Pursuit Ship - all finished

All done. Apols for the blurriness of the pics, but you should get an idea.

This is a real nice kit and highly recommended. Went together very easily and very quickly. The only tricky bit was attaching the aerial assembly. The place on the upper fin where it goes was just a blank plate and there's no way that that'd stay for long. So i drilled it out and the asembly fits in there fine now.

Derelict - getting started

Litttle bit of progess.

Wrapping the piping with Plasticard is all well and good, but there's an ugly join were the two ends meet.

To disguise it, i've applied a strip of Plasticard half tubing along the length.

Pursuit Ship - painting done

Here we go.

Washed a brown/red mix around the details, then went around everything with pencil.

Picked out a lot of the details in different shades of red.

Put on the decals. This went a lot easier than i thought it'd go.

The instruction would have you gloss the ship, cut each decal out, dip in water for 5 seconds ONLY, put on kit for 30 seconds, then slid off the backing paper.

Well, didn't gloss the ship - and went about the applying just as if they were regular decals and it went fine.They look FAR too bright, but next step is to do a bit of pastelling.

You'll notice one of the weapons on the wings has pinged off.Keeping it off till final assembly as i don't want it happening again.

Pursuit Ship - done

That was fast. Partly due to very little clean-up and also everything went together with superglue.

The only thing i'm apprehensive about is attaching the antennea array - which is the horizontal rod meant to glue to a bare surface on the upper fin. To aid that i've drilled out the area on the fin to accomodate it and am leaving off putting it on until i've finished painting.

Powered Suit - girls inside

Pursuit Ship - the only glitch

The wing ends have a nasty mis-step. It was pretty easy to deal with the starboard one but this one's a bit more trouble.

This is best i can get without losing the curves and detail. Gonna glue on new panels to cover it up.

Why no 2000AD?

You might be wondering that. After all, it comes before the "SF" in the site title.
Well, its partly due to not much out there in the way of related kits, or things i can convert.
But mainly due to 2000AD being pretty crap at the moment. Dredd is a tedious bore, Strontium Dog more so. The only thing i'm enjoying is Stickleback. And that ends soon.
What's going on? Have the Thrillsuckers overtaken the Command Centre?
And, Emperors New Clothes or what? Apparently we're in a "Golden Age" right now. No, Fanboys - dig out you back Progs from the very early 80's - THAT'S a Golden age.

Tank - doing the panels

Having great fun at the moment putting panels on the sides of the "legs". Doing it now as they're gonna be tricky to put on once attached to the hull.

Speaking of which, i'm kinda apprehensive how i'm going to fix them on - they only touch the hull in a very few places. For that reason i'm keeping the area next to where the join will be clear, as i may have to strengthen any join with kit parts.

Pursuit Ship - part one

A pic here to show you how well thought out Alfred's work is.I'm holding over the nose cone one of six details that slot in between some of the other details.And Alfred has marked just where each goes with an "X".A nice touch.

Federation Pursuit Ship

Blimey, my workbench is full now.

This is the Federation Pursuit Ship from Blakes 7, produced by Titan Find, mastered by Alfred Wong and decals by J T Graphics.I knew it wasn't studio scale and had feared it might be tiny but its a respectable size.Nice bit of casting, detail is crisp but there is some clean-up to be done. No airholes or stepping problems, just the pouring lugs at the rear of the main wings need sawing off, there's tons of that paper-like flashing and a bit of problem with a mis-cast on the main wing sides.All easily to deal with though.Part fit is excellent, with the main wings slotting into the body very tightly and staying there so well its a job to remove them.The upper and lower fins have nice locating grooves to aid in positioning.The decals look nice and comprehensive.If i've one gripe - and its a very small one - its that the instuction sheets photos are too small to tell what's what. Much better to go on the Titan Find site and print them out there.

Tank - off we go

First up, need a round shape, curving upwards with a ridge all round. Looked at plastic plates in the shops but couldn't find anything. Then realised that my kids broken merry go round had an underside just the right shape and size that i needed.

Second was to start on the "legs". I knew i had to scartchbuild them. At this scale Foamboard would be far too thick so went with this grey card i got from the art shop. I drew the shape i wanted onto tracing paper, transferred it to the card, cut it out then made another 5.

Trouble was, this card doesn't hold its shape at all well. So i used the card for the sides and Plasticard for the top and underside panels. That looked pretty crap so you can see here i'm cladding the whole thing with Plasticard.

Tank

Been inspired to have a go at some sort of ground craft as:

(a) most scratchbuilds i've done are curved and i fancy something with flat surfaces

(b) Blitzspears scratchbuilt over on the SFM:UK site shown here got me in mind to build something in a Chris Foss way - lots of contradictory angles and shapes that are quite jarring but a lot of fun

(c) this tank built by Martin Bower for Space 1999 has always been a favourite.

Powered Suit - armour and Y Rack - with pic

Powered Suit - armour and Y Rack done.

Still don't know what to do with the hands though.

Derelict - building begins

And here's where i am today.

For the tube i've used 40mm B&Q plumbing piping. Only costs 2 quid but the downside is gluing stuff to it. So i've copied Martin Bower again and wrapped strips of Plasticard round it.

Had a bit of a shock with the cones - they're FAR too flimsy and ther's no way i'm confident enough to cut one down, so am going with just the one. You can see here i've glued in a round plate for the engines to be built onto.

Alien Derelict - the start

So i've had a hankering for a while to come up with my own "tube ship with a ball on the end" a la the Discovery or the Battlecruiser in Space 1999.

Always been put off though by the huge drain (and expense) of kit bits to do the large, blocky engine area.

Was watching the 1999 episode "Dragons Domain" (best episode - and creepiest tv moment ever) when i realised that this ship has a ball on the end.

Now, always liked what Martin Bower did here with the flared cowling/recessed engine bells and set apart tubing.

So thought i'd have a go at something similar. Not studio scale though - those tubes are from the Airfix Saturn V kit which would make it too blummin' expensive and too blummin' big.

I wanted something about two feet long, so sat down with a large piece of paper and drew life size what i wanted. From that i could take measurements and order parts from EMA - two hemipsheres for the ball and two 60 degree cones for the engine area (one for the flared part, the other radically cut down to make the inwards facing "lip" on the edge). No tubing though - i'll be stuffed if i'm gonna fork out a tenner for it.

The Elson - basecoat on

Looking FAR more garish than it actually is.

Here she is based in "Volkswagon Mars Red", which is a lot brighter than i've in mind but the pastelling will tone it right down.

I've picked out some panels in various reds, outlined all the panels with pencil and have stuck on some go-fasta stripes and Letraset symbols in white to break the red up a bit.

Powered Suit - Y Rack and base

Loads of progress.

Here's the base i'm using. I've decided to have the Trooper being startled by a Bug bursting from one of the tunnels they use in the book. Here i've used Terracota Das Pronto. I usually use the Fine White version which is brilliant - but this isn't. Its sticky horrible mucky stuff.But that's all the shop had.

Also you can see how the suits coming together. I'm using GW Camo Green as i want it military - but not the matt WW2 shades the Nitto kits use. Replacement head courtesy of tak5haka over on the SFMUK site.

And here's the beginnnings of the Bug.

The Elson.

Right, almost there.

Here we have the ship with its final parts on.

In total i've used military kit parts, Mecha parts, Lego, Games Workshop 40K stuff and - the reason for the delay - EMA domes for the underside of the wings. Peter Elson, Chris Foss et al always seemed to have illogical bits stucking out their craft and i wanted to copy that, so went with warty bumps.

Pics are the top and bottom all ready, then them primed in Halfords Grey Primer.Back to Halfords Friday to get the basecoat.

Millenium Falcon Docking Bay - RIP

Indeed. Decided to knock that project on the head - and a lot of other one's gathering dust are gonna gather even more - as i'm steaming ahead with the Elson, still want to finish the hawk launch pad soon, have a Blakes 7 Pursuit Ship arriving any day now plus i've another 3 projects i'm about to start (watch this space).
So, bunging abit of textured paint on a pretty massive piece of foamboard has lost its appeal.

The Elson - bottom hull nearly done.

Just a few more pieces to seek out and stick on.

Powered Suit - base and Y Rack

Here's the base - el cheapo picture frame and that God-awful teraacota Das Pronto.

I hate this stuff. The fine white is fine but this is just a sticky horrible mess. I've built a hole for a Bug to be coming out of - something they do a lot in the book.

Here's also my finalised Y Rack. I've ummed and ahhed over this and finally come up with something i think fits scale-wise. The vertical part of the Rack is two pieces from the Tau Hammerhead kit, the diagonal parts are from a 1/48th plane kit, with Gundam missle launcher boxes stuck on top.

Harrier Ship

Had a request!

Here for Andrew is my spacecraft blatently ripped off from one he had featured in Sci Fi And Fantasy Modeller about 10 years ago.

As with his, i've used the Airfix 1/24th Harrier Jump enigine for the basis.

Eyes are the clear halves of the balls containing toys you can get from vending machines.

Various kit parts to detail it and the Black Hole's Maximillian robot s head for the engine area.

Powered Suit - getting started

As usual, the Japanese kits are a joy to put together - in a couple of places i didn't need to glue parts togther, they're that tight .The rear of the torso you see here still hasn't got the back section on. In the book the suits have a Y Rack on their back, so do i leave the last piece off and build the rack into this recess? Or put the piece on and then stick the rack on. Trouble there is that it might be sticking out far to far.

So i've had a trawl through my bits box and come up with this shape, which is a toy part i think.Buy cutting off the stem and turning it around i get the Y shape needed.In the book it says the Rack launches HE bombs.So the out of focus shot is what i'm thinking of to go on each pointy bit - they're some sort of grenade launcher from a Gundam kit.I'm thinking that they might not fit too well though. And if that's the case i'll just stick with the pointy bits and have it that they're launched through the recesses in them.Bottom pic shows the rough placement of the part. I'm doing away with the final back part as to stick it on or into it would make everything stick out far too far.I'm going to need to detail up the surrounding area with kit parts.

Starship Trooper Powered Suit

Over on the SFMUK site - http://scifimodels.org.uk/phpWebsite/index.php - a contest has just begun.

Namely, build a MAK (or Nitto) Polar Bear armoured suit anyway folk like.

So i'm in it and have plans to convert mine to the Powered Suits seen in Starship Troopers novel.

Here you go with what you get in the box, what it looks like built from the box and how i'm NOT going to have it.

Millenium Falcon - a comparison

Interesting this.

I started this project really liking what i did with my 80's version and wanting to copy it almost totally.

Back then i had maybe a couple of magazines for reference shots of the Falcon to go on but now, with all the books i've collected along with Net pics, i can make a version much more accurate.

And goes to show just how wrong i was back then.

Still like it though.

Hawk Docking Bay - progress

So here's the wider version. To it i've stuck the same ventilation grill i'm using for my Falcon Docking Bay, this time as the actual platform the Hawk will rest on.

To it i've added the two stands that came with the kit.

You can also see i've started adding Plasticard, piping and kit pieces. The clear thing below the platform is an old razor holder of mine.

What i'm thinking of for just above where the Hawk goes is some sort of central interesting feature, much like the lemon squeezer in Thunderbird 1's launch bay

The Elson - getting there

Here we have the enigine area which i've packed with as many greeblies that will fit.

The gap on the top front section that i was going to cover up i've now decided to leave as is and have as some sort of air scoop (what a lazy cheat i am)