Photon

sometimes my brain’s a bit too active...

I realized that the part that I had mounted to attach the legs to was too wide and was going to make for quite a bow legged stance. So I sawed it off and attached a thinner piece to help bring the legs closer together. There was a rectangular hole left behind, so I took the opportunity to glue some 1:72 tank tracks in place to suggest some mechanical detail within. I also scratched the leg attachment flanges. I tried to align them in-line with the shoulders. I also started to mock-up some arms. I like where this is going, but I'm not too happy with the hands themselves. These are from a early 80's Gunze Sangyo kit and they are fairly crude. I'd like them to be bigger and forming fists. The 1/100 Gundam fists that I have are too small to use here. I may have to scratch build them 😬 . I think the open frame forearm will be a good starting point for some mechanical details. I will need to get the legs sorted before I go too much further with the arms, since I'll need to know how far to separate them from the body to clear the legs. I've got a handful of pieces picked out for the legs, but still need to engineer how everything gets attached. until then, thanks for looking in. Peter

Great work, Francis. You’re off to great start. I had this particular craft on my (long) list of things to build. I’m really looking forward to seeing your interpretation. I’ve also built a McQue inspired model:

I’ve wanted to build a piloted Mech/Powersuit with the driver in an open roll cage for a while now. I recently picked up a set of Polish tank crew figures and decided to have a go. I don’t really have a clear design in mind, other than I’d like to have exaggerated, cartoon proportions, with large arms and shoulders and small legs. Kind of like Bluto from the Popeye cartoons. I started by building the seat out of some leftover polystyrene scraps. The joysticks and foot rest are Gundam parts. They’re kind of chunky and possibly scale-breakers, but I’m playing this one fast and loose. Next, I built up a frame to support the huge arms. This was printed in five parts and assembled around the chair. On either side of the pilots head , I drilled the mounting holes for the roll cage. This will (hopefully) be bent up from some acrylic rod. A bit hard to see, but the black textured piece behind the drivers head is from a video cassette. I also filled out the back with sheet styrene and started to add some kit part details. Under the seat, I’ve added a piece to attach the legs to. I’m happy so far, but slightly unsettled as I have no real plan. I will trust that the Spare-box Muse will lead me down the golden path to kitbash Elysium. that’s it for now. Thanks for looking in. Pete

Excellent! Looking forward to this.

Funny you should mention that...I’m building a ship from Bye Bye Jupiter right now. I’ll start a thread soon.

Looks great so far. I will be following with interest.

Very interested to follow along. Martin Bower modeled a bunch of the Dan Dare ships years ago. There are some pictures here: Link

Thanks, Pete! Shouldn't be too much longer now.

Thanks for all the leads on some scale figures. Very helpful. I finally picked up some backpacker figures. They’re not 100% what I was looking for, but I’m getting anxious to finish. I have added some fine dirt. This was just dirt from pile at a job site near where I work. I grabbed a couple yogurt cups full and then later sifted it through a wire screen to get rid of rocks and plant debris. I applied some glue with a brush (Mod Podge matte) to the plaster. A nylon stocking was stretched over the yogurt cup and shook it over the model, salt shaker style. Only the finest powder made it through the stocking, so it looks reasonably in-scale. Here I’ve added some static grass (WWS brand). The applicator was made from an electric fly swatter from the junk shop (cheapness), using instructions gleaned from a thousand YouTube videos. There’s also a bit of weathering...some oil paint rain streaks and some dirt, dust and mud clumps. Next I’ll add some of the vine like vegetation hanging from the engines, as seen in the original sketch. Over & Out, Pete

Peter Wyngarde would have approved.

Looks like a fun project. I think it would be cool to add a few details to the suit, maybe some extra detail on the backpack or a new weapon. Then a small simple base to display it. Some of the glue damage could perhaps be expressed as battle damage or wear and tear once you get to the paint stage. Another thought is a derelict suit, rusted and with moss growing on it, maybe with a skeleton inside(?) 💀 Here’s what I mean by a small base (this is not my work, btw)

Looks ace, Pete. Lots of really nice details on this one. I especially like the canopy.

Looks fantastic. I really like the paint job. Are you going to add any markings? I’m looking forward to the RFI shots.

Absolutely ace work, Pete. You really seem to know your way around aircraft and it really shows in your work. The details really sell it. Great job!

Yes, I’ve had my eye on some Preiser backpackers, but they’re pricey and often out of stock. As I recall, I wasn’t 100% in love with them (their garb is too distinctly Bavarian), but maybe I’ll just grab them, because I do prefer the idea of hikers.

I do have some HO scale astronaut figures left over from another project that could be modified to look less ‘astronautical ’ and maybe a bit more ‘hazmatic’. 😜 They’re a bit soft, as far as details go, but some micro putty work and I think they could be brought closer to the ones in the original drawing. Here’s what the HO figures look like in the scene. What do you think scale wise? 1/100 figures would certainly lend some titanic grandeur, but I do like the idea of finishing this in my lifetime. There’s a large war gaming / toy solder shop and a huge model train shop just a few miles from here, but I’d rather not venture out into the corona hellscape unnecessarily . (And I when I think about what I’ve paid on postage this year to have various supplies sent here 😭)

Thanks, Pete. I actually haven’t looked at 1/100. Outside of Gundam stuff, I wasn’t aware of many things being produced at that scale. Is it a tabletop game scale? I really like the texture, too. Unfortunately, it will mostly be covered in grass. I have some ideas for a couple submersible drone models. I think this texture will be well-suited to undersea landscape.

Waiting for the plaster to fully dry, then weathering and vegetation. Still haven’t found any suitable figures in HO scale. Maybe if I widen my search to include 1:72, I’ll probably have better luck. 1:72 is a bit bigger than I’d like, though.

Thanks. I used plaster mixed with some paper pulp to bulk it out. The paper pulp is an entire roll of toilet paper that I shredded with an immersion blender (in water to keep the dust down). Then I spread it on an old window screen and let the water evaporate. I just add it to the plaster mix by eye as needed. The right consistency is similar to loose porridge or cottage cheese. It’s an attempt to DIY a product called Sculpt-a-mold, that is popular with war gamers and model railroaders. The plaster that I used is a brand called Durham’s Water Putty. It’s yellow because they add limestone and other minerals to the mix. I’m not sure what properties that imparts. For the smooth sides, I mixed it a bit thicker and didn’t add any paper. If you look close at the last picture, you can see the sides are just a skim coat over the edges of the foam insulation that the base is made from.

I needed the panels to be thin shells that would fit perfectly over the ship hull. The shapes that I’m forming over are identically sized to the original. That means the inside of the vacuum formed panel will conform perfectly to the model. To 3D model a thin shell that would conform to the surface of the ship is beyond my computer skills and would be difficult to print without warping. Also, I really like vacuum forming and don’t get many opportunities to do it. Thanks

As usual, I’m bouncing between multiple projects. I finally put some time into this and thought I’d share some progress. I thought the ship hull looked a bit stark, so I decided to have a go making some panels. In order to get them to conform to the compound curves of the hull, I vacuum formed them. I printed three instances of this portion of the ship. I arranged them with a triangular plywood spacer, so the plastic wouldn’t have to be drawn as deep, preserving a bit of material thickness in the final parts. vacuum-forming machine: Here’s the result. The form is still trapped within the part, as I wasn’t too concerned with undercuts. Also it will provide some needed support whilst scribing. I scribed some lines into the panels using a chisel made from a ground down needle file. Scribing an ellipse onto a curved surface was challenging, but I got better at it as I went. The worst of them will positioned so it will be hard to see in the final piece. Here’s the ‘chisel: After scribing, the panels were trimmed to size. Here is the hull fully paneled, with some grey primer. I’ve started to paint and weather the engines, as well. They’ve got a ways to go. I also started to bulk out the base. I will paint the ship before attaching it, then continue to add ground material. That’s all for now. Thanks for looking. Hopefully it won’t be quite as long before the next update.

Heres a nice shot of the underside:

Great work, Pete. It really looks fantastic. 🔥🔥🔥

Hey Pete, here’s a couple pictures of a Fledermaus that I had grabbed off Twitter because I thought it was an interesting paint job. Maybe you’ll find them useful. I can’t wait to see what you cook up this time.