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Aliens Dropship and APC


Kallisti

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Things have been progressing apace! We're on the home straight now with the finish line in sight!

Well it seems nobody spotted my "deliberate" mistake... Take a look at the lower edgeo f the widscreen at the front and compare it with this screencap...

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Yup, I missed out the triangular panel in the lower left where the "01" is stencilled. Well that had to be added after the photos were taken. The next job, after the Klear was thoroughly cured was of course the decal. Now anyone who has ever touched this kit will tell you that they are painful. The large stencilled bands have solid decal film infill, so my solution was to eliminate that as much as possible as you can see here from the beginning of the job...

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Well it turned out to be the right thing to do as it meant the decals went down a lot easier. Okay it did mean there were difficulties as I was dealing with thin lines and shapes which had a very annoying habit of stickign more to each other than the model. I also had a problem in that with the age of the backing paper, when the stencil came free, it usually pulled a thin layer of backing paper with it. The solution to that was to seperate the decal from the paper under water, then immediately flip the decal over and scrub the underside with a small paintbrush to clean it. It did mean that all trace of decal film glue was lost, but Micro sol and set came to the rescue there. I only really had a few breakages and only the grey shapes caused any major problem as they completely broke up as I was applying them. In the end I just stripped them off and left it alone. I thought about masking and painting them on, but in the end I just left them off as I wasn't going to risk ruining things this late in the day.

So now she's all decalled up and had another coat of Klear over the top of the decals. The folding undercarriage doors have been decalled too and now attached to the underside, as has the refuelling probe and the fin just in front of the cockpit canopy and currently the model is now drying in the other room having had matt varnish sprayed :)

What you expected pictures? Patience is a virtue!

Now the other BIG job was those flipping missiles. I had 32 missiles which had oversized fins and were too long to fit in the pods. So out came the sprue cutters and the scalpel and sanding stick, fortified myself with a cup of tea and while listening to Pick of the Pops this afternoon this surgery got performed 32 times...

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Since then they've all been repainted in white and some trial fitting done on the pods. All is looking well for the final fitting, probably tomorrow after the varnish has set on the otehr parts of the model. I'm not sure if I'll permanently glue the pods on - the fittings I've made are tight enough so that they stay in place at the moment without glue. I am tempted to leave them detachable for now while it gets transported around club meeings and shows and will permanently fix only when things have settled down or the joints get too loose.

I plan to take this to IPMS Farnborough next week, plus the Smallspace show in July and maybe some other shows during the year.

Today is the day when I finally saw all the pieces of the diorama working together for the first time... mmm, nice! :D

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Nearly there, then. Looking forward to the finished shots. :)

Btw, I think it best to leave the pods removable if you're planning to transport it a lot. Just makes sense to avoid any possible damage. ;)

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As I said in the last post, yesterday was the first time I got to see the diorama for real and although it looked good, there was something missing... It was a bit too empty, so today I knocked up a little extra for the landing pad...

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This uses a couple of plastic tubes that I got when flying back from USA a coupel of years ago - they are the folder for traveller toothbrushes :) Along with some plastic pipe, balsa, bits that were cut out of the missile pods and some of the bits left over from PE for the the cockpit , its a nice way to clean up some of the scrap that was left behind :)

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I like the addition too, it makes the point of the mesh look better supported. (Visually, not in construction terms). A bit of clutter - tools etc., a flapping tarpaulin - on the pad might be worthwhile too?

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Start Date: Feb 28th

Finish Date: April 30th

We're in the pipe, five by five.

So this turned out to be a bit MORE mammoth than I expected... funny how 3 of my last four builds (all Sci-Fi subjects!) have turned out like that. I blame the Thunderbirds Firefly for making me want to scratch build so much! Anyway as you might have gathered, I am calling this one complete at long last. Even though its taken 2 months, I have to say its been a really enjoyable build - even the flipping missiles! The highlight for me must be the APC bay, which you can't even see anymore unless you get in EXACTLY the right spot and have a source of illumination like a camera flash lol!

So here are some initial photos - I'm waiting for some dayling to to some better photos for the GB Gallery :)

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Thanks to everyone for their encouragement, particularly to Smiffy for the very handy photographs of his television screen :) I think I leave it to Hudson to say...

That's it man, game over man, game over!

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:gobsmacked:

:mike:

Wowsers, that's the dogs hairy bits...just superb and love how you've angled the dropship climbing away. The s*ddin missiles were worth it, as was the APC bay.

For me, this reinforces the 2nd law of modelling - I now want to build one myself! (the first law being that as soon as you've scratchbuilt or converted something, a manufacturer will release it in plastic).

Well done and a great great addition to the GB.

Dermot

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Haha! You nailed it in the end (as you always do!) - what an inspired dio...watched it from post #1 great work

Edited by AndyC
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  • 2 weeks later...

hey, Great work Kallista! :o

Really like the set up & the build. It has given me a few good pointers as I have this in the stash along with a (built) Gonzoid 1/72nd APC to build.

This has spurred me onto getting the Halcyon 1/35th APC out & finishing it off as I started it with the intention of a few lights & some stratch built wheel & tyres as the kit ones leave a lot to be desired.. I will have to start a blog!!! :huh:

Mark

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well finally I've got some better photos to post, with thinks to Chris Bradley from IPMS Farnborough, so here goes:

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(Full size version here)

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(Full size version here)

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(Larger version here)

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(Larger version here)

I'll post 4 in the gallery now...

Edited by Kallisti
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  • 2 weeks later...

Just come across this,gobsmacking attention to detail,Has put me off having a bash at my half started drop ship though! ;)

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Thank you for the compliment but please don't get put off building yours - I really would not recommend doing what I did, I still have nightmares about those flipping missiles!!! :)

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  • 1 year later...
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