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1-12 Atomic City 2001 EVA Pod


Caerbannog

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Hi,

so I keep word and enter the Atomic City EVA Pod from 2001. I must be completely crazy as I have good reason to fear I will not end this build in time which is a bad feeling when starting a GB (I usually get it some weeks before a GB ends...). I hope it is no bad omen that this is my 2002nd post. :banghead: Would be way cooler if this had been 2001... (sure - noone but me will notice)

I plan to install LEDs. I would like to install some blinking lights in the interior but will most likely do not. Speaking of the interior: The kit parts are simplified and my initial plan was to scratchbuild a better one following the instructions on the Atomic City web page - this will certainly slow down the build so I am hesistating - on the other hand I would find it a sacrilege not to add a proper interior to a kit of this scale etc.

Enough moaning - here is the box (box is not original one) and content:

p1sp_zpsca09d267.jpg

And here is my amazing progress so far:

p2sp_zpsma2oxkpk.jpg

I washed all parts and sanded the mating surfaces of the bigger parts. A quick fitting check revealed no big issues. I take the opportunity and end with this good news ;-)

Rene

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Beeing engaged in other stuff (e.g. repairing my motorcycle, doing the garden, etc.) my EVA build does not realy get ahead. I am really torn between keeping the interior as it is or doing an accurate interior as was discussed on a US site at the dawn of this millenium. Sadly much of the reference listed there has vanished from the net makeing it even more difficult to build a new interior. At least I found the templates which are needed for cutting the sheet styrene pieces.

I printed out these templates on 160g paper. Cutting out the shapes from the paper should give me a better idea of how much trouble it will be to cut the plastic parts and of course I can use the paper parts as templates for the plastic sheet:

IMG_6797_zpszy1yoxsp.jpg

Some of the parts are very small and I have no idea how to cut them from plastic sheet. Maybe building the interior from heavy paper would be a way to go. Still need to check.

Tonight I will do a further test assembly of the main pod parts and check if I keep the door closed and go with the kit interior. It will speed up the build a lot and I fear I will not be able to finish it in time otherwise - not my preferred solution but probably the only one I can finish :-)

René

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Just to make a start I assembled the figure for painting. Some small gaps will need a bit of putty but nothing serious. Over all the figure looks great and the head has a great likeness of David Bowman (Keir Dullea) IMHO:

p2sp_zpsgyzc6hrs.jpg

Rene

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I have watched the movie the first time at the age of maybe 12 Hunter - because of the cool film design and because I probably expected something like Star Trek or Star Wars or the like. Plotwise I was rather dissapointed but the shown hardware was great. I havent seen it for about 15 years now and just cannot decide to watch it. The reason is that some freinds and me watched Bladerunner lately - also the first time in about 15 years. Still a good movie but we all felt a bit like we destroyed a "child memory". It was not as great, cool, excellent, etc. as we all had it in mind. I do not want this to happen with 2001 too...

Yesterday I cleaned up the manipulator arms and started painting the face of the Bowman figure. I have never build a human figure in this scale and wanted to airbrush the skin colours fist but decided just in the moment I wanted to load the airbrush to try brushpainting first. I used three skin tones from Testors Model Master range (I think "Warm Skin", "Shaddow" and "Light Skin"). I started with a base of medium skin, then added shaddows with the darker skin colour which was applied while the base coat was still slightly wet. Then I worked with the lightest colour the same way. I finished with drybrushing the lightest colour. The pics look better than the real thing which seems a bit too tanned for somebody who travelled space for quite some time. I will maybe rework the skin colour to a lighter over all shade:

p3sp_zpsojwygxdd.jpg

So next I will need to pic out the details and hair.

Rene

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry for beeing extreemly slow on this one. I did a bit of work but not much due to real life issues and my personal fight with the kit interior. Not very happy with the provided interior detail I checkt for alternative ways to make a better one without loosing too much time on this. So I tried to use paper instead of plastic sheet but only found that there is no easy route. Even with the templates I found on the net it is a lot of work. So in the end I will slap the kit interior together and keep the door closed. As the main colour inside is black there will hopefully not too much be seen, except the figure and the lit displays.

Speaking of the figure, I started to paint the red suit and helmet. I learned here on Britmodeller that red should be primed with yellow. So I brushpainted a layer of Revell Aqua yellow on and airbrushed this over with Xtracolour Red Arrows Red (thinnned with Humbrol Thinner). The gloss Xtracolour dried within 24 hours. Something I did not expected...

p5sp_zpsrtnbu6tq.jpg

Now the detail painting of the figure can be started.

Back to the interior: The kit requires some simple scratch work too. The white parts are cut styrene sheets (included in the kit) according to the included templates:

p6sp_zpsgmxlfmwg.jpg

To block off these parts (there will be LEDs installed) I used aluminum tape:

p7sp_zpsixzczrmi.jpg

I will overpaint the tape with flat white which will reflect the light better and more evenly than the shiny aluminum.

Hope to show some more progress next week.

Rene

Rene

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Undercoat with yellow before painting red? Never thought of doing that, must give it a try.

Begining to look good, like the red on the space suit

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The red looks brighter with the yellow below. From my latest experience I will use this method more often now. Still I think a white undercoat works nice too but is less easy to apply evenly with a brush - what I did here.

Rene

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks.

I almost finished the figure. Just a few details which still need some paint and an over all dull cote on the suit. I cut a visor from clear Evergreen sheet but it fogged from the bending - so I need to cut a new viso from a thinner clear plastic sheet as soon as I found some somewhere in the cave. You see some defects on the helmet resulting from removing the visor.

p8sp_zpsxqsaedso.jpg

The resing parts received a grey primer and all inner sides an additional dark grey/black one. The aluminum foil got another white coat which reflects the light better and more evenly:

p9sp_zpsfie4hsxr.jpg

Now all interior parts are black I will check what can be really seen of the interior once the bits are assembled.

Rene

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  • 3 weeks later...

I fiddeling around with this kit like with few others. It feels as if I just get the bits out of the box hold them together and pack them back again. OK - what have I really done so far (since the last post)?

- Fought the visor of the helmet - which has come off again. Will have to use superglue now but was not strong enough myself yet.

- Added a washing to the painted floor part.

- Glued the console to the floor.

- Made a Milliput reflector for HAL 9000

- Drilled some holes for cables

- Cut, masked and instelled the window.

- Aaaaaaaand: Glue the first two hull parts together:

pxa2001_zps67mtf6nk.jpg

pxb2001_zpswct1jgy7.jpg

I still need to cut open some areas of the inner walls for some lights and finish the started wireing of the LED.

Rene

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Nice to see some progress rene, thought you had stalled on this build.

I can forsee this turning into a lovely build.

Keep up the good work, as we're in the final straight and the finish line is in sight.

Matt

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Thanks Matt - I was about to stall the build several times - because the provided interior is quite different from the one shown in the movie. There are plans on the net for a better interior but you have to cut lots of pieces, some very small from plastic card. It would take me a year to do so I guess. Building it with a simplified interior does not appeal to me a lot for a kit like this. If I had more time I would build the pod with the door open and with no figure inside, but with improoved interior and lots of LEDs. In order to get it done I will keep the door shut, enter the figure and display it "in flight". There is not much o see of the pitch black interior - even with some LEDs installed.

Rene

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I need to speed the build up a lot ... But I managed to misplace some parts. Do not ask how I managed that. Probably because I build too many kits at once and my work space is a total mess - worse than usual which means a lot.

So far I have done 85% of the wireing work. - It is my first model with LED which will be actually build, so I want to keep things as simple as possible. Instead of soldering I use a tool from Radioshack which looks like a screwdriver but which simply wraps the wire around the LEDs. This is quick and can be redone as needed should anything proof wrong.

pxe2001_zpsxdqs8qbw.jpg

To keep the wireing simple I arranged the LEDs in line - not parallel. Beeing a noob in electronics this might be wrong but at least it works:

pxf2001_zpsezadqmcy.jpg

Rene

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