thing of beauty.

For those of a particularly obsessional nature who want more detail on how the contents of the boxes break down and who crave a closer look at the parts themselves, read on...

Firstly, the crate of small parts (picture below - click to enlarge) contains anything with a footprint of 2 x 2 studs or less, plus all of the 1 x 3 plates, the 1 x 3 slopes, the Technic axles and the hoses. It is by all accounts a pretty arbitrary selection on my part, but what really matters is that YOU know what you've put in each crate and hence where to look when you need them....

Next are the plates (below), of which there are a prodigious number; basically anything flat with a footprint of more than 2 x 2 studs and which isn't entirely or partially studless went into this crate. It's worth noting at this stage that anything you can see in any of the crates which isn't light bluish grey or dark bluish grey, with the exception of the trans red cheese slopes which form the AT-AT windscreen, is part of the inner structure of the model and can't be seen from the outside;. This means that you can theoretically substitute them for parts of any colour you like, although in order to make it easier to follow along with Pete's LDD files I used pieces which were exactly the same colour as those he used in the files.

Then there are the tiles (below); any flat pieces which were completely or partially studless and had a footprint bigger than 2 x 2 studs went into this crate. When I built my UCS Millennium Falcon a couple of years back I didn't separate the tiles out before I started building, resulting in a much longer time to locate them amidst all the thousands of plates in that set; I didn't want to fall into the same trap this time round....

Next there's the Technic crate (below) into which I dumped all the Technic bricks and liftarms. Other Technic parts were spread around the other crates dependent on size and shape, but in a sea of bricks there's a tendency for some of these Technic beams to be confused with other parts so I thought it would make life a bit easier.

Finally there's the crate into which everything else goes (below - click to enlarge). In practice this was mainly standard bricks, inverted dishes, a multitude of slopes, and wheels of various sizes. Note the printed dishes peeking out from the sea of parts; these will eventually cover the joints of the AT-AT's legs. The giant light bluish grey wheels in the top left and bottom right corners of the crate, which have only ever appeared in Set 10030 Imperial Star Destroyer in this colour, were a total pain to source, so much so that Pete has replaced them with alternative parts in the most recent version of the LDD files. Having managed to source them, however, I'm sticking to the original design.

The beauty of these crates is two-fold. Firstly they're transparent, so you can look for the pieces you're after through the sides of the crates or even peer up from underneath to see if if they're hiding under other parts. Secondly they stack (picture below) so when real life impinges on your building experience you can store everything out of the way much more easily.

A final note for Kevin and anyone else out there who is embarking on a similar AT-AT building project; as I mentioned earlier, Pete has tidied up the most recent version of the LDD files and replaced some of the hardest-to-source parts with more abundant alternatives. The parts above were sourced with reference to the original LDD files, however, so if you see parts in the pictures which don't appear on your parts listings, or which are a different colour, there's no need to panic !

So all the preparation is finally complete. The next time I post on this project, building will be well underway - I promise ! Anyone reading this who wants a crack at building their own AT-AT and would like a copy of the LDD files and parts inventory please get in touch and I'll forward your request on to Pete.


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