jargonking

Made some miniature garbage bags from actual bin liners.... Here they are placed in the corner.....

Back to it..... Finally installed the screens....they are printed on plain paper, the experiments with the translucent paper didn't work, but I've sandwiched them between clear acetate (front) and very thin styrene sheet (behind) and I'm pleased with the results.... Just need to finish off the piles of garbage and run the wire feeds for the car through the base and I'm done...

Modelzone have dropped the price of the Revell Routemaster to £19.99

Monarch Models announced plans for a kit based on this suit about 3 years ago but it's still to arrive....

Anybody out there fans of the Bandai UC Hardgraph series? The concept seems to be futuristic military hardware fighting alongside giant robots. I'd be interested to see any other builds.... A while ago my brother in Hong Kong bought me the EFGF M61A5 Main Battle Tank which is a 1/35 kit that resembles an Israeli Merkava on steroids.... The quality of the parts is fantastic...on a par with Tamiya or Dragon.... I decided to wait until I found some more of the kits before commiting to a build... This turned up on Amazon this week.... Basically a nice set of figures with a motorcycle accompanied by a giant severed robot head The detail is again fantastic.... Includes full colour instructions.... Looking forward to building these now....

Better be quick...only the figures, Stingray and original Falke left!

Finally got the top wall in place with the screens....I've been playing around with japanese adverts downloaded from Google and shrunk to fit the screens...here's a Sapporo beer one.... The flash washes out a lot of the effect...here's a shot in natural light... Here's the other screen with a girl advertising a herbal drink... And in the dark....note that the images are only printed on paper...I'm going to experiment printing onto drafting film which I believe is what ParaGrafix use for their film inserts...I might also try backing them with EL sheet rather than LED's....

An hour in front of the computer produced this cut out appliance box.... Assembled and weathered....note the product description, they've moved on from microwaves.... In situ on the pavement....

Hannants have slashed the cost of the Hasegawa MaK kits in their special offers section.... Lunadiver Stingray. WAS £84.99. NOW £23.75 P.K.H. 103 Nutcracker. WAS £95.99. NOW £23.99 Falke Antigravity Armored Raider with excimer laser gun. WAS £84.99. NOW £21.25 Falke Antigravity Armored Raider with excimer laser gun. WAS £84.99. NOW £21.25 Mercenary Troops' Arms Cold District Soldiers. WAS £26.99. NOW £6.75 Here's the link.... http://www.hannants.co.uk/specials/

Nearly there with the diorama....problem is I keep thinking of things to add... I've more or less finished the door piece after a lot of painting...remember this is a single piece of resin.... I found some Japanese posters and newspapers on Google and shrunk them to scale before printing them off...they were then glued to the wall using white glue and weathered... Close up of the posters.... I can't read Japanese so apologies if they are upside down ... The door received two Japanese characters at the top and some fibre optics at the centre...hard to see in this pic but quite bright in reality... I also made my own copy of the Los Angeles Times ( it's dated 3rd November 2019) with a suitable headline from just prior to the events in the movie.... Also printed are some actual signs from the movie.... More soon....

A little more progress with the diorama.... The main elements are painted and partially weathered...still some detail painting to do around the door and the various bits of ducting.... The underside of the canopy....I painted this with a rust red enamel and as soon as it was dry oversprayed it with an acrylic red which reacted with the first coat to give a crackled, distressed look...just what I was after. I inserted six 5mm white LED's into the downlights then filled up the rest of the hole with epoxy resin that dried a milky white... Here they are lit.... And placed in situ.... Here's a couple of moody night shots in the dark....

Order them from Steve Iverson (Cultman)....$10.95 for the Saturn V/ CSM Bundle + shipping http://www.culttvmanshop.com/Space-Model-Systems_bymfg_70-4-1.html His customer service is first rate and he also takes Paypal

If you have an Aldi close by they had them in stock last week for £8.99. I bought one of them last time they had them in and it works great.

Fantastic....looking forward to following this build!

Ha, just realised I've been placing the pillars upside down which explains the fit problems....D'oh! I need to start following instructions even though the kit only has six parts!

Yes they did, however it's never clear where Deckard is parked when he makes the call to Pris so he could just as easily been parked outside the Yukon on the offchance that Batty might have returned there...besides which, it's such a cool looking building I just had to use it...

Incidentally, I'll be at the South Cheshire Militaire in Crewe this Sunday 24th Feb on the SFM:UK stand. I'll have the Sedan and various other pieces on show so if you're passing then say hello...

It was a group diorama created by the SFM:UK site at the Crewe model show two years ago....ten Viper MkII's each built by a different modeller then brought together for the show....coincidentally the Crewe show is on again this Sunday 24th February where they'll be unveilling a Star Wars hangar. Here's a link to the Viper Hangar dio.... http://www.scifimodels.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85:group-build-sfmuk-viper-squadron&catid=11:groupbuilds&Itemid=19 And my own builds.... http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=320400 http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=312750

The Revell kits are simply reboxings of the Moebius moulds with new instructions and decals...I think Moebius supply the parts to Revell bagged up so there shouldn't be any real difference in the quality of the plastic. It builds up into a decent representation of the actual ship and is pretty good value for money at the Revell prices. Here's mine that was built from a test shot prior to the original release....all I got was a bag of parts...no instructions or decals!

The diorama base as it comes is great but I wanted to make some minor adjustments... Firstly, the pillars were too close to the door for my taste... I built a small section of additional flooring from sheet styrene to allow the rear wall to move back.... This gives a greater gap from the wall to the pillars.... I also wanted to add downlights to the underside of the canopy to illuminate the entrance. I had a slight issue with the canopy piece as the thickness wasn't constant along it's length. If I was building the kit stock then this would be virtually unnoticeable but it was a problem with the lighting in mind.... I overcame it by glueing a strip of styrene along the underside of the front edge.... I then built up the underside with strips of increasing thickness... Holes were carefully drilled through the canopy to house the LED downlights.... A piece of styrene sheet forms the new underside of the canopy...this is deeper than the original piece to allow for the rear wall being pushed back. I obtained these brass portholes from my local model shop.... They are rebated on the back to allow them to drop into a pre-drilled hole... And here they are fitted.... I've also started fitting out the two roof-mounted advertising signs for lighting. I attached a strip of styrene around the inside edges to allow a transparent sign to be dropped in....note also the foil backing to reflect the light forwards...

Fresh in today from Randy Cooper....a superb resin diorama base..... This is it straight out of the box with no cleaning up.... It's based on the building where Batty and Leon stand watching Deckard and Gaff search the apartment at 1187 Hunterwasser. The columns and door are really finely detailed and the parts extremely well cast... Close up of the doorway detailing... Detail on the pillar.... I'm intending to light the two large screens above the canopy and also add some lights to the door. I'm also going to extend the roadway out in front...

No worries....may take a day or two to locate in the depths of my stash but I'll get a pic taken as soon as I find it...

Another couple of hours at the computer resulted in an A4 sheet of generic decals to be used on upcoming projects, in particular a Police bike.... They were printed using a basic Canon printer onto clear decal paper and the quality is pretty decent...just have to remember that what appears white is in fact clear so they need to go on a white background.... Here are some alternative license plates....

More scale insanity....the detail in Blade Runner is staggering...Ridley Scott went to the trouble of getting the art department to create magazines to populate a news stand which is barely glimpsed in the final film. I thought it would be fun to have some of these on the passenger seat so found the images online and shrank them before printing them off. A copy of Finescale Modeller gave me the dimensions of a typical US magazine size....275mm x 210mm which equates to 11.46mm x 8.75mm at 1/24 scale. Here's the finished articles...I've not pictured the third mag, delightfully titled 'Krotch', to spare any sensitivities here.... They have back covers too, not that you'll see them, featuring Japanese drinks adverts...note the Johnnie Walker ad which is a brand featured in the movie... Here they are on the seat.... I'm now thinking he should have a briefcase too.....

Getting close to finishing...still can't decide on lighting the rear lights...very little room even for SMD's and not much opportunity to hide the feeds.... Anyway, here's the rear license plate installed... The only other decal to apply was the red/white circle on the roof....the decals are by Cartograf and respond well to Microsol. Still some touching in to do on the window rubbers.... Rear view....note the two pipes going into the 'intake' on the roof, these are closer to the real car and not how they are shown in the kit instructions. A light spirit wash was applied made up of used thinners and MIG 'Starship Filth' oil colour. The overall colour of the Sedan appears much redder in these pics than to the eye....I'll get some done in daylight once it's finished (and it's stopped raining!) Nearly there.....