Uncle Monty

Thanks @Tarkas, that means a lot to me. See here (if you haven't already seen this): for another build, in the same UFO universe, but (as the name suggests) an RAF interceptor. Actually I changed it later to a Royal Navy interceptor because I liked the colour scheme on the RN Buccaneers. In fact, I like the Buccaneer full stop, so a touch of that crept into my design. I am still sketching out a design for a Soviet interceptor, probably something with a lot of scaffolding and a sort of rough and ready appearance. They certainly did like to keep it simple. None of that streamlining nonsense. BTW spot on about Mike Trim, I saw his design on the web ages ago and thought it was superb so a dash of that got added into the mix as well.

Hi Voozet, your build is extraordinary, thank you for sharing it. I was intrigued by your words here: "...You can see how I make an imitation of thin wires. Tamiya only makes quite thick rods: more than 1 mm. Plastruct makes thinner but they are terribly expensive. So I make my own by cutting very thin strips from the 0.25 mm HIPS sheet. Of course, they are not round, but square in cross-section, but with this thickness it makes no difference..." Apologies if others have mentioned this, but have you tried melting sprue over a candle flame and pulling the ends apart to create a very thin 'wire'? I've used this very successfully in the past. Just a thought.

Ahah, good choice then (having just used this exact same colour)

Looks good, i really like the detail touches. Satin black is an interesting choice of colour, it'll certainly be very dramatic.

I always end up making stuff (or trying to) that is a bit beyond me, that stops me getting lazy. Also it's a buzz to learn something new Good luck with your current project by the way!

Thanks @Richard E ! The idea of creating another ship along similar lines, as would probably happen in real life, does appeal. This didn't happen with UFO but it did in Space 1999, anyone remember the Hawk fighter? Martin Bower based that on the classic Eagle shape and very effective it was too.

Many thanks @voozet and @Pete in Lincs The decal image is a .png generated by Gimp, I printed this on the waterslide paper on the laser. The result is pretty good but as I said the yellow seems a bit watery and dark colours show through. Other colours seem fine. I got the waterslide paper from Amazon, not cheap but then I don't need a lot of it. It comes as A4, i cut it up into A5 sheets and I did test prints first on ordinary paper to make sure I was going to get what I expected to get. @Pete in Lincs looking forward to your scratchbuild, i'll have my deckchair and snacks ready and waiting Monty

Hi All The latest and last update on the Interceptor. I'm calling this done now although, as they say, any work of art is never really finished, just abandoned. I made a sheet of decals which you can see here. These are scaled at 1:35 and were printed on a5 waterslide paper. I use Gimp for this sort of thing, after all it's free! I printed these on the laser and I noticed that once they were applied, the yellow was quite hard to see thanks to the dark paint behind it. Yellow looks much better on a lighter colour. Here is a little radar assembly I made using greeblies and some staples, just to finish off the radar housing. I have to admit I didn't take any pics while I was finishing it, clean forgot, so forgive me. We'll just jump straight to the finished pics. Here she is, with the one I made earlier, the USAF interceptor. They're both the same scale but very different shapes. The painting is pretty simple as it's not my thing really, so I decided to keep a coppery look for the engines with a dash of silver. The cowls are gun metal. The skids are silver and gun metal. Weathering was done with tiny amounts of dark grey paint, dry brushed into the nooks and crannies. Matt varnish was sprayed over the decals, I used very fine wire wool to buff up the varnish and create a bit of a shine here and there on the rounded surfaces. Finally we have some fun money shots, heavily influenced by UFO of course. For the 'flying' shots I suspended her on fishing wire against a black background and then just played around in Gimp. The Moon surface is (as before) grey painted cloth and tin foil, with a few stones from the garden. This build was a challenge and no mistake, but I learned a lot and I also took the opportunity to expand my toolkit so the next build should be a tiny bit easier, he said hopefully. Anyway, thanks for watching everyone, best wishes of the holiday season to everyone here and happy modeling cheers Monty

What a cool project, will follow with interest (pulls up deckchair and arranges thermos and sandwiches)

Wow, very nice build there, that takes me back to that evening in the ABC cinema when I saw the film for the first time. Could have heard a pin drop when it got to this moment.

Not seen the film (maybe I should) but either way that's a really nice model. The weathering on that logo had me mentally reaching for a wire brush and a tin of rust-killer

Lovely work and the photos are amazing as well, well done.

hi all Just got back from France yesterday, just before the new regulations came in. Not quite the last chopper out of Saigon but it made our last day there a bit more interesting Thanks for the tip @Thom216 i will take a look at that. I'm currently planning my next project which will be along the same lines but involving a lot of scaffolding, maybe similar to the Eagle Transporter. I imagine i'll have to approach the painting in a very different way!

Thanks guys. The decals will be interesting, I suspect that cos I'm using waterslide film the dark paint might show through a bit too much. We will see.

Hi All, Another update from the work shop on the Interceptor project. She's now got some paint on her so she's no longer just a collection of plastic greeblies and some 22mm pipe, as you can see below. She's actually starting to look like something a bit more real, although still very much in the UFO style which is the look I was after. Here's a shot of the side thrusters/attitude jets, made up from various tank parts as I may have mentioned. They are quite chunky. I would have preferred something a little more delicate but they'll do. This shows the radar housing almost (but not quite) sanded smooth and ready for some of that lovely primer. The next shot shows the louvres I added at the rear to simulate an exhaust pipe of some sort, don't ask me what, it just looks cool. Getting the louvres, which are just rectangles of styrene, into the right position was fiddly and involved much squinting and nudging with a cocktail stick. Finally I got a coat of primer onto her. At this point I was concerned about how tricky it would be to mask the windows but at the same time I was fed up with delaying the painting so I just bagged the cabin and went for it. With hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, that was a mistake. I should have masked the windows and sprayed the whole thing but whatever, it's done now... Here we have the first coat of Tamiya Gunship Grey, applied from a spray can as I don't own an airbrush (although maybe I should get one): More coats, I like the colour more and more: Finally I plucked up the courage to mask those windows and just go for it: And here is the patient with the bandages removed. A few paint leaks around the windows which need attention - that's the next job - and then some painting, decals, weathering. Well that's it for this update, wish me luck for what comes next because painting and weathering is outside my comfort zone, but it's a challenge and I do like a challenge Thanks for watching and as always, all comments and abuse gratefully received. Monty