1:35 APC from Aliens - yes the very rare Halcyon kit!!! [COMPLETE!]

Kallisti · November 26, 2019

Okay got home and checked the Panda Cougar 6x6 - there are only 3 seats in it and two are in the driver cab Took a look in the box for the Bronco 'Buffalo' 6x6 MPCV i bought quite a while back to put alternative bar armour for the UK version, but never did as its the wrong version of the vehicle and since then the V2 kit has come out and is a much better candidate for conversion. This has 6 utterly PERFECT seats to use for those in the APC... however when I checked how much that kit was worth it turns out its between £50 and £60 so I'm NOT going to ruin a kit that valuable just for taking out the seats!

Following some research on the interwebthingy I found a relatively cheap set of replacement seats for another kit that seems to fit the bill:

Proper job!

Corsairfoxfouruncle · November 26, 2019

47 minutes ago, Kallisti said:

checked how much that kit was worth it turns out its between £50 and £60 so I'm NOT going to ruin a kit that valuable just for taking out the seats!

Could you clone them using resin ? That way the originals stay in the valuable kit but you get copies.

Kallisti · November 27, 2019

Not easily, there are about 6 parts to each seat scattered across 3 sprues with lots of other parts on each sprue

Corsairfoxfouruncle · November 27, 2019

Thats to bad but seems you've found an alternative ?

Kallisti · November 30, 2019

Progress this week, well its been testing the lights at the front:

Nice and bright! Next is to start work on scratch building the internals that we will see. The main feature will be the command console. First thing to do is get the dimensions right so I've resorted to some technical drawing with pencil and ruler:

Which leads to the first step which is building the walls up to hide the outer skin

Now the problem I've got here is that the panels to the rear are too short as the roof is taller at the rear. You can see to the right where the panel narrows as the roof comes down, but this isn't extended backwards. However I'm of the opinion that I'll be building my own ceiling over this to contain the lighting. You can see the electrical connection block on the right that will be the distribution hub for all the battery power.

Finally in this update, I picked up some resin weapons to try to make spare pulse rifles. In this pic the pulse rifles from the Hicks and Hudson figure are the cream ones at the bottom, with the resin one I picked up from Live Resin which I think can be adapted to look similar enough for use to dress the inside of the APC.

I'll be continuing to work on the internals today, this is just the start

Kallisti · December 5, 2019

Bit more progress this week - the inner structure is taking shape:

I've extended the rear panels up so that they are closer to the roof when it is put on. The bracing at the back is to compensate for a croocked cut I made p it won't be seen as it is a) out of the line of sight from the door b) will be hidden by seats anyway! Next I started work on the control console, first with the desk in the alcove

This was formed from 2mm thick plastic card with a bevel added using a 2mm wide strip. You can see some roof bracing as well start to appear in prep for the overhead lighting supports. Next, this evening I put together a first try at the bank of screens, basing it on the simplified toy/model that looks like this

So here is a set of 'screens' with their grab handles:

Which when slotted into the internal panelling looks like this

The grab handles were made from some left-over handrails that came with the Revell North Cormorant Oil Platform that I built about 3 years ago:

I need to make some decals for the actual screens. I've given up on the mad idea I had for lighting them all up - its not practical to cut that make round-cornered holes evenly and consistently It won't be possible to see much of these anyway so I'm not going to spend a lot of heartache on super-detailing this area.

I've also been working on a chair for the commander, using a seat from the Panda Cougar 6x6 kit, more on that later!

Col. · December 5, 2019

Tidy work in there again :thumbsup: Sure we can forgive you for not trying to light up the screens as I'm sure they'd have been turned down for combat mode

Kallisti · December 8, 2019

Another few days on and a bit more progress.. .well some anyway. I'm facing a bit of a hold up as I need the resin seats I ordered a while back but they haven't arrived yet, so looking at other tasks that need doing, in particular the figures. One of the nice things about these figures is the choice of poses. Each set comes with two different leg sets so its a matter of mixing and matching to get the best poses for this. Here is a test set up

The bloke in the doorway has obviously been at the bottle... must be Hudson. He's supposed to be standing up like this

I like the dynamic of having him stepping through the doorway. In the first pic you can see the alternative legs that are left over, here is a close up

As you can see there is a good variety of poses just in the legs. Here is Vasquez already partly assembled but without the heavy pulse rifle

I don't have a Lt Gorman figure - there was one in the set that was released but I couldn't find one - so I've re-purposed the 4th figure which was Cpl Detrich to be the LT as that figure comes with a soft cap as well as combat helmet. This figure also came with a leg pose that looks like it seated, so with a bit of adjustment with the dremel it fits in the chair like this

More of the chair here which is based on one of the Cougar 6x6 chairs but with lots of plastic strip added

The seat sits in a 5mm wide channel strip to represent the rails it ran on. The wide channel piece on the back is designed to mate with the anchor structure on the side of the command station when the dropship is entering the atmosphere. You can see what I've done for this here

You can also see some of the wall decorations I've started adding, but this is where the lack of the seats is stopping further progress. All the internal structures you see here are just dry fitted at the moment, hence why there are some gaps and the ceiling girders a a bit crooked.

Here is another angle showing the command station.

(dammit, one of those monitors is crooked!!)

The panel with the monitors is just slotted in currently. I arranged it this way to allow me to paint it in detail easily and then be able to slot it in once the painting is done. So I think until the seats arrive I need to focus on the figures for the next few days...

Kallisti · December 19, 2019

Thankfully, the seats turned up today so things can get a move on again! I've started on adapting the seats to fit. To do this they needed a central support underneath which in many pics seems to be spring-loaded so I used some plastic tube left over from the Oil Platform build and some plastic rod that I wound around a brass tube of the same diameter and heat treated over the boiling kettle to get the springs...

The seatbelts are just thin strip bent into place using tamiya extra thin to make them flexible and conform. You can see a bit of the left-over spring on the right. While I've been waiting for these to turn up, I have been working on the figures, but not making much progress to be honest due to distractions such as The Expanse and the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel that turned up earlier this week! Anyway some progress has been made...

I mixed a bit of grey into Tamiya NATO green to dull down the green colour. I'm still not 100% sure what the body armour colour shoudl be - it might be black or green. I need to rewatch the marine scenes again to check it out... any excuse Must remember to note the precise colour of Vazquez's bandana...

Kallisti · December 22, 2019

Managed to spend a good bit of time at the worktable yesterday since the second batch of surface mount LEDs arrived on Friday so all the major components are now here so I can progress int he direction I want. So to that end it started with cutting some holes in the existing walls and attaching LEDs. I also started work on the roof (more on that later). I then built a gun rack for just inside the door as well as a console for the seat to the right of the doors.

In this pic you can see the seat and console int he middle, the gun rack on the right and some of the roof panels on the left that are only dry fitted at present. These won't get attached until after painting. You can also see some of the Surface Mount LEDs taped in place. Here is what the roof will look like when it has been put in place, but this is just dry fit for now

You can also see the bundle of tiny LEDs on top as well. All of thse LEDs need a resistor which I had in stock from previous build. I can't remember what its value is, but it is just a couple hundred ohm - as an exercise for th read your can decode the resisto bands yourself...

The LEDs are all being wired in parallel as it makes them more resilient against future failure and calculating the resistor easier too These are the wires from the first 3 LEDs on the port wall, but there are two more in the rear starboard wall that have not been connected up yet plus another 5 that will be in the roof that are still to be attached and wired. Most of the wiring will fit in the gap between the cabin roof and the body roof.

Speaking of the roof, here is the underside of it :

You can see the 4 cut outs for the LEDs along with various conduits and flat spots where the roof meets the wall features. Variosu screen grabs I've taken show a very busy ceiling in the cabin so I'm in the process of adding more detail to this, which I'll hopefully be able to post later today.

Nocoolname · December 22, 2019

Oh, this is great stuff! Proper inspirational build! Thanks for letting us watch!

Kallisti · December 22, 2019

Of course after I took the previous pictures I added a load more detail before going to bed last night so for example here is the roof with a bunch of handles attached

Then the console had some controls added

and the command station also had some 'keyboards' and other details added

Kallisti · December 29, 2019

Over the christmas period, work continued, and now we have some paint on the internals of the APC, plus a loa more greebles

The ceiling has had the conduits picked out in alternate colours

and the screen panel has also been painted along with the weapons console that will sit to the right of it

I need to print out the screen decals and apply them next. The seats have also been painted but I forgot to photograph them before they were glued inside the vehicle. Things are moving forward now - also need to finish painting the figures.

Kallisti · January 1, 2020

Further progress to top out the old year and see in the new - as mentioend before the figures have had some attention paid to them, along with their qequipement:

The seats and assorted consoles and bits have been glued into the vehicle and a weathering wash applied over the floor and most surfaces

Yesterday some new electrical components turned up because I've realised that I'm goignt o be putting too many LEDs into this model for the two coil batteries to handle. There are already 6 and there are due to be about 5 more added when the ceiling goes on! So I'm replacing the 2 coil batteries with 4 AA batteries and for that I needed new battery holders that fitted the confined space.

So when it was all wired up and glued in place it looked like this:

Above the connector you can just see the hole that the wire from the APC will come through to connect to the batteries. Sadly while testing the electrics, I managed to fry the LEDs for the front headlamps! These then needed to be replaced which meant cutting out the front panel that supports them. Thankfully, I hadn't attached the outer frotn panel yet! Phew!

So once all that was sorted it was back to the internals and I finally printed out the decals I had made for the screens - they are small (9mmx6mm) but look rather good I reckon

There are only 2 different monitor screen images as I could only get two different screencaps, one showing Vazquz and another random shot, which I turned upside down on the far left to make some variety. Next I started adding various equipment into the vehicle as I intend to close the roof soon and get those LEDs attached as well. The resin assault rifles fit quite well along with a spare flamethrower weapon that came with the figures

Finally in this update, the figures have their equipment as have had their faces painted using oils. They aren't perfect but part from Vazquez they are hard to see under their helmets

I still need to add the support arms for the heavy weapons body frame, but I had to wait until the gun was in place to be able to line up the brackets.

I need to get on with this now as we only have 2 and a half weeks left!

Pete in Lincs · January 1, 2020

Some great progress here. The screens look good as do the figures. I look forward to seeing the lights in action.

I think you need to add sound, I loved the noise of that big rifle when it fired in the film!

Corsairfoxfouruncle · January 1, 2020

Wow thats some great work on all of it. Do the lights get hot at all ? Id be worried that many in a small confined space might cause issues ? I know they're LED’s which supposedly don't get hot but it does make me curious ?

Edited January 1, 2020 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

Kallisti · January 2, 2020

Thanks for the comment. These LEDs do generate a small amount of heat, but its not that great and there is space for them to ventilate so it shouldn't be an issue in the long run. I put 40 full-size LEDs inside the flying sub a few years back and that suffered no consequences.

Last night saw a major milestone achieved - the completion of the internals! This involved putting the back panel with the screen in place along with the commander in his chair:

View from the doorway:

Now what this has shown is the black boxes I added under the desk need tidying up as you can see where they moved a little during the setting process. Need to tidy up that paintwork which is invisible from above! From a distance

These photos show what will be visible when the roof is on and the only viewing port will be the open door. I reckon it looks quite good

Later I'll post some photos showing what it looks like with the ceiling on and the LEDs lit!

Kallisti · January 4, 2020

As promised (teased) here are some photos taken during the roof/lighting tests. First off the wiring that supports the lights:

Its a bit messy but let me explain... at the bottom left you see the main cable that will go through the base and connect to the batteries. Above it is a connector which distributes the power to the front headlights via wires connected underneath and to the Roof LEDs via two 'bus' wires in red and black. You can see the red one in the foreground and then see all the red LED wires connecting to it at different points. The black one is hidden on the far side but you can see the clusters of resistors that connect the black LED wires to the black bus wire. All the LEDs are connected in parallel, this allows the voltage to remain constant through out all of them and makes the system more robust - one LED burning out won't take down the whole system down. The tape is just to keep the wires tidy

The roof is now permanently attached so what does it look like lit?

and with the ambient lights on, it still illuminates the inside so it isn't dark in there

So the next steps are to fit the outer roof, but before that I've decided I need to put a driver figure at the front. Testing the view, you can see inside the front so I'm going to put a head and torso figure up front to be screen accurate. It won't have much detail visible, but Bishop will be present

JamesP · January 4, 2020

The figures look great and I’m tempted to hunt some down for myself. As to the APC I’ll be satisfied if I can paint it the right shade of green! A superb job you’ve made of that interior.

Kallisti · January 4, 2020

Be warned the figures are incredibly rare and therefore expensive when they turn up. I got lucky a few years back and managed to bag a set of 9 for about £100 and sold on the ones I didn't want. Individually they went for between £30 and £50!! The casting is also quite poor, lots of pinholes etc... there is a really bad one on the chin of one of the male figures!

Kallisti · January 7, 2020

Things have progressed apace since completing the internals, not a great surprise since the rest of the kit is pretty straightforward! First off, the roof went on. This was not as easy as I expected as there were a couple of places where the underlying wiring and fittings got in the way. I had to do some careful rearrangign and trimming of certain areas and in the end resorted to heavy duty clamps to the get the roof to go down... Then there was the filling and sanding but eventually it all sort of went together...

You can see here I have put masking tape in the doorway in preparation for painting later. The door lintel got reattached - I fought a loosing battle with this ever since the door was cut out and eventually it completely broke off, so I left it to one side until this stage. You can see the amount of filler still on the nose...

On the other side you can see the remnant of the filler for the side joint of the roof in the middle.

Here you can see the front attached and the amount of filler required on it. I've also masked the headlights and windscreen. Bishop was installed in the driver position before the roof went on but he's hidden for now until the paint is done. While this round of filler was drying, attention turned to the rest of the components for the outside, including the two set of 'big guns' which sadly we don't see used in the movie

The rest of the sanding was completed over the weekend and so the next stage was to give it a blast of primer to check those joints. After the first test, there were some bad joints so these got another round of filling and sanding and priming. Once happy I added most of the outer components to the body

and on the other side...

The cradle for the rear cannons is at this point still mobile in the track at the back of the vehicle. The guns have been left off for now, once painted they'll be attached when I have finally decided how they will be posed! Here is the rear showing the track

Finally in this update, the wheels have had bothe colour painted now, XF-62 Olive Drab for the wheel bosses and XF-69 Nato Black for the tyres

Tonight I had the first stage of painting the body olive drab. I started by painting the underside front and back. This can dry while the model is resting on its roof. Once the paint is dry, the rest will get painted, probably tomorrow now.

whitestar12chris · January 8, 2020

Looking good Kallisti, cant wait to see the end result, in the pipe 5 x 5.

All the best Chris

Kallisti · January 10, 2020

Getting close to the end now, so painting of the APC has finished, decals ahve been applied and multiple layers of washes have been added to modulate the olive green. Here is a front shot showing 'Bishop' and the only decals that come with the kit

As you can see, the front cannons have been added and in the next photos you can see the rear cannons on the trolly

You can also see the white plastic tube added as sleeves for the narrower wheel axles. I've used graphite pencil to give some areas a worn sheen as well as highlighting some of the edges to represent wear