Sharkit 1/72 Edgley Optica

[TEXANTOMCAT]

Slipstream! You need a Shadow to go with it! 👍🙂👍

[alt-92]

The figure is white metal, right?

There's also the option of having him board the plane instead of sitting in it (like the picture).

Just bend ze kneez...

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

4 hours ago, Aeronut said:

Remember seat cushions crush when sat on

So do buttocks!

 

[Hamiltonian]

7 hours ago, Aeronut said:

How big is the mis-match? Remember seat cushions crush when sat on, so a little judicious seat cushion removal might be a solution. 

 

You can't see it in the photo, but the pilot is already missing his buttocks--I find it easier to remove the bit that sticks out of the pilot, rather than try to chisel a dent in the cushion. Despite that, his head is fouling one of the overhead strut. So he's about a head too high to match the appearance of actual pilots flying one of these things.

[Hamiltonian]

7 hours ago, warhawk said:

 

Another thing popped to my mind (if not too late):

Why not duplicate the front (floor) part, but in lead? 

That's a good one. Too late for me, and besides beyond my skill, but I like the idea anyway.

[Hamiltonian]

7 hours ago, TEXANTOMCAT said:

Slipstream! You need a Shadow to go with it! 👍🙂👍

Gad, I'd love to have a Bella Shadow to go with it. I fear the paint job and solar panels would be a bit of a challenge to reproduce, though.

[Hamiltonian]

7 hours ago, alt-92 said:

The figure is white metal, right?

There's also the option of having him board the plane instead of sitting in it (like the picture).

Just bend ze kneez...

Thanks, but it's actually plastic--the photo was taken after a light coat of white primer.

I do like the idea of modding a standing figure, though. I'm just trying to think if I can stand him behind the wing and turn him into a "rear leg" to stop the thing tipping backwards!

[Hamiltonian]

The cockpit frame is now assembled, and used as a template to cut paint masks before the vacuform goes on.

[Hamiltonian]

The canopy is now on, and ready for masking. Difficult to photography a dark grey cockpit inside a polished bubble, sorry:

It wasn't a great fit, particularly under the "chin" at the front, where there were some nasty creases in the vacuform that forced me to trim it pretty tightly along its front edge. I also needed to slit and overlap it at the front, to get a tight fit. I managed to confine the slit and overlap to the area of canopy frame that will house the two front spotlights, so it will hopefully be lost behind that detail.

 

Before I closed off the interior I added one more detail to the cockpit. In the real thing there was an elastic "cargo net" behind the seats, strung with bungee cords. I faked this up with a bit of stretched sprue and a fragment of polythene, though it's now very difficult to discern through the shiny canopy.

 

 

[Hamiltonian]

So, I was overly optimistic about my paint masks. The canopy doesn't really fit that well, which means the masks aren't really close enough to the canopy frame inside, so they needed a little supplementation to fit the larger canopy area.

 

But it came out OK:

 

I added the little stub aerial on top of the cockpit, the two lights on the front, and a couple of blobs of acrylic to reproduce the bulge of the door hinges. The lights should really be recessed, but in the bottom view you can see how bad a fit the canopy was in that region, and I really didn't fancy mauling it around any further to countersink the lights.

In the top view you can see my little semitransparent screen, simulating the cargo net, which turned out looking better than I'd anticipated.

 

The basic paint job and panel lines are on the rest of the aircraft. The wheels have acquired brake cables, and the front wheel has a little stone guard made out of epoxy and some strip styrene.

 

So I'm now at the stage where I need to seriously get down to designing the decals. Basically, the wings and upper nacelle need to be covered in large feathers.

Wish me luck.

 

[Hamiltonian]

First iteration of the decals is now completed. Here's the test sheet--lots of additional copies of everything, because I might as well give myself some spares if I'm printing an entire sheet anyway.

The wings should be fairly straightforward. We'll see if I've measured the nacelle properly when I try to apply successive tapered strips.

 

[Hamiltonian]

The decals are on, without too much hassle.

I'm trying to get some sort of match for the appearance of the Optica in the movie "Slipstream". Unfortunately, on account of being a really bad film, it has only ever been released as a 4:3 pan-and-scan DVD. (Well, OK, there's a widescreen Japanese laser disc with burned-in subtitles, too.)

Here are what passes for reference images, then:

 

And here's my effort:

 

I'm not hugely happy with the nacelle markings--in retrospect another row of dark feathers would have been better, but I had some sort of failure of visualization when I was sketching out the decals.

 

Next up, fit the cockpit and engine to the nacelle, and start adding some more bits and pieces of detail.

 

 

[Andwil]

Well I reckon it’s looks great.

 

AW

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Looks fantastic to me!

[Learstang]

Brilliant work! No one is going to look at this and go 'Oh, no, not another Optica with the Slipstream markings!'.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[stevehnz]

Really nice work on that, the markings are most effective. Maybe longer feathers on the nacelle rather than another row but I wouldn't worry about it, your knowledgeable audience is likely to comprise you alone. Your impressed audience will be all that view it, I'm really liking the look of this indeed.

Steve.

[k5054nz]

That is fantastic! Never heard of the film - like most, I guess? - and what a refreshing change from the normal Optica fare. Bravo!

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

2 minutes ago, k5054nz said:

Never heard of the film - like most, I guess?

Speak for yourself!

😄

now you will claim that you never heard of Blade Runner or the Fifth Element!

 

[Hamiltonian]

Thanks all. I meant to add, in case anyone is interested, that I made the decals using an Experts-Choice laser-printer decal sheet and Microscale Liquid Decal Film thinned 50:50 with surgical spirit, airbrushed on in a very thin layer. Seems to work well for me--the decals aren't too fragile, don't bleed ink along the edges unless I really maul them around, and bed down quite nicely with Micro Sol. Maybe I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs, though, in which case--apologies.

[Hamiltonian]

8 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Really nice work on that, the markings are most effective. Maybe longer feathers on the nacelle rather than another row but I wouldn't worry about it, your knowledgeable audience is likely to comprise you alone. Your impressed audience will be all that view it, I'm really liking the look of this indeed.

Steve.

Thanks.

Yes, longer, wider feathers would have been good.

I had a couple of problems, really. One was visualizing the layout from the views available in the movie--I couldn't seem to mentally reconcile the top and side views. I know a flying model was also used, and I began to wonder if the paint jobs on the real aircraft and the model were slightly different--but that's probably just making excuses for my own inability to figure out the correct look.

The other problem is the compound curve of the nacelle--laying on wide decals to accommodate long diagonal feathers was going to give me wrinkles; or I was going to have to design decals to wrap diagonally; or I was going to need to design decals with patterns that crossed from decal to decal across the compound curve. (Someone with better skills than mine might have masked and painted the whole pattern, of course!)

 

I eventually threw my hands in the air and tried to produce something that followed the spirit of the original paintwork, but was going to give me a fighting chance of establishing a good pattern with no wrinkles or unseemly joins.

[stevehnz]

25 minutes ago, Hamiltonian said:

 

I eventually threw my hands in the air and tried to produce something that followed the spirit of the original paintwork, but was going to give me a fighting chance of establishing a good pattern with no wrinkles or unseemly joins.

Sounds like a completely reasonable compromise.

Steve.

[Brandy]

9 hours ago, Moa said:

Speak for yourself!

😄

now you will claim that you never heard of Blade Runner or the Fifth Element!

 

Yup. I've never heard of the 5th Element either! 

Lovely looking Optica though!

 

Ian

[Bedders]

What an interesting project. Coming along nicely too.

 

Justin

[Hamiltonian]

All the kit parts are now assembled--engine slipped into nacelle, undercarriage on.

I added four engine support struts to the rear of the nacelle. The kit has the engine essentially levitating inside the nacelle.

Also visible above are the scratch-built flap levers.

 

 

All that remains is a little tidying up, a pitot tube, and a couple of aerials. Oh, and finding a way to stop the thing tipping over backwards, of course. So I think my next post with this one will be under "Ready For Inspection". Thanks for your attention and input, everyone.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

That looks fantastic.

Looking forward to see it flying in the Slipstream on the completed post.

Cheers