saturnapollo

A friend found this in a charity shop. No decals so did my own scheme. Turned it into a World Space Agency Carrier/Air Launch craft. Replaced the horrible forward canards and reworked the Thunderdart stealth aircraft to a mini space shuttle by redesigning the aft end and wing tips. Changed the scale from 1/72 to 1/100 and made new temporary landing gear for a couple of the photos. Keith

Impressive. Keith

Very nice indeed! "non-ablative re-entry" - the Apollo Command Module had an ablative material - which is material which breaks away during re-entry taking the heat with it. The shuttle tiles were non ablative which means they did not break away but absorbed the heat. Keith

Outstanding paint job! Keith

Waste not want not, as the saying goes. Amazing what you can do with left overs with a bit of lateral thinking! Keith

Thanks very much everyone. Glad you like them. Thought I'd try one with the small scale Aoshima diecast Zero X (with a bit of Photoshopping to hide the obvious diecast origin) in the same sort of vein.

Frank Bellamy illustrated TV21 Talons of the Eagle story using the RTL2 featured in the Thunderbirds episide The Cham Cham. Bellamy's dynamic style well illustrated the RTL2 a favourite guest vehicle of mine. Many, many years ago I scratchbuilt it, based around two Ariane V boosters. So no scale in mind. With the re-released Aoshima TB kits, it occurred to me that the 1/350 scale TB2 might be compatible with the RTL2. Suprisingly they matched the Bellamy artwork virtually exactly. So adapted a pod and scratchbuilt the Bellamy grab. Here are the photos.

Brilliant photos using low angle lighting which makes the most of intricate detail!. Nice

Excellent work. Keith

Thanks chaps. For the lighting effect place a bit of coloured acetate over the bulbs. I only had red handy but changed it more to orange in Photoshop. Keith

Thanks guys. Should have said I don't have a 1/48 scale launch pad. It is the scratchbuilt one I made years ago in scale with the Konami Eagle so around 1/350 scale. Keith

Very nice indeed! Keith

Just finished this. For the lighting effect used a small mobile camera selfie light inserted in the beak. Astronaut is a 1612 John Keonig figure, suitably modified in Photoshop. Keith More at https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemodelsphotography/albums/72157667532408032

Thanks very much. Glad you liked them. The backgrounds for the landing shots were rendered in Terragen 4. Dave Scott and Anna Ford became an item afterwards, though not sure how that turned out. I'm sure you would know other things about Apollo I don't know, swings and roundabouts and all that. Not many people would notice whether the docking probe was there or not. SLS due to rollout tomorrow. Keith

Truly superb work. Keith

Martin Bower's space battlecruiser inspired by Discovery from 2001.

Thanks guys. Yes - working on a Round 2 Lab Pod Eagle.

In something of a rut so thought I'd do a quick scratchbuld just to get myself modelling again. Space:1999 fans will see where I took my inspiration from. Keith

Like the Batcave where everything is labelled!

Superb finish. Something to aspire to when I get round to doing mine. Keith

Thanks very much. It was entirely an afterthought to build and combine the T-38 with the shuttle for landing shots. Keith

For the 40th anniversary of the first shuttle flight, decided to build a 1/72 Monogram shuttle stack. I favour the Revell shuttle so purchased the newly re-release 40th anniversary kit. Surprisingly the decal sheet does not include markings to build a shuttle pre- 1988 as it does not include any of the NASA worm logos or the USA for the starboard wing Columbia sported from 1981 to 1983. Luckily I had spares, but a serious omission for a kit branded as being 40th anniversary of Columbia. Strangely the Revell 1/144 full stack kit DOES include these. Had a 1/48 Trumpeter T-38 in the attic so decided to combine the two for landing photos with the chase planes. Here are a selection of the effects photo (Edwards AFB rendered in Terragen), the others can be viewed here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemodelsphotography/albums/72157667646196676 Keith

Don't know much about the film or seen the trailer but I hope it is not going to be yet another reboot origin film. Keith

I too was disappointed with the Revell B5 kit and it stayed in the attic for many years. Eventually I built it to accompany a couple of the Starfury kits I eventually got round to building. Only ever intended it to serve as a backdrop. But it photograhed far better than I thought so featured as the main subject in some of the photos. One of the main annoyances were the very thick and magenta toned decals - and the missing ones. A chap custom made a set which were blue and he made them freely available on Starship Modeler http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/cb_b5_decals.htm I cheated a bit and changed the colour of the kit decals in Photoshop for the photography to match his ones. Keith

Thanks very much. The lighting is coming from below the crescent of the Earth which extends far below the image. Because the spacecraft is high above the Earth, whilst the Earth below is receding into darkness, at nearly 300 miles up the spacecraft will still be in sunlight. That's why we can see the ISS overhead after dark because at that altitude it is still in sunlight. Keith