Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Gateway 20

Earlier this year, the last ever Dronearama - the bi-annual modelling convention for the Film & TV Modelling Club - was held up in Nottingham.
Talking with Andrew, the originator of the club and editor of its excellent "Drone" magazine, he was saying how next year the club and mag would be 20-years old and how it'd be a shame not to mark the occasion in some way.
Over the weekend, the idea of a one day meet for folk to get together in Nottingham to celebrate was proposed and was met enthusiastically.
Out of that grew the idea of not having a model show like past events, but what if folk got a quarter inch thick piece of MDF, either 2'X2' or 1'X2' and on it build a section of a space base.
As long as one side met the edge, the idea is they could all be put together to form a large display.
And, as long as the base coat was Halfords Grey Primer to try and convey a unity of it being built all at the same time, it could then be adapted in any way the builder likes - sort of a Mos Eisley affair.
And whether you build a fuel dump, landing pad, buildings, would be up to you.
And it would be called "Gateway 20" as we stay at the Gateway hotel and its a 20 year celebration.
Initially i had the idea of using half of the saucer hull from the old "Star Trek The Motion Picture" Enterprise turned upside-down and stuck on a pole for a raised landing platform.
But i was recently at a boot fair and got a big Matchbox space playset for a quid, which offered by these choice pieces:

So i'm now going for a vertical launch pad, kind of like the Lunar Modules one in "UFO", with a carrier craft alongside it.
Here you see them close up. As the launch pad will be mainly grey, i'm going to have the ship a nice bright colour for contrast.

The tank really reminds me of the Overlander from "Terrahawks", possibly the last superb model from the Gerry Anderson shows:

and is a real nifty item considering its a toy. I quite like its orange and white colouring and will be keeping it methinks.

1 comment:

The Angry Lurker said...

Nice, Terrahawks brought back some memories.