Vampire Batman - almost there

Just need now to finish off the symbol, block in the rest of the black, then go to town on the gore.
I've also finished the base - but that's kinda boring so not documented it.

Where the engine goers on the Draconian Fighter

This is interesting. Here we have AJA Models' take on the fighter which, as well as giving a fully detailed cockpit, also tries to explain how the engine can fit in such a small space - it points straight down

Getting rusty

With all the metallics done on the Draconian, thought it'd be easier if i did the rusty weathering of all three of my fighters at the same time.
Funny, but i didn't realise i was making three ships all pretty much the same size, even if the scales are different.
Speaking of which, the Viper is 1/32nd, i'm putting Greenship as 1/72nd, and the Draconian is, judging by the size of the cockpit chair, about 1/20th. Which beggars the question - how the hell do fit an engine in the space behind it?

New Ship - done with the green

Okay, just about finished with this part. It looks pretty garish, what with the bright yellow contrasting the greens, but (A) I want it that way, trying to evoke those outlandish colour schemes of so many 70's paperback covers, (B) I'm expect it to tone down a tad once i've put the pastels on.

Draconian Fighter - small disaster and pastelling

Once the paint had dried i put the decals on...
30 plus years had a VERY strange effect when they were immersed in water - they curled up good and tight on themselves. Had a hell of job to unfurl them and get them to lay flat. In the end managed it, but the small one's that are supposed to go up near the cockpit had no chance - so i left them off.
Annoying, but felt better once i laid down the brown and black pastels and sealed everything.

Draconian Fighter - painting done

So here we have him with different browns splodged on, making a mottling effect, building up in lighter and lighter shades.
I imagine the Draconians to be the Klingons of Buck's world and want to reflect that in the beat-up earthy look to this ship.
Its actually a lot lighter than i'd normally go for - but i know the next stage of pastelling will darken things down hugely so have to prepare for that now.

Draconian Fighter - lack of detail

I've always thought this was a pretty accurate looking kit - until i checked with this photo just before sploshing various browns around as you can see in the second pic.
Blimey, looks pretty bare doesn't it? There's not even a hint at so much of this lovely intricate detail Ken and co put on. And, oddly, what are surfaces with holes drilled in them on the original are duplicated as raised bumps.
Can see now why folk have produced a more accurate version. But, that's not for me - i got this one partly because it was a quick purchase but mainly as i wanted to rebuild something from my early SF model making.

New Ship - more green

Here i've washed the whole thing down with a Dark Green/Black mix which sure stopped it looking like a toy.
Trouble is, it went real dull, so i'm in the process of picking various panels out in different greens. That's proving harder than i thought it'd be as most shades aren't suitable at all. The only one that is is Games Workshops "Scorpion Green", so i'm mixing up small amounts of that with other greens to try and make some colours that do fit in.

Draconian Fighter - basecoat

With the canopy glass masked off it was time to decide what colur to do the thing in.
Watch the show and you get and odd pinky colour - but that's the crappy photography for you.
The full size version seems to be a salmon mixed with brown affair, while most shots of the minatures in decent lighting look like this.
But Ken Larson has shots on his site (which are copyright protected, which is fair enough) of his one's much more of a bone colour and i really like that, so that's what i'm going for.
First though is to basecoat, and here it is in Vallejo "Light Brown", which isn't too far off the original plastic of the kit.

Draconian Fighter - assembly

Pic 1 - This ship will soon be finished methinks - after a soapy wash last night (the kit, not me), i've started to put it together. made easier by the build being a case of putting a couple of inserts into the upper hull, glueing the hull and cockpit halves together and bunging a gun on.
Pic 2 - This is the cockpit area - a chair. You can get an add on fully detailed interior but there's no way you'll see it through the red canopy glass so would have to figure a way of opening the sealed shut cockpit to show off all your hard work and expense. You can only just about make out the chair in a good light, so i'm not going to bother even painting it.
Pic 3 - here we go all done. I'm waiting for the white glue i've used on the clear red piece to set good and hard before masking it up prior to priming.
Pic 4 - For Desert Scribe, Andrew and Mike - another shot of the still lovely 61 year old Wilma in her nifty alternative outfit (shame about the hair)

Off The Shelf - 9 - Poisen Ivy

A lovely kit this, packing incredible detail for only 1/8th. She was a joy to build and paint - the plant a right slog.

The lure(s) of Buck Rogers

So, i'm having a trawl around the Net and i stumble upon the Website of model maker Ken Larsons work on the Buck Rogers TV show.
I've always considered the programme to be naffer than naff and haven't seen it since it aired, but did like Princess Ardalas huge Flagship design, so thought i'd take a look.
WOW. Ken was a pretty prolific modelmaker, turning out some pretty nifty designs as well as the more well known one's.
He's sites really interesting and i urge you to take a look:

http://www.universalhartland.com/code/buck000m.shtml

Looking at the builds on there, i got to thinking maybe i should get the DVD's. "Nah" thinks i, "it'll still be as bad as you remember, probably worse". But i would like to see these ships in action. Then i thought maybe i should get it for that, and the Sprogs can get it for the episodes themselves. And, anyway, it might be duff to get it, but at least i'm not getting the *shudder* 2nd series am i?

So i go ahead and buy it - and what do i think?
Blimey, it IS as bad as i remember it. Most notable now with hindsite and all these years gone by, is:
how each episode is nothing more than "Hart To Hart" in space - God awful crappy soap operas but with Buster Crabbe, Cesear Romero, Julie Newmar etc thrown in,
how they had the gall to think disco light tubing could pass for fueling pipes,
how Gil can't act. At all.
How flaming annoying Tweakie still is (but the kids LOVE him and he's their favourite parts of the show),
how shoddy the model photography is,
and how alluring Wilma still is. That is, when she has this helmet on. The substandard Farrah Fawcett Majors, shambolic hair "do" that's under there is truely hideous. Which is a shame as it spoils that nifty blue/purple outfir she sometimes sports.

So, a right old pold to get through the discs, waiting for an effects scene that always is alet down with its crappness.
But, still have a hankering for them, so thought i'd get this here ship.
Oddly called a Marauder on the box, its never called that on the show, rather a "Hatchet Fighter" or "Pirate Ship".
I had one when they first came out and seem to recall it ended its life by having the cockpit ripped off and filled in, the engine taken off and a 1999 Eagle beak out in its palce. Then painted green.
I'm looking forward to the build as i've always liked this and the Starfighter, this one being the one i've gone for as its not only an unusal design, but its going to be great fun doing the painting and weathering.
The one i've bought has a pretty beat up box and all the parts are off the sprues and dusty as hell, so there's bath time before i can start.

B7 Hairdryer Ship - puzzle solving

Just about my only resolution this year is to finish some of the projects that are languishing in boxes or gathering dust on the bench.
So, minds turned back to this one.
I've multiple stumbling blocks of just what was used in some places:

For a start, in pic 1, if you look at the very "top" there's an angular shape that looks an awful lot like it could be a 1/72 jet fighter wing lain horizontally. Reckon it'll be near impossible to identify, as Matt Irvine doesn't recall it, so i'm on the lookout for a suitable substitute.

Pic 2 has a closer look at a couple of parts i need. The top one is infuriatingly familiar and i'm thinking maybe the underside of a 1/72 tank turret - that bit that allows it to turn on the main body.

Pic 3 has a couple of shapes from the rear, again ringing bells. Luckily, i've been helped out again by the Eagle Forum, with the left one being identified as part from the Saturn V kit cut down.

Lastly, i've got to think about the underside. All i know of it for sure is that there's 3 upturned Airfix plane stands down there. I've got them so that's ok - but how to attach them? Been having a ponder and, in the end, decided to go with just turning the base over and glueing the stand part into it. With no photographic evidence that Matt didn't do that, there's a chance he did, right?
The fact that the underside seems to be unknown actually helps me as i can go my own way, putting on parts that aren't right at all but hopefully in keeping with what's going on up top.

New Ship - shades of green

From the top:
(1) Here she is based in the yellowest green i could find. Nice and shiny for the decals - but rather toy-like.
(2) Here i've added a few decals and yellow Go-Fasta stripes to break the green up a bit and a definete nod to Thunderbird 2.
(3) Had trouble with the nose as it seems the primer and main colour just didn't take at all, meaning that when i trimmed this panel to size it lifted paint each end. No matter - will cover the blemishes up with metallic paint and just have it more beat up than i intended.
(4) All done and ready for a coat of Matt Varnish to dull it all down.
(5) Dulled down - but STILL too toy-like. Right, heavy dirtying is in order then.

Vampire Batman - nearly time for clothing

So, festivities are winding down (hope your's were fab) and i've time to get back to me den.
Here we have the teeth all finished and i've sprayed a coat of white over the eyes and shield areas as (A) Games Workshops white these days is so thin its like milk, (B) yellow is notorious for being translucent no matter what brand you use, so thought i'd help both with a coating.

Merry Christmas readers

Okay, that's it, no more computer malarky while i go off and enjoy the festivities. Hope y'all have a great time and receive all you wished for.

Vampire Batman - skin and mouth done

Pretty happy with his undead skin-tone, so i've done the inside of his mouth. I've kept it quite dark in there as i want the teeth to be nice and bright and stand out as, once i've done them, i can go to town on the gore, which needs a light base to be put on to work properly.

Galactica Viper - base.

The base for my ship arrived yesterday and mighty fine it is too.
You might recall that there's a whole bunch of us making a squadron that'll be displayed at a model show next year?
To have cohesion, we're all being supplied by these bases which will all be joined together at the show to represent a hanger bay.
So they all work together, the bases are supplied already painted and we're not allowed to repaint them.
we can however dirty them down, put posters up, add flight crew, workbenches etc.
Not got a clue yet as to what i'll do.
You can also see i've started on the metallics on the ship and you may be able to spot some rust there between some panels.

New Ship - all together

Here we have one of the pods all finished. Other than the red stripes, all detailing came from the 88mm kit. I had to put a couple of pieces in the "mouths" as these front sections were hollow, so i had to fill them with P38 to give enough purchase to glue with. And of course that meant, if you looked into the maw, you saw a blob of the stuff.
Second pic shows everything attached ready to prime.
Then we have her this evening in her lovely grey scheme. After this will be a coat of white as i've decided the final colour will be a bright green - and i don't wnat the grey bleeding through and dulling everything down.

Music to model by

Only saw a chunk of Tron Legacy on a run through the other day, so can't have an opinion yet.
Can on the soundtrack though - BRILLIANT work by Daft Punk, that's on the CD player non-stop right now. Highly recommended, especially if you're a fan of John Carpenter's own scores such as Escape From New York and Prince Of Darkness.
Word of advice - buy the actual CD rather than a download as you then get the bonus material of music video, photo gallery and trailers.

Galactica Viper - pastelled

All beat up now by adding black pastels, along with a dark brown one for warming them up a bit and not making it look too stark.
Before removing the masking tape from the canopy, i picked it out in Vallejo "Oily Steel".

Vampire Batman - put back together

So, ears on, filled, rubbed down and everything primed.

Galactica Viper - off we go again

Can get back on track now with this build as i've hust received the excellent replacement decal sheet - cheers Mark.
As you may recall, a group build is going on over on the SFMUK site where we all build one of these new Viper kits, with new markings and all will be displayed as a squadron at a model show next year.
The decal sheet to enable that is for ships in the Spitfire Squadron, out of the Battlestar Excalibur.
Mark's done a brilliant job with these new decals, which work in conjunction with the existing sheet. All that's changed is the striping, the name of the mother ship and the pilots name - in my case i get my own plus my most used Net ID as my call sign. And some neat kill marks.
Looking forward to sealing all these in so i can crack on with the dirtying down.

Victorian Lunar Lander - done

Okay, filled in the centre of each washer with Gloss Black to convey portholes and darkend some arears down while i was at it.
Might now Photoshop it and put it in a lunar setting.

New Ship - starting on the pods

So, been around every shop in town looking at pens and clutching this interesting grey thing that Andrew supplied me.
I'd already decided that two of them would be the front of the pods that will be slung on the underside. I'd figured a pen would be about the right length for the pods themselves and, looking at the diameter of the rear of the grey things, thought a marker pen would be about right.
So got these two from Wilkensons for £1.00 and went with them as the cap is nicely detailed and there's further detail on the body itself.
Next step is to use P38 to blend them grey and the pen together.

New Ship - top and bottom

Thinking this is about how far i want to go with the detailing, just a few more panels and details and i'm done.
Up top you can see a long ribbed section, which from the B-52 kit. On the underneath i've got part from the always useful Airfix Refueling kit and i thought i'd bung a gun on so have used the barrel from the 88mm kit.
I've also added some small parts all over, mainly, again, from the 88mm kit - a rich source of fabulous, intricate detailed parts. No wonder it was used so much on SF models.