Meteors

Thanks Andy, I'll take a look. I was actually thinking I might cut the buckle out of the horrid Ripley, and then use some fabric to make the straps. Then with the hole-in-her-chest Ripley I might make a diorama and use her as the cocooned colonist they find who gets chestburstered when the go into the reactor, and also use one of my unbuilt Halcyon Alien Warriors as part of the scene. Scale would be off a little, but might be fun.

Oh man, good work, I'm very jealous! You've got to do a WIP on this one.

Hey guys, I've had a Takom King Tiger tank sitting on my bench half done for ages. What with a two year old and another one on the way I get very little time for model making. I decided that I needed a quick model with a low part count to get me back into the swing of things, so I moved the King Tiger to the overflowing 'In progress' shelf, and had a look at my ever-increasing Halcyon pile. I made most of these Alien kits when I was a teenager, but never the Power Loader, so that was the one that's getting built. As I don't have much time I will build this almost straight out of the box. I know there's other people that make the legs and feet more dynamic and more like the movie version, along with changing up the pincers. I just don't have the time, nor the skill! There are a few things that need modification. I'll be leaving the horrid Ripley off as she looks terrible. This does mean I'll have to fashion some safety straps out of something. The joysticks that come with the kit look like dildos unfortunately, but they might have to stay, just for that very fact. The kit comes with a nice orange light covering for the top, but the bit that's supposed to be the bulb is woeful, so I'll have to do something about that. Also the piping is pretty plasticky and shiny, but might come good after some paint, we'll have to see about that. So here's some pics, I've pretty much completed the arms and legs. I've left the padding and roll cage off as they would have made painting difficult, I'll add them on later. Here she is mocked up, looks pretty nice! Thanks for looking! Tom

The engines look wicked, great job on those!

Once you have transferred the photos to Flickr (your photos must be set to Public) start creating your post on BritModeller. When you are ready to attach a pic go to Flickr, go to your photos and click on the one you want so it fills the screen of your phone. Click on the Share arrow in the bottom right corner, then click the "Copy URL" button at the bottom. Go back to your BritModeller post, press down in the space after your text so that Paste appears, and paste the URL in. Then click return/enter to drop a line, and your picture should appear! The main problem is that you have to do this for each picture, I'm unaware of a way to bulk upload. Hope that all made sense, let me know if there's any bit that's not clear. Tom

Fantastic!

Nice, I might have to look up that Shuttle Tydirium!

Oops, another purchase, more eye rolling from the missus!

Oh man, I need to stop buying kits!

!

Well I'll be, there you go! I've got one of these guys and every day I procrastinate about repainting the white bits, or just giving them a coat of matt varnish. Yours has come up very nicely. Maybe I'll do one arm of each and see the results.

Great Job! You just need to pop his little headband bit back down! So you didn't paint the black and white bits, just left them as is OOB?

That's the plan! But the rate at which I manage to put them together means it'll probably be about a year until it's done!

I think I've gone a little overboard.

Thanks so much for all the positive and insightful feedback! It really helps with the confidence, currently putting together a Takom King Tiger and finding many new firsts on that one too, especially the link and length tracks, what a pain! Thanks again, everyone.

Thanks Badder! Yeah, I just used the string that came with the kit for the tow cables, and as soon as they got paint on them it was clear that they were a terrible choice! But like I said, it was a learning build so I won't use those again. Same with the mud and dirt, used a mixture of mig ammo light mud splash stuff and dark pigments. I was imagining that the older stuff had dried as a light colour, and the new stuff it had just driven through was wet and dark. I guess it's about ratios and practice. Thanks for the feedback! Tom

Hey guys, A lot of firsts for me in this build. First armour, first time using an airbrush, first time doing camo. First time using chipping fluid, a filter, and pigments. I think she came out pretty well, I wanted to throw all those things at it to get the experience and see what worked, what I needed to use more of or less of. The figure came with the kit, the facial features weren't the best, so I didn't spend to much time on it, I think his outfit came out quite nicely through. The photos are a little bit dark though, only had time to grab a few quick snaps with my phone whilst the little one watched a bit of telly! Let me know what you think, what I could improve upon, etc. Cheers! Tom

Received these goodies today!! Not sure which to do first! Oh yeah, finish the other six or seven half started projects I have going on.

Is this the Leading Edge kit that comes in a rectangular black plastic case with foam padding inside? If I remember rightly that one didn't come with any instructions. For a paint scheme I would do a black base coat with maybe a deep blue wash and some silvery highlights dry-brushed on, but you can go with anything you like really, a brown wash instead of a blue one, say, for that egg chamber look. The blue was mainly from the movie lighting, but I like that look.

It's funny you say that, I was thinking there's no point chucking it, I could use it for an abandoned rusted up old tank future build.

Yeah, it's well off, isn't it? Oh well, it was only a couple of quid, not the end of the world, and it's not like it ruined my model so all's well that ends well!

So Andy recommended I take the stopper off the bottle and give it a good mix, which I did, and it was a great tip as I wasn't aware you could do that, but unfortunately the colour of the Mig rotbraun remained very orange. Andy's next recommendation was to try out the Vallejo Cavalry Brown 70.982, so I picked up a bottle. Here's a picture of the two bottles next to the Mig Ammo colour profile insert from the Takom King Tiger kit. A picture speaks a thousand words, as they say. So, heartened from that quick comparison I got the airbrush out and did a quick light coat on half of the lower hull that I'd already orange'd up with the Mig rotbraun. The results were instantly obvious. Andy knows his stuff. So I'll be using the cavalry brown for my King Tiger. I'm going to be doing the two tone like the box art using another ammo colour (dunkelgelb?) that I'd already purchased, I hope that one is well matched. It's a shame about that rottenbraun, I like the Mig products, their washes and pigments and mud effects are great. But, man, that rotbraun was rubbish. Neither rot, nor braun. Big thanks to Andy for all his help, cheers mate! Tom

Hey guys, I wasn't really sure where to put this query, this looked like the best place. I recently bought a Takom T-54-B Russian Medium Tank after being impressed with their King Tiger kit. After doing a bit of research I found some info that the lower hull had been incorrectly issued on this kit, and that Takom offered replacements. People also touted their customer service as being really good. Great, I thought, I flick them an email and they can hopefully send me the right piece of kit. Sent an email to the address on their website. Nothing. Sent them a message on their facebook account. Nothing. Anyone had any joy dealing with this lot? It's really soured me on their kits now, I can't stand it when a company has zero customer service to speak of. Looks like they're about to make 'The List'. Cheers, Tom

This is amazing. Beautiful.

Thanks for the suggestion about the pigment at the bottom of the bottle, Andy, I'll give that a go as it's way brighter and orange than your pic and others I've seen. If if it doesn't come good I guess I'll just go with a tamiya red brown and see how that comes out. Cheers!