Even more galactic whittling: Gozanti cruiser

For my latest ‘galactic folk art’ adventure, I decided to make a civilian-model Gozanti cruiser, partially inspired by the post-Disney Imperial incarnation featured in ‘The Heiress’. This ship has been around since at least 32 BBY (its first appearance was taking off outside Mos Espa in Episode I), so it’s a solid fit for any of my personas to carry in a pocket:

Whenever I’m feeling stressed out, in a funk, or down on myself (usually after spending too much time on social media and comparing my own slow progress and accomplishments with other folks’ flashy projects!), I find a great coping mechanism is to pick up some small project that can be completed with short turnaround. Whittling is a great choice for these kinds of projects, as I find the act of whittling by itself to be very grounding and meditative. However, the ‘in the flow’ quality of the work means that I always forget to take in-progress pictures, reinforcing my FOMO of not keeping up with the social media Joneses! (Aaahh, what difficult-to-navigate times we live in. 😉

While researching and collecting reference images, I realized part of my attraction to the Gozanti is how animalistic its design is–it’s not too much of a stretch to see it as some large underwater beast. With that in mind, it’s kind of surprising that it’s a civilian Corellian Engineerng Corp design: in an alternate galaxy I could easily see it being a Trade Federation design.

While I didn’t nail the likeness 100% (I’m most dissatisfied with the width of the engines, and may wind up remaking them as a separate dovetailed insert down the road), I think it’s definitely close enough for a piece of ‘folk art’ and I’m pretty pleased with it overall. I’m starting to amass a nice little collection of whittled pieces…what should I carve next? I’m open to suggestions (or commissions if you’d like to have something for your own pocket)!

Researching, crafting, photographing, and writing this site takes a lot of time and energy. If you’ve enjoyed reading, have learned something from this post, or will use it as inspiration for a future project of your own, please consider supporting my work with a small donation below! Thank you!