Hangar 18's Cosmonaut

This is another kit that has been in the stash so long I forget where I got the heads up on it. 
The kit is 54mm, in a gray resin, with no flaws. The kit comes in 8 parts - the body, sputnik's globe, her head, helmet and the 4 antenna for Sputnik.

The only painting guide was the boxart. So for now I'm following that - 

On the box, her hair is whited out, so I went back an forth between making her a redhead or blonde. The color in the image is Mahogany.  In the end blonde won out, and her hair was brightened with a dry brushing of Dark Sand and then Iraqi Sand, both from Vallejo. I ended this session by gluing the antenna on Sputnik, and then giving it a coat of Gloss Black in preparation of giving it a shot of  V's Metallics Chrome.  

Til next session, thanks for looking.

XSL-01 Moon Ship Glider

This kit was a Fantastic Plastic release back 2011-13. This kit is a re-imagining of the original kit of Revell from 1957. From FP's site:

The XSL-01 (Experimental Space Laboratory Number 1) was designed in the mid-1950s by aerospace engineer Ellwyn E. Angle. Formerly associated with the Bell X-1 and X-5 projects, Angle was working for a new spaceflight startup company, Systems Laboratory Corporation (SLC) in Sherman Oaks, California, when he was put in contact with Revell Models in nearby Venice, Ca., which was interested in original designs for its expanding line of space-related model kits.

 The kit is 1:72 scale and comes in 5 simple parts. The casting was done by BLAP! Models and is flawless. There was so few parts that I forgot to take a "before I started" pic.  Here's the ship is together and primed. The small blue piece is the engine before it is primed. The decals are also very well done. FP always reminds us to put a coat of decal film over it, and that's what was done.

There wasn't any painting instruction, so I just followed the box art. The was a diagram for the decals, and I forget exactly, but I think the box art decals was different than the placement on the instructions. No matter, it's a hypothetical ship - so I can do what I want. 

The flaps (or whatever they are) are done in Vallejo Sky Gray. The red nosecone was done with my favorite red - Citadel's Mephiston Red.  The panel lines are deep enough that from my initial priming of black, I don't feel I need to highlight them any further with a wash.
I've ordered some special paint to cover the blacked out windows. More on that, in the next session. Thanks for looking

 

Space Cadet Huygens Lander Finale

This last session I could call the model done. I painted the experiments, and then used Citadels Agrax to highlight the rivets a bit. Then I added the parachute cord and added little bits of thin Tamiya tape to replicate the Velcro hold downs on the cord.
The last thing I did was to get rid of the lander's shadow. I always overdo it, and that was true this time when I added black to the shadow. All it did was make the ground look burnt. So away it all went. Thanks for looking.

New

Santa has been dropping boxes off for the past month. So I thought I share whats in the boxes. First I got it into my head that I can start making my own figures. So besides signing up with Troy McDevitt's sculpting class thru Patreon, I got myself  a stand to help stead any future works of "art." ;)

Then there's a kit from Creepytables that looks a little like a certain caterpillar in a certain story about a certain girl in the 22cm size. ;)

 I refound Monster Dork Studios on Etsy, and picked up his take on Cookie Monster - COOKIE!

Finally Space Cadet Models released kit #2, A kit of Pioneer 2 and 4. As of now Space Cadet is only on Facebook, but they have their page set to Public so no one has to join FB that doesn't want to just to have a look.
As a fan of the vintage space craft, I'm looking forward to getting to these.

Space Cadet Huygens Lander part

This session starts out with a correction. I showed my WIP images on the Real Space Modelers Yahoo Group. The next morning I had a few "atta-biys" but there was one from one of the kits designers saying "Good Job", but also letting me know that while I might not be able to fix it at that point, I installed the landing radar upside down. Oops. 
I couldn't leave well enough alone and with the thought that I would be scratch building new landing radar out of styrene, I careful tried prying them off the Lander. One after another they easily popped off! When I got to the 4th one, I was in dread thinking one of them has to give me trouble. But no, number 4 popped as easily as the other 3.  I simply turned them around and glued them back on. 

While the glue was drying I turned my attention the the base. The instructions said that due to ... something I don't remember the real color of Titan was a color between wood and dark brown. I decided to lay down some Orange Ocher as a base to start. From there with the sun streaming in the window I decided to paint a shadow for the craft.  I also added some "ice" to the ground and was happy.

After that I turned my paint to the Lander. The instructions said it was a combination of gold and silver. I went with V's Gold and Silver from the new Metallics line.  The image has it looking too silver. But in real life it's more gold.  Experiments get painted next time.  Thanks for looking.

Brit Zombie finale

These pics are the combination of 2 sessions. I toyed around with the bruising and wounds. When happy I sealed them and painted in the eyes. I decided one of the eyes was going to be a dead eye, and put silly Putty around it as a mask - 

From there I added some Satin poly here and there, and some Gloss for the real gooey parts. 
While that was drying I drybrushed the skull mound base with various tans, creams and whites, and then put some Citadel sepia wash into the airbrush and sprayed a few areas. 
Finally I drew a few lines of Realistic Water on a piece of plastic. I wanted some drool...  When the drool strands were dry I picked the best one and stuck it onto the lip, and am calling this one done. Thanks for looking.

Space Cadet's Huygens Lander part 4

This session was to  assemble the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI).  First thing that needed to be done was cut the two pieces off the PE fret.  Then a resin piece was added to make the "T' on the short side. After that I had to laminate 1mm half round styrene strips onto the straight parts. I thought this would be a lot harder than it was, save for my first cut which was short.

Next was to add the mounting base. On the instructions it said to leave a little PE showing that would mate up with a slot in the hole for the HASI.  No good. I could see the slot but the were no way I could fit the PE in there. I ended up just drilling out the hole, eliminating the slot and trimmed the exposed PE to fit. 

That was essentially it. They made further instructions for those wishing to do more.  I wasn't going to but then I saw one step was to add wiring for the parachute jettison on top. Being crazy, I took some .010 lead wiring and added that one.  Came out ok.

Next stop is the paint booth. The instructions and images show a gold/silver color. That's next time. Thanks for looking.