Lunadiver - Ch, ch, changes

Pic 1: So, get him in a shade of grey i like.
Pic 2: And had pretty much decided i wouldn't be putting any camo on.
But the more i looked at that big expanse of upper hull, and the more a search for suitable decals to fill it came up zilch, the more i thought i'd put some on after all. Figuring the "Stingray" designation could suggest a marinelife type of colouring, i went with a very blue-grey to try and suggest, maybe, a shark.
Pic 3: That looked crap - far too blue and far too toy-like. So, here i am at the moment, putting on a regular dark grey over it.

The New Daleks

Well, they do seem to have stirred up a lot of debates don't they?
Must say, i don't really mind them. Yeah, the middle bit makes them look like bumper cars and the 'orrible plastic finish is very Henry Hoover, but i like them much bigger now, having an eye in the stalk, the Cushing/Planet Of The Daleks/TV21 colour schemes and the odd, hump on the head.
And is that an escape hatch at the back for the Kaled?
So, can live with it.
And keeping fingers crossed that getting them back to purestrain Daleks, the new exterior of the Tardis, Amy's non recollection of the pepper pots, are signs that we're back in the "real" Who universe and the RTD era is being whitewashed out.

Lunadiver - colours

While having a ponder on what to do with the camo, thought i'd lay down the basecoat - Vallejo "PaleGreyBlue", a colour i'd been happy with on my female Predator a few years back.
Trouble is, because it was a few years ago i'd forgotten how thin and how patchy it went on. Resulting in a murky, dull colour over the grey here.
Thinking it would be better over a white primer, so am stopping here for the mo,.

Dragonfly Ship - tubes

Decided on an Atlas rocket sort of affair for the engine area - a bunch of fuel tanks (?) around an engine bell.
Trouble is, where do you get cheap tube shapes for the tanks?
Luckily, Ethan on the Ma.K Forum came to my aid, posting me this box full of test tubes of different sizes.
Cheers Ethan - you're a top bloke.

Vulcan Shuttle - stuck.

So, decided on the bland grey for the Federation version after all, off i trot to Halfords.
Problem.
Each and every light grey they do is metallic.
No good, no good at all.
So, a trip to Canterbury is needed after all to the art shop that sells the off the wall spray paints.
They must do something suitable - hopefully the mauve, if not the grey.

Lunadiver - built

Okay, back from the hols and straight back to a 14 hour shift at work yesterday all by meself.
To make it go faster i took the Luna Diver with me to assemble - and this is what i did:
Well, scrap the idea of using the pilot - if i have the canopy opening you just get to see the very top of his helmet.
Think that's a bit of waste of such a lovely figure so he's going into a box still in his chair until i can find a suitable 1/35th craft to bung him in to.
Moving on with the craft, i had it built in no time. There's lots of sub-assemblies that have to be assembled first then put togther in a strict order.
That's not a prob though as the part fit on a lot of them is so good that its almost a snap-fit - put a bit of Liquid Poly on the back and you're done.
Top pic is her all together. Held off on the two tube things that stick forward from the mid-riff as i felt they distracted too much from the lines of the ship.
The only real problem i had was with these areas in the second pic, which needed a bit of puttying.
A small niggle is that when you cut a part from the sprue, the sprue extends under the piece onto the joining surface, looking all the world like a locating lug. Pretty much every part had to be double checked first to make sure i wasn't removing something i shouldn't. As i say, a small niggle.
Third pic has it primed up in Halfords Grey primer. I'm keeping it in these seperate parts for ease of painting. Not a prob as the long thing - a Rail Gun - fits into a rubber grommit and the part fit for the two side panels is so good they don't need glue. Ditto the radar dish that sits under the Rail Gun.
Now i'm at this stage, thought turns to colour.
Figure its got to be a shade of grey as its Lunar based and that's the camoflage most suitable.
Seen a lot of versions where there's a dark top-side to convey the "Stingray" designation, but a lot of the time i think it detracts from the shape of the thing (after all, the purpose of camo is to break up the lines of an object).
What to do then? One tone grey and see everything - or a marine-like camo affair?

We're off

Right, off now for a week in Norfolk. Will update upon return. Byeeeee

Dragonfly Ship - neck

Think i've gone as far as i want with this. I'm trying to evoke the Ultra Probe in Space 1999's "Dragon's Domain" episode, which had a Command Module which could detach via a series of clamps.

Vulcan Shuttle - getting started

As i say, the builds pretty minimal and very fast. Primed up in Halfords Grey Plastic i had to decide what to do colour-wise.
Vulcan is the right way to go - but can i find a mauve can of spray paint anywhere? Yeah, right. Who'd want that? Apart from Vulcan bodywork guys that is.
Federation? Easy enough to do. But the thought of a resprayed, secondhand shuttle in the Enterprise's Shuttle Bay just doesn't seem right.
There's a goods store near my work that does a selection of Plasticoat spray paints that includes a deep pink that i thought would maybe give me the mauve i need if i dusted it over the grey primer.
So, bought a can and tried it. As you can see, its not far off. But... As its dusted on, if you look close up you can see its just a matter of pink blotches over grey.
Not the effect i was looking for.
So, have put another coat of primer on since this pic and i'm back to square one.
Resigned to going the Federation route, went down to Halfords for a can of light grey. Nope, that ain't happening - all their greys are mettalic.
Thinking now the best bet is to go to Canterbury, which has an excellent art shop that stocks and extensive range of really off the wall colours in can form. They dry really matt and leave a horrible dust, but i can live with that.
Will try for the mauve, if not the grey.

Lunadiver has landed

Wow.
Got this a few days ago and it sure don't dissapoint - whacking great box containing loads of sprues of nicely crisply cast parts of the ship plus two spacesuited figures.
Started on it straight away and here's where i am right now. Like the Falke, you have to stop everything and build and paint the cockpit/pilot before moving on. From looking at the instructions, it doesn't look like you're gonna see much of the interior when he's in there but i've done it all the same.

Vulcan Shuttle

Did a mammoth 15 shift at work all by myself yesterday so, to pass the time, popped into Modelzone and bought on of these fellas to build.
I'd gotten one way back when it was first released but that one's long gone. So its nice to see it back again on the shelves.
Get to work, open the box and - WHAT?
Sprues and sprues of the most hideous mauve plastic are staring up at me. They're 'orrible.
Read the instructions and it becomes clear:
They're that colour because the original studio model was mauve with contrasting panels.
Now, i'd always had it down as tan or brown and had painted my first one that way. The box art here does show a mauve tint to a grey. The back of the box has it all in standard greys.
What's going on?
According to the instructions, you go mauve for authentic.
Overspray it with "Golden Copper" to replicate how it looked on screen.
Or go greys for a Federation version.
Not too happy with having such a quandry but the excellent 2 sheets of decals make up for that.
They're VERY comprehensive, including panelling as well as decals and there's a number of Vulcan and Federation versions to go for.
Anyway, the build is just as i remember it - very simple, taking about half an hour. A nifty new addition is to include magnets to hold the two hulls together - and they're VERY strong.
The base is neat too, having a gimble built in to allow posing.
Here's the sub-assemblies at work. They have to stay like this now right through painting, decaling and pastelling.

Got me a new Blog

Its dawned on me that, with showing films being my profession and watching them a hobby, why not have a whittle on about them?
Expect rants both for and against, plus the odd anecdote from this here Projectionist lark:

http://mangamax-outofthebox.blogspot.com/

Who can out-tom Tom Baker

So, i get a text from The Bronze from this here Blogiverse last night saying how he'd just seen Matt Smith on the Jonathan Ross show and how there's going to be a sort of nod to William Hartnell in the new series.
"Pish" i say to my wife this morning when discussing it, "Tom Baker would be much more fitting. Tom's better than any of 'em. Better than any Tom in fact".
And there followed a light-hearted bicker in which i maintained that there's never been a better Tom (not Thomas mind) in the whole of human history.
My wife tried putting forward candidates such as Mt Cruise and Selleck but they were quickly shot down in flames.
Then it occured to me - i'm right aren't i?
Which Tom in history can ever come close to the barking mad genius that is Mr Baker?
Go on, i dare you.

BigWing

So, taking apart my Griffon kit for use of some of the parts for my Fish 'Bot project. Which means junking this rather nifty backpack affair he sports.
It occured to me that if i turn it round and point it forward you get a nice spaceship with huge great wings either side of a tiny cabin - with a nice bulge for a canopy up top.
So, bung on a coupla greeblies and a coupla tank affairs, mainly to hide the fact that half a hing on one side had pinged off years ago, prime with white and its done.
Then sprayed in a bright yellow. Again, i want to invoke the spirit of Peter Elson but also what now is the canopy will be gloss black so i wanted a contrast to that.

Dragonfly Ship - progress

Quite a bit done now.
Slight set back in that the P38 that i'd shoved in the bottom of the neck then squished the body into that stuck fine - but didn't stick to the neck at all, leaving me this lovely P38 shape of the inside of it.
Got round that ok though by drilling a hole in the neck and the P38, pinning it and glueing with Araldite.
Been asking advice as what to do about the engine area, something that's been bothering me from the start, and they've come up with a mass of tubes a la and Atlas rocket. Which sounds neat so i'm going with that.
They also suggested Anti-Gravity pods slung underneath, which is another neat idea. Couldn't use the traditional ping pong balls cut-down for it though as the width of the body is far too narrow.
Luckily, the toilets where i work have a dispenser of toothpaste chewing gum which come in snap apart balls made of hard plastic. And here they are on.
Before i put them on though i had to get the surface ready.
You can see in the top pic two blue stripes. They are actual peel back covering for two lengths of sticky pads - the body is actually a conduit you attach above your skirting board to house electrical cables.
I could've taken the sticky stuff off but that would've meant a lot of scrubbing and rubbing.
Insead, i merely cut a length of Plasticard to size and used the sticky lengths to hold them on.
That works fine for them but i'm a bit worried that additional kit parts will make it too heavy and it'll start to peel away (especially as it'll be facing down). So bought a length of "L" shaped Plastruct which i'll be attaching along the edge to keep everything together.
Oh, the black hole in the top pic is me, for once, thinking ahead about displaying it.
Its going to need to be on a stand, but the usual clear rod i use will be far too thin - that filler filled neck is HEAVY - so i've drilled a hole, bung a biro cap in and i'll use the biro for the stand.

New kit on the way

Getting my work bonus means i can finally get one of these luvverely ships that i've been pinning for for a long while now.
Dunno what i'll do colour-wise but could be similar to the examples here - but not the skull one.

Kali - naked

Here she is stripped. You can see now just how soft and none existent the detail is. Next up, prime her with black, add the Gel Medium again and fashion new swords.

Fish 'bot

Java over on the Ma.K Forum has just posted loads of pics of his excellent scratchbuilt underwater robot.
Responded to it not only because its a brilliant design done brilliantly but i recognised some of the parts used - the nose area is the chest from a Griffon Mecha, the side stabilsers from same kit and the tail parts are from another Mecha i'd built back in the 80's.
As i had two sources of parts, and it being dead nifty, thought i'd have a go.
Java was kind enough to share what he used so it was off to get a Febreeze bottle to use the spray assembly for one of the parts.
So, this is what i've got so far.

WW2 Dalek?

Just come across this. Its cut very fast and there's an awful lot happening but its looking like we've got a camoed-up Dalek sporting a Union Jack having a wander through the trenches and what looks like Spitfires in space attacking a spaceship.
Knew RTD leaving would be great, but never hoped for this.

Slab Ship - all done...

... but the cockpit windows are a mistake.

Dragonfly Ship - eye

Again, i want an "eye" detail but have no way of attaching it. Here you can see i've added bands of Go-Fasta stripes and glued on to that. The eye in this case is a wheel from a 1/12th bike and a nice rounded shape from the B-19 kit. Trouble is going to be - and i've no way of sorting it out - is that parts are making this bit heavier and heavier and it doesn't attach well to its other half and i can't glue them. So what to do?

Dragonfly Ship - head

Here we are with the neck attached to the head. That leaves quite a gap between the two and i've started hiding it by adding kit parts. On the top, here, we have two bits from the SRN4 Hovercraft and, below, there's a couple from the B-19 plane.
As isay, the plastic of the bowls will not stick to anything so here i'm adding Go-Fasta stripes, which glue does stick to, and i can fix detail to that.

Chaos Terminators - all done.

Very pleased with how these fellas have come out, good value to have such detailed torsos for only 16 quid - shame i had to pay full whack for the legs and arms.

Dragonfly Ship.

Well, that's what i'm going to call it for now, as the bulbous head and slim body i reckon will sort of look like one - but doubt if i'll be putting wings on.
First thing i have to attend to is how to go about dealing with the fact that the yougurt pots are of that plastic that glue just doesn't work on.
I've gotten round the first hurdle of how to attach them together by drilling holes in both and bolting them together.
In the first pic you can see what i've found for the body - the black cup will be a sapcer between the head and the body itself, which is a length of grooved plastic tubing i've had lying around for ages.
How to join them all together?
I know the head doesn't stick and doubt if the black cup will either as its made of that horrible waxy stuff.
So, second pic shows how i'm going to deal with it. I've drilled two more holes in the head and put bolts through. And i'm filling the cup with Polyfilla. When its full i'll lay the head on top so the bolts go into the filler and hopefully it'll all set hard and stick together.
To attach the body, i'll be putting some P38 into the small recess on the underside of the cup and put the body in place, hoping the same thing'll happen.

Daemon Prince Of Nurgle - finished

Here he is then, eye dealt with and assembled. Am pleased how he's come out and enjoyed him a great deal.

Kali reborn

Was up in the attic this morning, moved a box and found this lady in this sorry state.
I'd built her about 10 years ago and displayed her on quite a large base. That's long gone, as to are the remainder of her swords, which i'd made from Plasticard.
So, think i'll strip her down, assemble again and repaint.
That'll be interesting as the detail on the kit is soft to the point of non-existant and i'd spiced it up a bit with Liquetex Gel Medium - be interesting to see how that comes off.

Off The Shelf - 1 - Drone Trooper

Ahhh, those were the days.
Back in the halcyon days of the FTVMC, the Drone Trooper kit was launched, alongside a - proposed - comic strip of the adventures of the fella.
That came to nowt, with me and Ian Ward only seeing one tale in print before lack of sales nixed that project.
But the kit garned a few sales and here's my take on him.
I've detailed him up a bit with the addition of kit bits on the armour and especially on the belt.
He's looking down slightly so thought it'd be an idea for him to be looking at a vanquised foe, which i sculpted out of Das Pronto with cocktail sticks for teeth.

USS Blen-Dah - nixing that idea

Yup, decided on a new scratchbuild - brought about by finding these nifty dessert pots in the supermarket.
Have it in mind to join them thus with a long form like this to which the propulsion section will be joined to.

Off The Shelf - 1 - Hammerstien

Going back quite a way now, and here's the vinyl kit of the leader of the ABC Warriors from 2000AD, guest star in the Judge Dredd film, hence the making of the kit.
Its a nifty piece of work, but i'd always had a problem with him looking sideways and firing wrist guns that he never has in the strip, along with a regular hand instead of the hammer that gave him his name.
So when i bought it, it was with a mind to get him back to his ABC origins.
First trick was to turn his head round to facing front, which was a nightmare as, to do that, i had to sever all the luvverly cable detail which of course never matched up once it was turned.
It was a case of laying in new PVC cables over the old to hide what i'd done.
A simple job was to remove his right hand and the replacement hammer was fashioned out of Magic Sculpt over a Plasticard former.
Finally, it was to give him a whacking great gun, and this is part of an old Macross kit i'd built in the mid 80's.