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The Planet Prester. The location for the Japanese Anime Last Exile. A TV series and a film.

It's a bit steam punk with 19th Century technology and Anti Gravity! 

Large Airships are common, as are Vanships. Small agile flying craft used as Couriers and for racing.

I watched the film some years ago and have wanted a Vanship kit ever since.

This one turned up as spares or repairs on the bay at a decent price so I bought it.

It's something of a glue bomb and one engine was missing. Never mind.

Here's a link to what it should look like

https://www.imgmsplus.com/item/63000/63931_2.jpg

 

KqbjfLP.jpg

This is what I got. I've partially dismantled it and in the centre is the start of my replacement engine.

 

5aqCPBF.jpg

Scale is 1/72nd. The plastic is very nice, Bandai, I think?

 

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Weird steampunk engines! The replacement is copper wire from a cable and scrap box parts. 

I've since remade the smaller circle in plastic. It's easier to work with. My soldering is very poor!

 

sdE3sOu.jpg

Later today. I attacked the seams with extra thin and mostly it came apart nicely. 

The replacement circle can be seen here. More Austin Allegro steering wheel than circular, but it will do.

The carpet monster got the first (better) one I'd made, Ping!

That's it for now, back to work tomorrow. Got beer to deliver. No idea what they did with what we delivered last week.

Comments welcome as always. Thanks for looking, Pete

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On 6/29/2022 at 3:15 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

The plastic is very nice, Bandai, I think?

 

Hasegawa, ecktewarrly. And very, very nice with it, too. I must <ahem> finish mine one day (does that sound familiar to anyone who reads my posts?) 

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I stand corrected from the other side of the globe. Hasegawa. Thanks.

I got an hour or so on this before lunch.

Mostly rubbing down gobs of old glue on the joints, and I micromeshed the red bits so the paint has something to cling to rather than shiny smooth plastic.

At one point a piece fell onto the carpet. I found it though. And the round bit I'd lost last week! The carpet monster must have been poorly 🤮

It's coming along nicely. I might get an hour or so tomorrow too. Looking forward to it!

Thanks for the comments, Guys, please keep them coming. Pete

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I looked up that photo link on your opening post Pete and it looks likes a cross between something Norman Bel Geddes would have designed and part of a Greek Orthodox church.

 

Sure to be a classy piece of work, if not a site of religious worship.... :thumbsup2:

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That design is bonkers, but then it's steampunk so that's not surprising. Looks like a really fun build, sort of half model engineering, half Repair Shop. I shall watch with interest :)

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Still getting on with this one. I finished the home made engine, but the kit one broke apart as I cleaned it up. So that is being drilled, pinned & rebuilThe red plastic is very smooth so I've used micromesh to roughen it up a bit. It's quite fragile plastic, as I found with the engine.

There should be portholes at around seat height, but on this kit they're just raised circles on the fuselage. So I've drilled them out. What could go wrong?

It wasn't worth taking pictures, It was rather warm in the manshed (for once) so I only lasted an hour or so then fled to the coolness of the living room.

Thanks for looking in, Pete

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It's another weekend, so it must be time for an update. This time, with visuals!

 

g0W0fSl.jpg

I finally got to the primer stage after weeks of cleaning joints an repairing bent plastic. So, it's had a thin coat of white.

 

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The engines fought me all the way, but I finally got there this afternoon. Not perfect, but they'll do.

 

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Fuselage halves with aforementioned portholes. To form the rim, drill the hole then twirl (from this side) metal tweezers in there.

 

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The belly. The engines sit in here against the copper manifold bits. The broken slot seen here is where the gear leg assembly fits.

I'm still undecided on a final colour. Something bright maybe. Thanks for looking and please feel free to ask what on earth is going on here.

Cheers, Pete

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Oo a Vanship from Last Exile.  I haven't seen that in show in ages, I might have to dig out the DVD's one day when I can find them!

 

If I remember correctly, these where used for courier duties mainly and for gunnery spotting sorta like how aircraft where first used at the start of the First World War.

 

I look forward to seeing what you do with this one Pete.

 

Kind regards,

 

Dazz

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On 7/16/2022 at 9:35 PM, Dazzio said:

used for courier duties mainly and for gunnery spotting

Thanks chaps. Yes, that's how I remember it too. They were also raced, I think.

The parts started to come together on Sunday morning. The fit isn't wonderful, but that may be because it's secondhand.

It's only taken slivers of card or smidgins of filler to sort out the gaps though. Then the kids descended on us, so I had to stop!

More work and pictures next weekend. Thanks for looking in, Pete

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Ooh, a Vanship! Love those craft and the anime as well. Great show. I really wish they had come out with Claus and Lavie's vanship as well.

I have a few of these, but the last two I worked on I screwed up the red paint. Came out with the orange-peel effect. I did drill out the port holes just as you did with plans to fill them in with micro kristal clear after paint.

I do need to get back to them at some point, to at least do one up to do Tatiana proud!

 

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I had an hour or so in the mancave this morning. More progress has been made.

wYMNdfX.jpg

One thing has always bothered me about the Vanships. Today, a search of the Aircraft sparesbox solved it.

Yes, a fin and rudder. I really wanted something a little more curved, but this one was all I had. My thanks to whomever donated it to me.

 

G66S0V6.jpg

The very small rudder horns took quite a while to create. And I've drilled holes in the fuselage for the control wires.

It's supposed to be a fast maneuverable courier. This should help it corner a bit better. IMHO anyway.

Hopefully tomorrow some more primer will happen. In the meantime I have Vanship pictures to study.

Thanks for looking in, as always. Pete

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On 28/06/2022 at 19:15, Pete in Lincs said:

The Planet Prester. The location for the Japanese Anime Last Exile. A TV series and a film.

It's a bit steam punk with 19th Century technology and Anti Gravity! 

Large Airships are common, as are Vanships. Small agile flying craft used as Couriers and for racing.

I watched the film some years ago ...

Thank you for pointing me to this one! I was not aware that there was a Movie. Now i see that there was even a second season (from 2011)! Unfortunately it seems like neiter the Movie nor the second season ever got synchronized:-(

I only watched the orinial series from 2003. Not the most innovative anime but still i liked the Steam-Punk Ship designs. ....and a pretty cool Opening Theme: Cloud Age Symphony by Shuntaro Okino

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Must be time for another update. This one is titled, Vanship with paint!

FIrSrVJ.jpg

Suddenly YELLOW happened! This is Tamiya lemon yellow with a soupçon of Tamiya clear orange added to make it more interesting.

The ship is only loosely put together for the pictures. The landing gear is held on with UHU.

 

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Engines. One original, the other scratchbuilt. Paint is Tamiya German grey with metallic highlights.

 

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The front end (minus the 'grille'. yes, the right gear is a bit off kilter. Blame the UHU. I'll sort it next week.

The two 'horns' sticking out at the front were missing their lights. So a bit of round sprue was cut down and added either side at the front.

 

94GdwOF.jpg

And then I decided that all yellow was boring, so RED happened as well. I also found some small decals to add interest.

So that's that for another week. I hope you like what I've done. It seems I simply cannot build OOB.

Complaints to Mrs Trellis of Wales, Please include a ten shilling postal order.

Thanks very much for looking in. Have a great week. Pete

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Thom216 said:

I'd say this almost calls for a WWI theme with logenze decals.

Funny thing, I had thought of that. But, it's rather small and I only have 1/32nd lozenge decals (ex WWW). 

Plus I wanted to stay somewhere near the anime, so this is what you get. Sorry. 

The decals should hopefully add interest. Cheers, Pete

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Thanks for the kind words, Guys. It's getting close to the end and, it's been a struggle at times. But it should be worth it.

If you want to see how it should be done, here are a couple of previous builds by @general melchett & @rockpopandchips

Both put mine to shame, but hey, I've enjoyed it.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235020805-hasegawa-vanship-with-steam-torpedo/&do=findComment&comment=2711524

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234999277-172-last-exile-vanship/&do=findComment&comment=2299114

 

 

Edited by Pete in Lincs
updated
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