Psydon Ship - Command Module woes

Grrrr... had a reminder why i don't like Vac Forms...
So, i've trimmed out the CM shape. It needs sticking to plasticard for the underside. Put the CM onto a sheet of the stuff, draw round it in pencil then cut the shape out.
Then its a simple job of glueing the two together right?
Wrong.
Seems the Vac Form is so thin that, when i pressed down lightly to hold it in place when drawing round it, the shape actually splayed out a bit. Meaning the shape i drew and cut out is far too big...
Going to Blu Tac the shape back to it and draw again.

Paul Newman - RIP

Nothing to do with modelling but, sigh, another childhood hero leaves us.

Much more moved than usual this time, partly because he was a great actor, partly because he was so darn cool, partly the fact that someone who made so many films so long ago was still with us till now. But mainly that he seemed such a genuine, decent, honourable human being.

God speed Mr Newman.

Armoured Crab - a question of scale

Legs all on and setting right now.

Minds turned to scale.

On the box, it has an option of either it being a 1/20th robot device or a 1/48th manned craft.

Was going the 1/20th route but, with a figure that scale alongside, its not really doing it for me. Thinking it'd be a much more intimidating hunk at 48th, with the bonus that i can man it with readily available figures. So that's what i'm going to do, and scrap my initial idea of all my MAK things being 1/20th.

Psydon Ship - progress

Thanks to Canadian Top Bloke Darre, i today got my vac form Eagle Beak and shape to substitute for the Blue Ribbon container.

If you come here Darren, i owe you a trans-atlantic drink buddy.

Armoured Crab - nearly there

Legs are almost done now so i've gone and glued the first two to the lower body. Whether through accident or design, i've found the body part sits just right on top of a Tamiya paint pot while the legs are setting.

You can also see here i've finished the upper body and am in the process of applying decals.

And here's a leg masked up before applying the identifying bands that MAK things seem to always have. Was going with yellow, but there's already a yellowish tint to the colour scheme, so am going to go with white.

Armoured Crab - base coating

Been a while since i've posted on this fella and there's been quite a bit of progress.
Clean-up was pretty minimal, mainly getting rid of minor seamlines and filling a few airholes. There's a few instances of "clinker" but they just add to the feel of the piece. I've realised that building it then painting would be a bit of a bind as the 6 legs are quite close together and getting into all the recesses would be dificult enough for the base coat, let alone the washes and weathering. So decided to finish it all in sub-assemblies and fit it all together at the end.
That's made dead easy by the fact that the upper body fits onto the lower very snugly.
So, i'm going to paint, wash and weather the legs, claws and lower body by themselves.
Assemble them.
Build and paint the upper.
Then join everything together.
Here's where i am today - everything based and i've started on the washes. The legs went together very well. Used Superglue to stick the shrouds on, but Araldite for the two main leg pieces and toes as they're going to be taking the weight of the body.

Phebus Judge Dredd rider

While i'm talking Phebus, here's a kit i made years and years ago. Was deeply into 2000AD at the time (and if it was any good right now, i'd be again) so did him up as a sort of high speed despatch rider blasting across the Cursed Earth.

Phebus "Thor"

Went to Euromilitaire yesterday looking for things i could use in the Ma.k world. Didn't get any of that but did get this.

VERY Ma.kish and, at 1/24th scale, a close match. Lovely resin castings, but there's an awful lot i don't understand where they go...

Himmelspion - finished

Here we are then. Pretty pleased how things've turned out - was a bit unsure of the waist section for a while.

Like how the camouflage turned out, which i pinched from a scheme from the MAK Modelling book.

Himmelspion - what a whopper

Don't know if you can make it out here, but its the waist and upper section balanced on a jar.

Its quite a size and width, as you can tell by my 1/20th Fireball alongside.

Armoured Crab - end of the day.

Just a shot to show how many parts there are. All been rubbed down and are drying after their bath. Some pieces are missing and are one's still needing work - just some filler on the ends of bits.

Himmelspion - camouflage

So, what to do? Its a dirty great hunk of machinery, hovering over enemy lines held aloft by noisy, stinking engines belching smoke. Not much need for camo then. But (a) the large empty spaces cry out for it, and (b) haven't done any for decades.

So decided to go for it, but what scheme? In the end took my cue from the MAK Modelling book and did a version i really liked.

Went thus:

Pic 1 - The two parts are based in "Tamiya JA Grey". Drew the pattern in pencil then went over it with a mid grey.

Pic 2 - Filled the area in very blotchily with "Games Workshop Catchan Green".

Pic 3 - Splodged on "GW Gretchin Green", leaving the darker still showing.

Pic 4 and 5 - washed with dirty washes, added decals, sealed it, put on rusty washes. Oh, the top of the beaker is the underside so that's "Vallejo Sky Blue".

Armoured Crab - prepping

Here's what i was faced with earlier today. All this bits just go to make up the legs and claws.

Bit of a slog, but there were no airholes or resin bubbles - just seamlines to be wet and dry'd off, each one first with coarse, then medium then fine.

Bit time consuming but i had Kenneth Williams in top Just A Minute form so went quite fast.

Armoured Crab - out of the box

The hurricanes have delayed the arrival of this fella but he finally arrived today.

Produced by Futch over on the MAK Forum, this is an original design based in the MAK universe.

And very nice it is too. Needs a bit of clean-up on most parts, which'll be a piece of cake. The slog will be the fact i've got to do it 6 times over for each leg part. And there's a LOT of parts.

MAK Technician

Again, blown away by the castings of this range. So crisp and detailed its untrue. Here you see the parts, which have no seamlines at all - just a couple of pouring lugs.

At top there you see the sheet that comes with it for crates and papers. Nice touch.

The part fit is also stunning. Was worried by potential gaps when fitting the chest into the t-shirt, but it was perfect.

Thought i was going to have a problem when glueing that part in, as i used "Zap-A-Gap" superglue, which is kinda runny and i guess i used too much - and it started seeping round the edges, filling up her shoulder blade area and cleavage.

Managed to get it out by soaking up the excess with the end of some cocktail sticks.

Walker - walking

Well, what a suprise. Its standing up and that's without the added P38 i was going to use. So, as its not a disaster, i'll add aerials and stuff.

Walker - fingers crossed

In this crappy flash picture you can its standing up.

But for how long? I've drilled into the P38 in the feet as far as i can go. Ditto the base. Then i pinned and glued with Araldite. Leaving till the morning and cram some P38 in the gaps that still remain between the feet and base.

And then that's that. Nothing more i can do. The joins might hold - but don't like the way it lists to one side.

Spoons = "Himmelspion"

Or "Flying Eye".

Bit of progress. Here you can see the waist section that i've knocked up from Foamboard and Plasticard. Didn't really bother with the aesthetics of it as its going to be covered with busy bits.

The top section has proved to be problematical in that no glue sticks to it. The brace under the propeller is held in place with blobs of Araldite (hope they stay put). I wanted the odd bit of detail on this section so am putting on Go Fasta stripes - which do accept glue.

And here's the lower section with main camers in place. Bit of luck this: its the AMT Millenium Falcon radar dish and is a perfect fit.

Spoon build

Moving on from the MAK pingpong build challenge, there's now a spoon themed one. Same as before - build something of a MAK nature, unmanned, using spoons. Difference here being its not an hour timeframe but until the end of the year.

Had a good look round and was going to go with about 8 plastic tea spoons and use them as legs of a walking device.

Nixed that when i found these large ones.

Pic 1 has my initial sketch. The idea is that its a high altitude spying device with loads of cameras slung underneath.

There were two ways i could for the body: either a blobby rounded shape that'd be in keeping with the curves of the spoons, or a clunky, busy mass of machinery.

Went with the latter as finding a shape for the blobby was proving difficult.

Pic 2 is the upper hull - a yogurt pot.

Pic 3 is the top of it. Reckoned this area would be a docking device for attaching to a mothership but this propeller fits so well into the recess that i'm going to cut it out and have it as an air intake.

Pic 4 is the spoons with their engines fitted - Saturn V biggest bells.

They're going to attach to a waist section that i'm building right now. Under that will be Pic 5, a plastic tumbler that'll be the camera section. There's going to be a big lens on the underside then i'm going to busy it up with all sorts of spy devices hanging down from the waist.

Fireball - dilemma diverted

Here it is with a coat of matt varnish on and some of the remaining silvering covered up with dark grey blotches.

Fireball - decal dilemma

This project has gone together so well, i really didn't expect a glitch in the works at this late stage.

But, top pic shows what happened when i started decalling. The small one's are fine but these two larger one's crinkled like mad. Can't understand it - used decal aids to help them, they're not that big and the surfaces aren't that curved. Maybe its the age of them?

Anyway, got around the problem with the "3" by using a brand new scalpel blade to trim the small amount of backing film away. The trouble with the "A" is that the crinkles are actually on the letter itself, so pic 2 shows how i've actually cut the crinkles out. That removes some of the "A", but i'm going to paint it up once sealed to look like paint chips.

Annoying though.

Fireball - glossed

Ready for decals, you can see here i've glossed it - but also started putting in rust. Which you can just about see.

Fireball - cacking it

Knew this was going to happen.

Top pic is the second colour applied - "Vallejo Luftwaffe Grey". And, as i thought, its a horrible clash: the one shade dark against the one shade light. Know that once i start on it, it'll pull together, but that voice on my shoulder kept up the "you've made a msitake, you should've stayed with one colour".

Felt better taking the second pic. Here i've mixed the two greys and splodged it on, varying the amount of the lighter colour each time. Still a way to go, but its getting there and i'm feeling better about it. Will feel even better when i've a put a dirty wash over it to pull everything together and break up the light bits.

Fireball - primed and ready to go

This morning i primed the suit in Halfords Grey Plastic Primer, which really started to make it look good. In fact i could've stopped with that.

Didn't though. Since buying i've been pondering what colours to go for. As its a space-set suit, i figured regular cammo patterns would be out. Thinking it's battle backdrop could be lunar, spaceship or asteroid-set, i thought a grey cammo might be an idea.

Decided on a dark grey/ mid grey contrast and here you can see it based in "Vallejo Grey Green", which is a nicely tinted colour. You can just make out the pencil lines where i've mapped out where the dark grey is to go.

Fireball - assembled

Quite a productive evening last night.

First pic is the fella mostly assembled, puttied and sanded. My usual plan of leaving the arms, legs and head off for ease of painting and doing them in sub-assemblies couldn't happen here. The legs have to be attached before glueing the torso together and the left arm has to be attached to allow for the spring thingy to join onto the body.
Second pic is a good illustration of the care and excellence of these kits. The left arm sring is actually flanged at one end, and that fits perfectly into the plate that then goes onto the body. You can also see the two wires at the elbow joint that are put in there purely to add to the detail. Lovely work.
Third pic shows the care again that's gone into it - this is a very detailed recess in the torso and its down to the builder whether to have the hatch open or closed. Ditto the very detailed cockpit and pilot. Chose to close both.

Fireball

Lookee what came in the post today - my first MAK kit for about 22 years i reckon. Still sealed in its cellophane wrapper. Lovely.

And this is what you get inside: a bag of sprues, decal sheet, fact sheet, camo sheet and comprehensive instructions.

As i say, lovely. If you're not in the know, the Fireball is a MAK powered suit same as the others, except it's of a type that's been adapted for space warfare.

Been a real dingy, rainy day for my day off so have cracked right on.

Gone ok i guess. There's some seams to fill on the arms and the legs, it wasn't flash free, and some parts were well fiddly. Not helped by the instructions being quite confusing in places. for example, it shows you how to make the right leg but leaves you make the left, trusting to you to do everything in the opposite direction. Also, the way for attaching the heel wires is unecessarily difficult so went my own way with them.

As i type, i've got the fella in subassemblies, waiting for the glue to harden properly so i can start filling.