Let's Not Forget MacReady!

While listing my new acquisitions I neglected to include a very nice kit.  It's MacReady from John Carpenter's The Thing! sculpted by Chris Elizardo it's a 1/4 scale (8in. tall) bust. I've included a still from the movie and this kit is dead on to  Kurt Russell-

And here's the back showing that giant hat he wore ;-)   - 

Friede again

One final update for today is the latest image I have for my Friede.  The base which comes with the kit isn't done, and all I have to do is give the craft a shot of semi-gloss and I'm calling this one finished. 

Apologies that the lighting isn't very good - 

In the Mean Time...

They just keep producing models I can't seem to live without. One of my newer kits is Joan of Arc, sculpted by Marcus DeLeo.

Looking online there are a number of images of St. Joan, with all types of hair color, etc... But I think I will do my best to mimic Mila Jojovich's characterization of her - 

 But more on that as I get to the kit. I have to be honest with you. While I really love the sci-fi, real space and x-plane vehicle kits. I getting a real affinity for figure kits. They can easily leave you speechless with their detail! If you want to have a look check out The Clubhouse. I'm a regular in the Tar Pit.  ;-) Yeah, I'm a huge dinosaur fan.

Next kit is a continuation of the Friede theme of classic spaceships in the form of Luna from the movie Destination Moon. As with Friede, Luna was produced by Fantastic Plastic.  Here it is at the same scale as The Friede (1:288) -

Another I picked up is the shuttle Bruce Willis flew in the movie Armageddon. Once again by Fantastic Plastic. The kit actually comes with decals for both shuttles. I think I will build it as the Independence, in memory of those who "died" when the Shuttle went "flat line." This model is in 1:144 -

The last two models I have is from the Australian sculptor producer Wayne Pugh of Scale Solutions. His car died so he was offering his kits at a discount to raise money for a repair. I picked up the Star Wars TIE D Bomber a 1:72 scale (the scale of Kngs) :-)  automated bomber. I have no pics of mine so here's one from Wayne - 

I also picked up a rather ingenious  kit of the Mars rover (speaking of real space) still in it's landing airbags - 

The kit hasn't been cleaned of a little bit of flash yet, so it doesn't look perfect, but it's a nice little 4 piece kit that looks to be a very easy build. It doesn't come with a base but you imagination can go wild as you create your own Mars landing area!  His sale is still in effect for a few more days if you hurry! I plan for an out of box review in the next day or two. So check back.

Friede: another step fwd.

Well, it's been a while. I've been working away on a few kits, but seemed to have forgotten to post. Firstly I mentioned a few failures, and said I would post pics. well, here they are -

This was the primer!  I washed the kit with Purple Power cleaner. The rinsed really well and let it dry. when I shot it with some Tamiya primer it ran like you see as if I just poured milk on it. Also, when I got some thinner and a rag and tried to get the drips off - I found that it was completely dry! WTF! So I then had to get out the sanding sticks to try and smooth it all out again. 

After ward I *was* able to get the primer on, and a nice coat of white. Next step was to paint the capsule. The capsule is split and half is black and the other half is silver. In some images of other Friede models the windows are yellow. So I wanted to mask the windows for a later painting. So anyway, I got the Masking done to split the cockpit and got the silver painted. I waited a few days and then to the masking off and reapplied to to the otherside to get the black. Here it is with a another kit of Luna -

While re-masking I put a little blue tape on just to make sure there was no over-spray on my white. The black went on great. while taking the tape off I see a bit of the blue tape had stuck itself to one of the legs. I ever so gently pulled the tape and it came off with a bit of the white!!!    Arrgggghhhh %^*&^%!!

So out came the sandpaper again, but while wet sanding the white paint kept coming off and coming off. In the end almost all of that leg was back to bare resin.  More primer and more white went on .... Stay tuned.

Success!

This afternoon with a little trepidation I went out to spray the white topcoat on Friede. From my last postings I've had two failures, one with the spray paint and the other I'm guess that I didn't get the mould release off the model well enuff. With a new can of white spray - I was hoping that the second time around would be the charm. And the result was Hooray!  The paint went on without any problems. Some pics tomorrow.

A big Ugh of Friede, plus some new colors

I have no idea what went on with Friede. Firstly, if you remember it was primed and ready for its topcoat of white. I finally got to spraying the white and have no idea what went on with the can. The paint went on like milk- instantly running down the model. Besides that, numerous fish eyes appeared like I was trying to paint on bare, unwashed resin! WTF!
Letting it dry I attacked it with some thinner and nothing... That paint was on there. So next was taking out some sanding sticks and getting rid of the drip marks. That's been done, Plus a rewash and another coat of primer. I found a few more uneven spots which I took care of. I bought a new can of white paint so we'll see what's happens with that in the next day or two.

Re: the new colors. I bought a set of Vallejo Game Colors. I have a few (okay quite a few) smaller scale dinosaur models and the VGC looks like it might fit the bill. I've been watching a few You Tubes vids of "awesomepaintjob" and amazing things happen. I'm sure it's his talent, but the paint goes on great I'll let you know on this too.

A few things...

The spaceship Friede is progressing and no I didn't make it to finish the Friede model in time for the end of February. Just too many things going on - mostly of my own doing. But I'm going to keep plugging along on it and finish that and the Luna for the end of March. That should put me back on track.

I also got my hands on a few jars of premixed washes from Citidel. They are Badab Black, Thraka Green, Gryphonne Sepia, and Devlin Mud. I had been watching their use in a number of You Tube videos and they looked a little too easy. So once they arrived at my door I had to try them. I had a build up of my Krentz Styracosaur that received some critical criticism about brightly colored it was ala Luis Rey. I I decided to try these washes to tone it down a little as it were. The washes work great. Here's the lil guy in a more drab color scheme.

And finally, I've started working on my hobby room again - I really need all my supplies all in one spot. So I had to re-spackle what I paid a guy to do. It got done, but boy did he stink up the job.  So of course that means I also had to repaint. Next comes a rug and then a desk and I think I can get started ..

Mars of Opposition

 Just a little heads up that if anyone reading this is in the NY/NJ area on March 3rd. My astronomy club, The NJAA will be having an open house timed with the opposition of Mars. while it's not a great opposition, it will be a very good one. Feature may be seen as well as one of the polar caps. Very Cool. Click the above link for more info.

Friede taking Shape

Not much to report tonight, except that The Fried has her "legs" now. It was a little difficult to get them centered as the lines we were supposed to use to line them up was a little wider that the width of the legs. So you had to sort of wing it so the legs were in the middle of the area between the two marks.  Looks ok to me, tho it won't win any awards. LOL

I just can't make things easy on myself...

Yeah, I know I haven't built a model in a year. Now I get the Friede started and what do I have to do? See the Destination Moon's Luna in my *to do:* pile. My eyes glaze over and I have to open it up take the parts out of the box and start trimming the flash off. Yeah, I'm going to build the two at the same time...

I was going to include an image of the parts, but for whatever reason, my phone is taking a million years to upload the pics. So instead I've decided to include a link to FP's page ans the kit is still available -

http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/DestinationMoonLuna-CatalogPage.htm

where you can scroll down a little bit to see the parts, and also take a look at the description of both the kit and the ship it's modeled after (a very nice touch IMHO).

According to the site, this was the first in a series of Classic Spaceships done in 1:288 scale.  The kit had a little flash on it - nothing major for a resin kit. But the fuselage had some problems. First thing I noticed is that there were two gouges in the side of the ship. Once I get my images downloaded I'll post the gouge shot here.  EDIT: Here are the pics of the gouges. I sanded a bit to make the resin around the gouges flush with the rest of the surface.The original looked like something got stabbed into the rocket and forced plastic above the surface. WEIRD...

Again nothing major but surprising since most of FP kits are *very* clean.  The next thing I noticed was that the bottom of the ship where the exhaust ring attaches was rather oval instead of what I expected should be round. It did take a bit of careful sanding to get the exhaust area round. 
A major pluses for the kit is the nice symmetric look to the fuselage, and the circular moon base. I'll definitely be taking some extra time time painting the lunar base up. :-)
So that's it for now. Next the parts will take a bath and get the mould release washed off and then time to attach the parts.
And yes, I'm expecting to get them both completed by the end of the month (ok at least the Friede)...   :-o

A Little Primer

With the way the "legs" of Friede are, I gave the insides of them a little primer and white spray as once they are attached I won't get another chance to get the inside painted.

Once the paint dries,  the next step will be to attach the braces for the legs and to attach them on the body.

Friede - The next step

As with all resin kits you need to give them a thorough was with degreaser soap to get the mold release off the parts. Fantastic Plastic suggests  submerging the parts in a soapy water solution for 24 hours. I've always just gave them a wash with some degreasing kitchen soap and an old toothbrush. We'll see how the easier soak works.
So as to show I'm making progress ;-) here's a pic of the parts drying off and showing what the parts look like.

Next step will be attaching the legs and then a shot of primer...

Gonna Try This Again

Busy times have left me little time with trying to do some of my hobbies. But this New Years I made myself a resolution to "try and get one model done every 2 months." so of course Jan. flew by and now I have just a few weeks of Feb. left to get something done. Before I ruin my resolution before it even starts I've picked Fantastic Plastic's Rocketship Friede - http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/RocketshipFriedePage.htm  . From the FP site - -

"In 1927, in the wake of his stunning success with his sci-fi opus "Metropolis," German director Fritz Lang decided his next movie would be a sprawling silent melodrama based on mankind's first trip to the moon.  To make his movie as technically accurate as possible, Lang enlisted the aid of already-famous spaceflight cheerleader Wiley Ley who, in turn, corralled Romanian-born rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth into the project.  The centerpiece of Lang's new feature, "Frau im Mond" ("The Woman in the Moon,") was the spaceship "Friede" (named after the movie's titular character), based on the Modell E rocket from Oberth's treatise "Die Rakete."  An extra stage was added to the E, making the "Friede" longer and more cylindrical than its predecessor, but keeping in place the rectangular "legs" that provided support and aerodynamic stability for the spacecraft."

So we'll see you in a day or two as I will post some WIP pics.