Predator - starting on the armour

Been umming and ahhing over whether to go with red.

decided to as:

(A) i want to get away from the all metal armour usually used for Preds,

(B) been researching real samurai armour and red was often used,

(C) red isn't going to be used anywhere else on the kit,

(D) it looks pretty neat once washed like this with Burgundy. Gives a nice leather sheen that's not apparent here.

The unpainted part is going to be Vallejo Bronze.

Predator - assembled

Here she is then all glued togther.

Just layed down some Green Stuff to fill in the quite big gaps between each leg section

Female Pred - the pondering starts

So, what colour scheme for the skin? the Alien? the base?

But mostly what to do with the armour? I'm leaning towards a darkish red - but the details far too good to be all one colour.

Thinking of having a coppery element in there, especially on the collar and here on the side of the "bra". Its screaming out for washes and highlighting, something not too easy with red.

Female Pred has a helmet????

Also in that pack was a helmet for the lassie.

Again, brilliant casting that fits perfectly onto her face AND STAYS THERE!

Won't be using it though.

Mebbe sling it from her belt though.

Female Pred - close call

Blimey, that was close - was umming and ahhing over the colour scheme and had a look on predatorstuff.com for insperation.

That's when i realised she was missing her samurai armour (doh! how could i forget?)

A hurried rummage though the box she came in - which i'd chucked out - came up with these fellas wrapped up.

My respect for the kit has gone up even higher! The pieces shown are, from the top, the two shoulder pads, then the back skirt, the front skirt (snapped in two) and a piece of armour for her left thigh.

All pieces are beautifly crisp castings and lovely and thin too.

Superb stuff!

Female Samurai Predator

Hurrah!

Turned up from Thailand today, expertly packed in tow seperate boxes.

Seen a few Narin Preds built and painted by Dave Daines while up at DAR07 and they really go me in mind to have one of my own.

After checking out his range, this lady was the one that appealed the most - i haven't got a female version, its a great pose, the base is top notch and i wanted a Pred with mandibles closed.

Checking out the raw resin, its a brilliant sculpt cast very well - only the smallest of seamline down the sides.

She's huge too - 1/5th - and so are her baps. They didn'y look THAT big in the pics. Do Preds have wonderbras???

I'm really pleased with the dead Alien. Very Bisley with that massive jaw.

Expect updates soon as i can't wait to get started - and i'm now on holiday for 8 days. Hurrah again!

Falcon - jumped that hurdle

Feel a lot better today with it. After the slog of filling and sanding, i can crack on and am near the painting stage.

To prep for this black primer i've covered the clear blue engine section with masking tape, ditto the Gun Turret windows (which i've already painted), filled the floodlight holes with Blu Tac and used a combination of masking tape and Blu Tac to cover up the exposed cockpit.

Now to find a can of a suitable base coat...

Clearing The Decks

Apols to anyone following some of my older projects but i'm boxing them up and putting them on the back burner for a while.
Reason being i want to give the Falcon paint-job a lot of attention plus i've a Narin Predator on the way and a MASSIVE build which shortly be with me soon.
So, Macros, Pod Racer and Nurgle stuff - away with you

Falcon - gaps

Something i hadn't considered was that the accurising kit wouldn't fit well.

Its nothing to do with the casting as they're dead straight. Its more to do with the AMT pieces being quite warped - something i didn't realise until i glued everything together.

Worst offenders are the mandibles which look so bad straight on that i'm not gonna show them.

Not very apprant here is the HUGE gap between the new "escape pod" and the hull, caused by the back of the pod being flat while the hull is slightly curved.

You can also see the large gaps on the side sections near the pods and on the underside near the front.

These are about to be puttied.

Falcon - "Here's where the fun begins"

These are the two halves ready to glue together.

Apprehensive because:

(A) I have to wire the cockpit and GunTurret to the lower section first

(B) I have to use sticky 'orrible Araldite

(C) Its not the best fit

Lets see what happens...

Falcon - Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The instructions for the accurising kit say that, as the side walls are narrower, a section of the rear tube of the cockpit has to be removed.

But its not clear just where to cut.

So i offer up the hull halves and, yep, it sure does need triming.

Cut a piece off here as you can see.

Put it back together and it fits now - with a massive great hhole at the back.

Trimmed off too bloody much *fume*

Falcon - lots of progress

So, here we have:

1. The completed Gun Turret

2. The seat for the above based in black and just prior to drybrushing.

3. The Turret glued in place. As i don't want the LED to be seen, you can see here i've put a piece of tracing paper over the hole to diffuse the light.

4. The Turret sealed. With every LED i've sealed them in with a cover of Bacofoil. This is to prevent light escaping from gaps, through the plastic of the hull, or out through the clear engine part.

I've taped it all in place but, as its going to be hanging down for years, i've also superglued the tape to the plastic as i don't it unsticking in the future.

The SFMUK 2000AD contest

Dead chuffed to have won a prize in this contest, with my Lee Ames Slaine here.

Taking part was a lot of fun, with some excellent entries, and i'm looking forward to the next one, whatever the subject may be.

Pod Racer Scratchbuild Challenge

Thought you might like to see what i came up with at DAR07 back in October.

The challenge was to sit down with a toy, a couple of 1/44th airplane kits and a whole bunch of greeblies and turn out a Pod Racer, plus base.

And here's mine

Falcon - Getting ready to glue the Turret walls

I've primed and painted the wall sections.

I've here put a strip of parcel tape on the rear of the side walls.

Next is to cut off the bar of resin at the top which'll enable the walls to be folded round to the right shape and glued to the rear wall.

Falcon - Gun Turret Seat

Here's the parts for it. I'm not going to use the Luke figure as the ship will be landed and he'd look stupid sitting there.

Falcon - sorting out the engine area.

Next up on the accurising list is area around these grills. To put the new ones on i had to first grind off the existing detail to flatten the area, then they were superglued in.

Falcon - starting on the Gun Turret

Here we go with the main part. There's only meant to be two pieces - the rear wall and a slab for the side walls, but two broke off.

Falcon - ah, poo

So, start to glue the side walls on.

The instructions recommend to glue with Epoxy Resin and then back it up from the rear with Epoxy Putty.

Get the first piece and stick it on with Araldite Rapid.

BIG mistake - the side piece slips and slides, won't stand straight and, when i do prop it up, it sets wonky.

Not a happy bunny and had to think of a different way.

This is me a little further down the line. What i've decided to do instead is glue with Zap-A-Gap superglue then smear Araldite on the inside join to strengthen it. Maybe some Green Stuff as well just to be sure.

Falcon - accurising kits arrived...

... and i've cracked right on.

First part to tackle are the side walls. Here you can see some of the new one's with their original counterparts - new one's on top.

Falcon - cockpit finished

Pod Racer - engine

Here's the main part of one, with the blanking plate covering up the hole made when i removed the black bit.

Got to cover it with wire and stuff to disguise it.

Hellcannon - progress

Das Pronto for the body with the greeblies stuck in.

Falcon - entry corridor

Here's the decal. It attaches to the clear piece at the end of the box affair for the corridor. A simple matter to wrap the tabs on the decal around the edges.

Second photo shows it in place and with the LED sat behind it.

I know it was something i wanted to avoid with the cockpit, but i really had no choice in this case but to backlight it.

Falcon - cockpit seating

This is something that i needed to address.

If i was going to try and make the kit more accurate by altering the sides, engine and turret, i couldn't really have the manky cockpit interior suppied, especially as i was going to light it.

The trouble is - no "dashboard" and only two,very basic seats, as you can see here with my 1980 effort (apologies for the paintjob - was young).

First thing i did was ping Luke and Chewie off their chairs, scrape the glue off the seat area then affix them behind the new chairs in the new cockpit. The shape of all four are nowhere near accurate but there has to be a point where i go "enough" in the rivet-counting stakes.

Here i've painted them all black, along with the bottom of the cockpit piece. This is to stop light bleeding through the plastic when all done.

Next was the control area. I knew i had to scratchbuild one and that proved trickier than i thought it would. Not the building, the researching - there are so many contradictory versions on the net.

So went with a compromise that you can see i started here, built of cereal packet card and carefully measured so it'd fit into the nose of the cockpit.

Falcon - lighting the cockpit

Here we have the rear wall with decal attached.

I ummed and ahhed on how to light this. Was going to go with what a few folk have done and have it backlit.

They used light sheet though and i was worried that it'd look just like what it is if i used a LED in that manner - a light behind a piece of paper.

So went with drilling a hole at the bottom of the rear wall and feeding the LED wires through.

The LED is going to nestle between the two rear seats and, i hope, won't look too naff.

Falcon - getting started and lighting

So, i built the landing gear, guns for the turrets and glued in all the recessed blocks of details.

I assembled and painted the entry ramp and put it in place.

The decal set had arrived and i stuck the rear cockpit decal to the crappy clear piece that comes with the kit.

I had to decide what to use for lighting at this point and went with ultra bright LED's, powered by a 9 volt battery.

I marked on the lower hull where the floodlights should go. Should say at this point that i didn't go with all the floodlights the Falcon has by the time of Jedi but rather stuck with the one each side of the boarding ramp and two to balance it on the other side.

This pic shows the holes drilled and bulbs in place. Also wired in are the bulbs for the entry corridor, cockpit and turret.

The cockpit and turret ones are on connecting blocks as i need to attach the to other parts of the hull.

You can see the jack socket top left.

Accurising the AMT Millenium Falcon

I started this project back in July (!) and am about halfway now.

The reason for that - and also why i've not mentioned it before - is:

I wanted to get the Fine Molds Falcon but couldn't justify the expense all in one go.

Digging out my old AMT version that i built in about 1980 had me hankering to build one of those again as a substitute.

But i've always been put off by the totally inaccurate, far too chunky sides to it.

Changed my mind when i found an accurising kit. It was out of stock but i pre-ordered one and figured i could build the kit as far as i could in readiness.

Did that alright - but its been nigh on 4 months for it to be back in stock and so i've had to take the unprecedented step OF PUTTING A KIT BACK IN THE BOX.

You've no idea how alien that is to me.

Anyway, the kits on its way, so i though i'd let you in on what i've done so far.

Buy an AMT kit for £15.00 off eBay.

I'd also found by this point a decal set which has brilliant reproductions of the cockpit walls, the corridor at the top of the entry ramp and the engines. They were in stock at Cultvman and came quite quickly.

As the cockpit was going to look the nuts, i decided it had to be lighted. And, if i was doing that, i must do the entry corridor too. And why not the floodlights underneath?

This was getting to be ambitious.

Even more so when i found a guy in Germany doing detailed Gun Turret interiors. So i bought one of them. And it'd be a shame not to light that as well.

Getting power to the ship was something i had to consider and i went with an exterior source, fed through a minature jack plug.

Figuring i could disguise it as a power feed (which of course it is) in a docking bay, i hit on the idea of a Tatooine-style location - what i'm aiming for is something like the shot above.

Podracer - pastelling the panels

I'm going over the pencil marks i'd made with pastels, applied with a flat edge brush.

I'm using a mixture of black, grey and browns.

At this stage i'm just starting to outline them - not proper dirtying down yet.

Pod Racer - starting to put the panels on

Not too clear here, but i've started drawing on panel lines with pencil.

Using a sticky label as my ruler as i can get it to stick to the curved surface and stay in place while drawing

Hellcannon - bits and pieces

Some of the parts i'm planning on using.

The ribbed barrel is the lid of a Brut aftershave bottle (not mine), beads for eyes, and nice 'n nasty bits of kits to have ripping through the skin.

Hellcannon - chassis

Here i've removed the catapult section and glued a piece of Foamboard into place as the support for the body of the beastie

Nurgle Hellcannon

I'm getting a Nurgle army together but the one thing its lacking is artillery.

I'll be stuffed if i'm gonna fork out 30 quid for the shop version so decided to make my own.

This is the start:

toy catapult for the chassis and wheels.

Top of an aftershave bottle for the barrel

and the blue thing is off some toy and'll be the basis for the body.

I have it in mind to be some hideous bio-mechanical device, masses of rotting flesh with machinery tearing through it.

The barrel i wanted ribbed like that as i want it to be chunky and rusty and grimy and... 'orrible.

Pod Racer - hacking

Back to the craft and the first thing to do is remove the large black plastic section between the engines.

Its there to hold them togther and house the grappling hook that fires out the side.

I've unscrewed and taken it apart for ease of cutting with the hacksaw.

Pod Racer - Sebulba

First thing i did was prime the fella in Skull White.

Didn't make it too perfect a coat as i'll be painting him pretty much the same colours he already was.

The white that is on there though shows what a terrific sculpt he is. Big too - 1/24th i'd say

Pod Racer

What, ANOTHER project underway?

Well, yeah, afraid so.

Still fired up hardware-wise and Star Wars in particular. Taking part in the Pod Racer scratchbuild contest in Nottingham got me hankering to have a go back here at home.

Was toying with the DAR route of scratchbuilding an original design but i did like Sebulba's one in Phantom Menace (Sebulba too, but don't tell anyone).

Anyway, got this off eBay for only a tenner still mint in sealed box and - what a shock!

It's MASSIVE!

And, like the toy Sandcrawler i redid, very accurate. The only downside i can see is the lack of actual engine nozzles on the pod. There's pretty good decals in their place though so at some point i've got to decide whether to go with them or add my own.

All keen to get going on this so afraid the other projects might be neglected.

Macrobinocs - 8

Bit of progress here.

This wheel thing on th front was going to be a bit of a problem. On the original they used a part from the "Revell Visible V8 Engine" - which is a pretty hard to get of kit and when you do find one, its too pricey for just one piece.

Went for a compromise that i think doesn't look too bad.

The green disc is the top to a milk carton, the next layer is a 1/35th wheel of a WW2 truck and the actual spindly thing is, i think, from the same kit. Dunno the name but its def Tamiya.

Tug - 1

Pic 1 - Really shouldn't take anything on right now, but i was having a rummage through my bits box and come across this and really like the shape.

Pic 2 - Its some sort of Kryptonite armour for a Lex Luthor action figure and, when held horizontally, really looks like a the prow of a spaceship. Neat green clear cockpit too.

Anyway, i thought about building it length-ways but i really like it short and dumpy.

It quickly came to mind to have it then as a sort of Tug ship pulling a load around a Space Dock or somesuch - bit like the Nostromo and the Oil Refinery, but on a much smaller scale.

Pic 3 - Here i've filled the rear with plasticard.

Pic 4 - What to use for the load? I knew i wanted flat, straight surfaces to counter the curves of the Tug. At first i was going to with a toy lorry body for the basis, and found one for 3 quid, but it'd make the finished model about 2 feet long. In the end went for this container, a snip at 49p.