Cool subject!  I'll enjoy following your build.

Oh I am looking forward to this. Very cool project. 

Yes, that looks like great fun. First I've seen a 'space submarine'. Cool concept.

Very cool looking and I’m sure  it will be impressive. 

But a Submarine in Space?

Sub= beneath, below, under, ect.

Marine= sea, ocean, ect. 

So many questions---So I’ll just shut up and go along for the ride, Reality is overrated in modeling any way. 

The guy who thought this up must have been a Space Battleship Yamato fan.  The TV series had a meme-worthy episode where the crew used small asteroids to form a defensive ring around their ship.  It show up in the opening title sequence.

In the newer Yamato reboots, the bad guys had "dimensional submarines", which could "submerge" from normal space and navigate hyperspace or something like that.

Apologies for being silent for a while there.  I'd been reminded that I had responsibilities for my spare time outside of building models.

So my yard got lots of attention and in the process I overworked muscles no longer accustomed after a winter of atrophy.  Sunday comes around and my hands are shaking so bad that I can't even use nippers to remove parts from the sprue.

Good news is that after taking it easy the rest of Sunday the tremors are gone and I can finally get this started!

More to come!

Hey Duster, thanks for stopping by!

DUSTER

But a Submarine in Space?Surprise Sub= beneath, below, under, ect. Marine= sea, ocean, ect. So many questions---So I’ll just shut up and go along for the ride, Reality is overrated in modeling any way.

LOL. 

I had much the same first reaction.  Then the following came to me and it all made sense.

Space has often been referred to as a vast ocean of stars, and since stars are everywhere in space, one is always under it's ocean.

Too much of a stretch? 

... so how do the rocks look?  Are they good, or will you be reaching for aftermarket asteroids?  

PhoenixG

Good news is that after taking it easy the rest of Sunday the tremors are gone and I can finally get this started!

Good news, indeed.

Real G

... so how do the rocks look?  Are they good, or will you be reaching for aftermarket asteroids?  

 

Ok, that sent me on a quest to find out what the market for asteroids is like.  Turns out the only aftermarket asteroids available are meteorites and at $6 a gram (for the cheap ones) I think I'll stick with kit provided ones.

This looks like a really fun project.  Should be really fun to paint

Very cool Phoenix, loving your choices! 

Funny back in the '50s the Dean Drive was pushed as a reactionless drive. Though SF editor John Campbell jumped on board to promote the thing it later turned out to be a hoax. Being reactionless the idea was to place it in a atomic submarine, since the atomic reactor needed no oxygen from the air to run and the sub was a sealed air-tight enviroment you had an instant spacecraft. 

Great subject choice. I will be watching this one. I love the concept.

Hi!

       I was surprised by this. Now, do you have any construction sites around you? You might be able to find Natural Rocks that might work in place of the plastic ones. Put one together, and take it with you and use it to find matches in shape and size. Real rocks can be painted and weathered too!

Gamera

e. Though SF editor John Campbell jumped on board to promote the thing it later turned out to be a hoax. Being reactionless the idea was to place it in a atomic submarine, since the atomic reactor needed no oxygen from the air to run and the sub was a sealed air-tight enviroment you had an instant spacecraft.

John Ringo ressurected the notion in his Looking Glass series where there are sace-time lenses that can be harnessed for nearly unlimited energy.  A US SSBN, "USS Nebraska" is fitted out and become the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade.

keavdog

This looks like a really fun project.  Should be really fun to paint

 

Gamera

Funny back in the '50s the Dean Drive was pushed as a reactionless drive. Though SF editor John Campbell jumped on board to promote the thing it later turned out to be a hoax. Being reactionless the idea was to place it in a atomic submarine, since the atomic reactor needed no oxygen from the air to run and the sub was a sealed air-tight enviroment you had an instant spacecraft.

Awesome tie-in to the subject!  Sadly the story greatly predates my own subscriptions to Analog.   Love the magazine!  It's how I keep my sci-fi addiction under control.  I've fallen behind by several years but am working on getting caught up again. 

CapnMac82

 

 

Gamera

e. Though SF editor John Campbell jumped on board to promote the thing it later turned out to be a hoax. Being reactionless the idea was to place it in a atomic submarine, since the atomic reactor needed no oxygen from the air to run and the sub was a sealed air-tight enviroment you had an instant spacecraft.

 

 

John Ringo ressurected the notion in his Looking Glass series where there are sace-time lenses that can be harnessed for nearly unlimited energy.  A US SSBN, "USS Nebraska" is fitted out and become the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade.

 

Thanks Captain! I read a lot of Ringo's stuff. But I checked out after a few of the Posleen War novels. Just seemed like all of them had pretty much the same plot with the names switched around. Very cool that he brought back such a cool old idea. 

Phoenix: Yeah that's me- repository of weird and useless information! Never read Astounding/Analog myself. When I started reading in the early '80s I went for paperbacks mostly and never got into SF magazines. 

Tanker-Builder

Hi!

       I was surprised by this. Now, do you have any construction sites around you? You might be able to find Natural Rocks that might work in place of the plastic ones. Put one together, and take it with you and use it to find matches in shape and size. Real rocks can be painted and weathered too!

 

Hmm, that is something worth considering.  I was thinking the model's panels were rather smooth so their albedo would be way to high for an asteroid.  Making it a dead give away that it's a man made object.  I was considering adding something like ash to some paint and brushing it on as a way to give the rocks more texture.

In a surprising turn of events.  While looking at the asteroid faces I discovered that rather than using a convenient attachement on the inner surface, they designed it so that there was a  simple supporting latticework on the opposite side making the rocks just a facade.  Now this isn't something you'd likely see during normal presentation.  Intersting that they included that level of detail.

By the way, over exposure to sci-fi get's people casually tossing around words like "albedo".

CapnMac82

John Ringo ressurected the notion in his Looking Glass series where there are sace-time lenses that can be harnessed for nearly unlimited energy. A US SSBN, "USS Nebraska" is fitted out and become the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade.

Took me a moment to recognize the author.  I first learned of him when the Honor series was really big.  Those books never caught my interest, but the Looking Glass series, that sounds like it might be a fun exploration.

You ever read any of Jack Campbell's AKA John G. Hemry's stuff?

Gamera

Yeah that's me- repository of weird and useless information!

LOL.  Obviously not so useless.  You got me digging into what the Dean Drive was.  That was a fun lunchtime distraction.  :)

Gamera

When I started reading in the early '80s I went for paperbacks mostly and never got into SF magazines.

You should see the bookshelves behind my computer desk.  They're packed with books published during that era.  Lot's of happy memories in those books.

I should post some WIP photos before everyone suspects me of using this model as a front to start up a sci-fi book club.

The two halves of the main hull have been cemented and I've started to clean them up.

The center black line will become the hangar and catapault for the space plane.

I've also started assembling the main engine components and rock rockets.

I'm still learning how to work with Tamiya extra thin. I got that stuff all over the rockets.

The kit also has half a dozen or so small mines disguised as asteroids.  Asembling them had a double handicap.  Using Tamiya extra thin and being small and round.  Leaving nothing for tweezers to grip.  About half of them turned into little glue bombs as I tried to figure out a method for assembling them.  I may or may not take a picture of those tiny disasters before I make an attempt to save them.

Looks like progress, PG. The Tamiya glue issue should be easy to sand out.

PhoenixG

You ever read any of Jack Campbell's AKA John G. Hemry's stuff?

I did. 

I originally picked up Through The Looking Glass, not due to the Author (back when I prowled physical bookstores for reading material to devour), but due to the setting.

The initital setting is at the University of Central Florida, in Ovedio, Florida, which is someplace I've been and was familiar to me.

Being intimate with a book's setting can add soemthing to the the thing.  And, I found the physics presented fascinating. 

Back on topic, that build is advancing swimmingly, especially for the scale of it.

PhoenixG, sometimes Tamiya Extra Thin is not the answer.  I use a thicker glue, like the Testors one in the black squeeze bottle with the pointy applicator, when attaching hard to hold pieces.  Then you don't end up with glue running everywhere (especially under your fingers).  I'll usually follow up with the Tamiya glue, but now the part is bigger and thus easier to hold.

Bakster

Looks like progress, PG. The Tamiya glue issue should be easy to sand out.

 

Much to my surprise it did sand out easily.  Of course them being mini-asteroids I suppose I could have described it as detailing. 

CapnMac82

Being intimate with a book's setting can add soemthing to the the thing. And, I found the physics presented fascinating.

I've enjoyed it when I've found a back set in areas I've lived in or very close to.  For me it made it a bit more "real".  I cut me teeth on authors like Heinlein.  Enjoyed how he inserted bits of his engineering experience into the stories.

CapnMac82

Back on topic, that build is advancing swimmingly, especially for the scale of it.

Thanks Cap'n!

Real G

PhoenixG, sometimes Tamiya Extra Thin is not the answer.

 

So, I haven't been exactly idle the last few days but nor have I had much opportunity for bench time. 

Got all the rocks primed and base colors applied.

i really don't like the color of the rockets.  Makes me think of the deposits my dog makes in my yard.  I'm going to be stripping them down and trying again.

Tried a different color schemd for the asteroid camouflage.

I like it much better and there's subtle variations that were washed out by the strong lighting for the camera.

The majority of the superstructure has been assemebled primed, and painted light grey

However, I found it showed too much blue and looked odd next to the base color of the asteroids.  I decided to follow the classic U boat colors.  Light gull grey and sea grey.  It's in my recently cobbled together paint dreyer so no photos yet.

While all this was going on, in between I worked on the enigne exhaust.  Tried to give it a burnt/heated metal look.  Don't have pre-made colors to do that so this is my attempt to make that effect.

It's tiny and in a hard to see spot so it's proably more effort than needed for a part that is barely visible.  But it was fun to experiment with.  Started with steel, added a rust wash, then a dry brush with mix of azure and blue, followed by a dry brush of bronze and finished with a pinwash of grey.

While those are all curing I started adding character to the asteroid siding.

I used pastels for this rather than dry brushing.  I thought they'd give a little more texture to the surface.  Pleased with the look it created. 

That's all for now.

Next up will be adding the masking for striping the ship with the sea grey and more work on the engines.