Star Fury - finished

Here she is then.

Don't know why, but once i'd put the decals on it became a real chore to finish. Anyway, all done know and i'm pretty pleased with how its come out.

Probeship - assembled

Apologies to anyone who pops in here for progress on stuff and not seen owt.

Been kinda busy with the mundane things plus there has been progress on all my projects - just nothing worth photographing.

Here though is my Probeship.

You might think its a bit sparce on detail but, once painted up, i plan on putting additonal fuel tanks, either long tubes on the underside or a series of domes going right round. And painting undr them would be a nightmare so am going this way.

haven't decided what colour to go yet, thinking of yellow and black.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Martin Bower

Bit of a plug here:

"Martin Bower's World Of Models" is to be an on-going magazine devoted to the craft, dioramas and props created by Martin over the last 30+ years.
Unlike articles up till now, these are totally written by Martin and are THE most indepth accounts of how a subject is created - from the initial idea through construction, painting and weathering.
Written with the modeller in mind, the magazines will build up into the definitive reference works of his work.Each issue will have at least three articles, most featuring exclusive never seen before photos (the article on the Battlecruiser from Space 1999's "Last Enemy" will have photos that Martin himself had not seen since 1969 and completely forgotten!).
The negatives of the photos have been cleaned up and are the purist and clearest that they've ever been.
The first issue is being put together now, the initial trail mock-up cover is in the link below, and will have three LARGE articles plus some bonus features.One of which will be a "Ask Martin" piece.This is a chance for you to have any questions on Martin's work answered by Martin himself.
Simply send your question via SFMUK (again, details in the link) and hopefully you'll be in print in a subsequent issue!
Thanks for your time!

http://scifimodels.org.uk/phpWebsite..._MAN_ITEMS=923

Star Fury - based and decaled

In the end i went with a Vallejo green/blue/grey.

It was with some trepidation i put the decals on - the instructions would have you gloss everything, dip them in water for 5 seconds only, leave for 20 seconds before putting on.

It also advises caution if using a decal softner as they were untried.

Figured i'd have to use some though to get the girlie to go with the change in hull shapes. So put on a layer of Humbrol Decal Set before putting her down.

And it worked a treat.

Phew!

Star Fury - oh dear...

So, get the kit all finished and primed up in Halfords Grey Plastic Primer. Thoughts turn then to how to paint it. The main factor in that is the decal set that i'd got from Starship Modeller.

I really like it - but had a fear that it won't stand out too well with the grey primer.

So, overspray the grey with white.

So far so good.

While looking at Star Furies that other folk had made, i really liked how some had painted up the engine's in a different colour. So thought i'd have a go - but what colour? The witch has orange and black tights so figured i'd carry that through.

So, painted them orange as you can see here. Very cartoon -like but figured it'd look better dirtied down...

Give the engines a wash of black and really liked how the engine's turned out.

But - the orange looked rubbish.

So, going to spray it white again and have a rethink.

Derelict - engines done

Thanks to the spare Star Fury i have, the engine area is pretty much done.

As you can see, i've used an EMA cone for the basis, bunged in a Plasticard plate and then the nozzles on top. Just got to put a few tiny greeblies in to busy it up a bit.

"My God - its full of Star... Furies"

Bit into Babylon 5 at the moment (ploughing through the series 3 box set at the mo', which is hard work - the CGI is VERY dated and the soap element more annoying than i remembered it).

Fancied a Star Fury as i've never built one before and ended up buying a job lot.

What i have here is a partially built one (which is first on the agenda), a partially built Omega version (which i'll finish), a sealed ltd edition version and a bog standard sealed version (which i'm gonna cannabilise for my Derelict)

Probeship

So, i'm bored. Need new tiny kitbits for the Tanks legs, waiting for parts for the Powered Suit, inks drying on the base for it and the Postie never delivered the kits i need to carry on with the Derelict.

But still want to build something. So knocked this up last night.

The front is the cap off of a Lenor bottle with a Tau ship bit stuck on front and the red thing is from the kids toy box. I've put some panelling around the far end.

The engine section is something i've had lying around for a long time. I'd had it all built and detailed ready for a project that i then gave up on. Bonus is the kit bits are already on and it fits snugly into:

the centre section. A tube from a hamster exercise expansion range. These are great - very cheap and styrene too. Downside is that the lovely spaced ridging is on the inside so you can see i've started putting on panel lines to busy it up a bit.

I'm thinking of keeping detailing to a minimum as i plan on fitting external tanks to the hull at some point.

Powered Suit - new Bug

Wasn't happy with how the old one was going, so here we have my final version. Quite like the big chin i've given him.

Tank - legs nearly done

I was originally going to just put panelling on the sides of the legs before attaching to the hull, but i'm nervous about the very small attaching points when they go on and don't want to handle the craft too much.

So here i am detailing all three and covering up the joins between plates of Plasticard. The very big gaps on each of the middle areas will be covered by a brass etch assembly i have in mind to use.

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.