# Finally! My new Star Wars inspired Beardie viv (Very pic heavy)



## messymedia (Jul 26, 2009)

Evening all

After a large amount of money, man hours and patience, my Star Wars inspired EX48 vivarium is finally finished! Boba the bearded dragon (named after Boba Fett) certainly prefers it to the 36"x12" viv he was in previously as a baby.

I've not uploaded all of the pics as I took about 50 over the course of the build, but if anyone's interested I can upload them all to my photobucket account and post the link? I've chosen the one's which best illustrate the progress of the build and pasted them below. 

Just in case anyone wonders or generally isn't a Star Wars fan (blasphemy), the symbol I've stencilled on the left of the back wall is the Mandalorian symbol from Boba Fett's battle armour. I considered making a Boba Fett helmet feature like Ch4dg's amazing Predator basking spot but wanted to keep the floorspace clear and generally keep the setup quite naturalistic.

Looking forward to your comments...

:2thumb:














































Once the cutting/shaping was completed I applied 5 layers of coloured grout. The first two layers we're fairly thick then three watered down layers on top. Each layer had more black paint mixed in than the last so I could see which bits I'd done.










Once the grouting was finished and dry I used Belton acrylic spray paints to achieve the desired colour/effect. I used black as a base coat with three different greys and some brown in places. Luckily I have hundreds of cans in the spare room as I'm an artist when I'm not at work designing websites.



















Once dry I applied four coats of Polyvine 'dead flat' acrylic decorators varnish. Non toxic, water resistant and very low odour.










And here's the result...




























The slate topped platform isn't in there now as he's growing so fast he can't fit under it anymore without getting stuck lol!

And here's Boba enjoying his basking spot...










In case anyone wants to know... I'm using twin T5 D3+ 12% uv tubes and a 50W basking spotlight. One of the T5's is almost the whole length of the viv and is positioned on the roof at the back, the other is half the length and at the front. (Apologies for the poor pic... camera phone).










And here's a couple of images of my Leo Jango (Jango Fett lol) in her EX36 tank. This was made before I was confident enough to create a full faux rock background so she just has a corner piece and cave with skeleton on top made from faux rock for practice...







































Sorry for the long post everyone, though it would be better to wait until it was finished and upload all at once so you didn't have to search through pages of updates to view everything. Apologies also for all the writing! I thought I'd describe everything as much as possible to help others wanting to build faux rock vivs as this took a lot of research to source the best products.

Cheers for looking -Messymedia

:2thumb:


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## ch4dg (Jul 24, 2008)

messymedia said:


> I considered making a Boba Fett helmet feature like Ch4dg's amazing Predator basking spot


that would of been awesome, or a damaged darth vader helmet

the rock background looks awesome,
tbh i was expecting a bit more than a couple of labels thou...the inside of the death star/mill falcon...or tatooine set up, ewok village, yodas tree swamp setup, maybe your next project :2thumb:


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## messymedia (Jul 26, 2009)

ch4dg said:


> that would of been awesome, or a damaged darth vader helmet
> 
> the rock background looks awesome,
> tbh i was expecting a bit more than a couple of labels thou...the inside of the death star/mill falcon...or tatooine set up, ewok village, yodas tree swamp setup, maybe your next project :2thumb:


Yeah I was worried people would expect more from the title but as I said I was trying to keep it naturalistic for the sake of the beardie. Tbh I thought it might look a bit tacky if I done too much. I designed the mini signs myself though :2thumb:


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## fuzzzzbuzzzz (Apr 11, 2010)

Thats amazing  Mines not as good as yours, im jealous haha


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## messymedia (Jul 26, 2009)

fuzzzzbuzzzz said:


> Thats amazing  Mines not as good as yours, im jealous haha


Cheers buddy, don't be jealous!!! Your faux rock platform is really cool, I like how you randomly used a kiwi fruit for size comparison! Lol.


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## ch4dg (Jul 24, 2008)

messymedia said:


> I was trying to keep it naturalistic for the sake of the beardie. Tbh I thought it might look a bit tacky if I done too much.


what you trying to say bout my vivs:lol2:


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## the_viper (Aug 18, 2010)

looks good, have to agree though I was expecting more after the title lol


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## messymedia (Jul 26, 2009)

ch4dg said:


> what you trying to say bout my vivs:lol2:


Haha, it wasn't meant like that. Your works are amazing, I was just stating that the idea all along was to keep mine very natural looking.

: victory:


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## messymedia (Jul 26, 2009)

the_viper said:


> looks good, have to agree though I was expecting more after the title lol


Not you as well! Wish I could change the thread title now, lol. Just try and ignore the Star Wars bit and critique the actual build lol.


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## the_viper (Aug 18, 2010)

sorry i saw "star wars inspired beardie viv" and had biiiiiiiiiiig thoughts lol

no don't listen to me it looks good I am going to make my vivs natural looking, I had a plan to do it for my new kenyan sand boa and the bloke he is comming off said why they live under the sand. I said dont mean the bit we can see dont need to look good and they still come out of the sand at times


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## ch4dg (Jul 24, 2008)

the_viper said:


> the bloke he is comming off said ''why they live under the sand''. I said ''dont mean the bit _we_ can see dont need to look good'' and they still come out of the sand at times


same as my sand skinks, but since i done the fake rock bg they have been out loads wondering


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## Dixi1801 (Apr 26, 2011)

absolutely amazing setup! wish i was artistic but sadly, i don't think i have an ounce of artist in me!


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