Battlecruiser - more detail

Okay, had another go at some detailing. What i like about doing a scratchbuild is the ability to go at your own pace, adding bits randomly, just wherever and whenever you like. Which is what i've been doing here. Put some more on the front - which the photo makes parts look wonky, but they're not. The dark green pieces are from 1/72nd Revell helicopter that i bought just because it has loads of tiny detail. The big grey slab thing is, of course, the mandible insert from the MPC Millenium Falcon.

I've ummed and ahhed as to what to do with the top, and here's the start of it. Thinking the main detail will be in this mid-section, with thinner detail fore and aft. To the aft are two pieces left over from a M.a.K project and the white large piece is from the Airfix SRN4 Hovercraft.

And here i'm building up the engine area. The grey pieces are from the HMS Belfast (great kit for parts) and, again, the white pieces are SRN4.

Battleship - the three sections

Okay my modelling chums, leaving you tonight for a weeks holiday but thought i'd show you where i'm up to with this beastie.

And here's the three separate sections put together. I toyed with different shapes for the engine area, mocking them up with Foamboard, but eventually decided to try and follow the lines of the main section. The connecting piece is interesting. Martin Bower sent me a bunch of greeblies last summer and in there was this. Its nothing more than a length of EMA tube with BIC disposable razor safety covers glued all round. Very simple and very effective.

Here's a closer look at that piece, and the very end of the engines. I was going to go with a traditional engine bell affair but then changed tack and went with this - two pices from two Starfury kits glued togteher. I was going to busy up all around them, but am now going to put a frame around it to just show these two.

Battlecruiser - paint scheme

Been thinking too that, after all the matt, camo schemes i've been doing for the Ma.K kits of late, that it'll be refreshing to go the opposite way.

So, a Peter Elson/Chris Foss scheme it is then. Thinking yellow with green detailing - think the colour opposite of Thunderbird 2.

Battlecruiser - getting started

So here we go with putting on plasticard panels and also the tried and tested Go-Fasta stripes.

I want to have a slab-like feel to the sides so won't be putting anything on that juts out too far. You can see that i've put on a rounded shape, which is the underside bit to a tank turret. Thinking that maybe its an airlock, i scribed the plasticard vertically underneath it to suggest doors.

What i don't want though is everything to be 90 degrees to each other and pretty bland, so will be having a bit of variation in places. This applies to the front, which i don't want to be just a flat surface. Was thinking of building a command deck area out from this bit and my son's suggestion that it looks a bit like a Jawa Sandcrawler has me thinking i'll try and emualte the front of that. A bit.

Battlecruiser

Been looking around for something new to build - but spare cash is non-existant. So thought i'd have another go at a scratchbuild - they're cheap, uses up a lot of ammased junk and no-one can tell me i'm wrong.

So three quid spent at the craft shop gets me a large sheet of 3mm foamboard and here's the start.

I've deliberatly gone for a design that's a lot of flat surfaces - for some reason most of my scratchbuilds have been curved shapes, which create all sorts of problems and limitations when adding detail and i wanted to do away with all that.

I wanted a nice blocky battlecruiser look, with a big bulbous front a la the Dreadnaughts in Babylon 5 or Mark Harrisons ships in Durham Red. I also wanted to contrast it with some curves somewhere to break it up a bit and went with what you see here - a nod to Henry Flints brilliant ship design in Shakara.

Not started yet will be an engine section at back joined by a tube i think.

Psydon Ship - thank you Mr Bower

These bumps either side of the neck were always going to be a problem. I've known for quite a while that they're from the AMT "Man In Space" kit, which is pretty scarce these days and a LOT of money when i only need a couple of tiny bits from out.

Talking about it to Martin Bower and it turns out they're actually a combination of that kit and EMA.

Depression sets in - but next day Martin had bunged a couple that he'd made up for me in the post and here they are.

Dead chuffed with them. The only thing i have to do is widen the blanking plate they sit on as i'd not made it quite wide enough.

Lunar Dweller

This is the start of the group build project over on the SFMUK site, to commerate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.

Basically, do anything you like as long as it has some connection to a Lunar landing.

Not giving too much away just yet as i may well change my mind how i'm going to go about it.

But here's the start - its an Airfix Lunar Module that'd been part built and painted (rather badly) and that's why i got it cheap.

Didn't mind though as i originally bought it just for its feet, needing them for my Psydon Ship.

So i'm gonna end up with a footless LM, but a few carefully placed lunar rocks should disguise that.

Andrew Glazebrook's Blog

About time i pointed you in the direction of Andrew's Blog page - always entertaining, always interesting and one i check out most mornings with a coffee.

http://bsmbow.blogspot.com/

Top work there Andrew. Jealous much that mine's not so much fun.

Psydon ship - another disaster

So, still pleased with myself for getting that Saturn 1B, even more so when i realise the part for the neck fits really snugly over the B&Q piping i've used for the support rod (pic2).

But now i've got this far, something that's been bugging me for a while now is how does the neck attach to the very curved rear of the Command Module? (pic1)

I first thought it must actually be recessed into the beak, but the neck is situated very low down on it - pretty much half on the beak, half hanging down, as does the flange around it (pic3 shows the flange hanging down on the underside).

But as you can see from pic 4, the neck seamlessly fits onto the CM.

Was having a natter with Martin Bower last night and he said the reason it does that, and i REALLY should have spotted, is that the back of the original was flat. Mine's not, it being a vacform of a 44inch Eagle beak.

So what the heck am i to do?