The Old and The New

With Twisty and Yeti done and me still working on the seams of Armstrong's jet, I decided to head to my "To Do" pile and pic another kit. 
This time I was looking for something simple. I chose Scale Solution's 1:1000 Ion Cannon. You see it during the Battle of Hoth during the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back - 

Normally, I am happy to link the artist page here so you can possible get a similar model or just go and check out the artists other wears. Sadly, SS is no longer making kits for us. Thanks to the recasting of his work - basically the mutts buy one of his kits and then make copy after copy of it. They then have the balls to sell them as their own. Just as reprehensible are the jerks that buy these inferior kits just because they rather spend $25 for an illegal copy of a copy rather than the $60 for the real kit.  Sad he cannot compete with his own kit. Thanks to these jerks, the rest of us lose out. 

If you want more info on recasting go HERE . 

The kit comes in 4 parts - the terrain, the ion cannon, the "guns" to the cannon, and the turret cannon that you see out front in the above pic. 

As of right now the kit has been washed, primed and the minor parts glued together. I've also painted the cliffs behind the cannon with some "mountain" colors. I'll have a pic of that plus I'll prolly either have the snow on the cliff or the cannon painted (maybe both?) by next check in.

It is no surprise to those that know me well the The 5th Element is one of my favorite Sci-fi movies.  I've been watching a thread on the Starship Modeler forums and was happy to hear the release of the Phloston Paradise by Larson Designs. This was the cruise ship where everyone ends up to get the Stones - 

The kit comes in numerous parts - I just got it so I haven't had the chance to count them out. But here are the parts layout from the instructions - 

There is no flash or bubbles I can see on any of the parts. The two main parts are the hull halves - 

At first glance they look very good, but while trying to mate them up there seems to be a slight bow to them in the middle. All I had to do was sand out the edges of the middle (see my drawn in lines). For an added little protection I immersed each part in almost boiling water for a minute or two, then while putting weight on the part (to straighten them while soft) I had cold water put on the parts for the to solidify them up again. The two halves are super close and with a little pinning and 2 part epoxy, it'll be fine.

Thanks for looking.