The Moon Hopper was the flying lunar rover that appeared in the TV show UFO. The 1970-71 show was from Gerry Anderson who also created Capt. Scarlet and Space: 1999. The show just lasted one season - 26 episodes.
The kit was first released from Fantastic Plastic in 2019 being master by Alfred Wong. The kit came in approximately 20 parts of well cast resin and 3D printed parts plus a sheet of decals.The instructions indicate that the original release included wire to stiffen the 3D printed landing legs, but with my copy I had to provide the wire in the form of an old coat hanger.
The kit turned out to be a pretty quick build. The main fuselage is one piece as is each of the 4 lander legs. In the image, the gold colored parts of the landing legs are the coat hanger wire.
The build quickly moved on to the painting part. This was equally as easy in that nearly all the craft was white. The cockpit windows were black, and the metal joints between the leg parts were silver. Making things a little more involved I painted all the parts to be silver and painted them black. When that was dry, I over painted the silver but left a little black to make it look like there was some washer or o-ring.
The decals were essentially "pick your favorite number" and then a bunch of black and red lines.
Most images online doesn't show an antenna, the illustration on the box doesn't show an antenna. The were no parts for an antenna, but the instructions call for one. Hmmm? Luckily there was one extra landing pad and then I went to the greeblie box for the backing piece, and a few pieces of wire, and I had one. Correct? I dunno...
With the decals done, I tuned my attention to a base. My idea was since the legs are fairly spindly, I figure gluing it down to a base. A trip to Hobby Lobby got my a nice plaque, and then to got out my DAS Air dry clay and created a moon base. Added a few boulders and some small craters. When that dries, it'll be painted and the ship glued on. Check back for that. Thanks for looking.
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| Looking like pizza now, it'll soon be a moon base. ;) |
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