World Building: Maldo Kries Ice Spiders
Continuing our series on worldbuilding, I’ll dive into more creatures for your dioramas. Back in 2022, we got our first new figures of Star Wars creatures in a long time the Maldo Kries Ice Spiders. We got one and an egg for the Black Series and three plus an egg for the TVC line. They were included in a “build up pack” with Din Djarin and Grogu with snow paint applications. Both sets had a mixed reception from collectors. Many were disappointed with both sets for a variety of reasons. The high price and exclusivity of both sets discouraged many fans. The TVC set was $27.99 and a Walmart exclusive. The Black Series version started at $33.99 but ended up at $36.99 and was a Target exclusive. Many near big city Targets saw higher prices of the set. Eventually, both hit clearance and can now be bought below their original price.
I believe these sets would have been a better buy if they included a decent assortment of spiders of various sizes to better recreate the Maldo Kries scene. If you have both TVC and TBS versions, you could mix and match the spiders. The Black Series set was the most disappointing of the sets, as it only came with one creature and it could have been painted better.
But on to world-building with these spiders. I finally opened the sets I got most on clearance – two of each scale for a diorama picture. After setting them up, I wanted bigger versions. I know many collectors have turned to 3D printing to expand their collections and dioramas. I did not have a 3D printer myself but did find out my local library has a maker space with different creative tools like a 3D printer available for use. I lucked out and found two files for two different versions on https://www.thingiverse.com/.
The first was a static model which I asked them to print for me at 5 inches rather than the original 7 inches. The second was an articulated version that you had to assemble yourself. It was massive yet very fragile. I am sure it should have been printed in something like a flex resin. This was my first attempt at 3D printing, and I was limited by the supplies of the library. Both prints took a while to get.
The static model was pretty detailed and did fit in well with my Black Series figures. I did do some slight painting with various washes to get it to match Hasbro’s figures.
The articulated version was fun to assemble. I did need to heat some of the parts for the ball joints. The lower legs were very fragile and broke several times, but I was able to glue them in place and wrap them in Sugru ( a modelable and paintable glue) for added support. I did not ask the library to scale this one down, but it was much bigger than expected! I did use Sugru to add fangs to the mouth of the creature to better match the Hasbro version.
This was fun and now I have a few more Maldo Kries spiders for my collection! I’ve dropped the links to the files below. What do you think? Would you rather Hasbro had created a set with larger spiders, or do you enjoy the creative process of adding to your collection?
