Can't forget Kevin Costner cranking away at the Solar Sails to catch the solar winds. 

PhoenixG

Speaking of cruising in style.   Years and years ago I remember reading an article about a decomissioned French aircraft carrier that was open to private sales.  Can you imagine that as your personal yacht?  A floating home with it's own private airstrip.  Visions of manicured lawns on the flight deck with a croquet set or golf course. Playing the back 9 with a highs seas handicap

Ha! Yeah-- I can imagine that for sure! Then add antigravitic and wouldn't THAT be something! For some reason I imagine Dennis Hopper (Water World) turning it into a floating nuisance to terrorize from. Maybe a carrier was not availble, so he used a barge. 

Hey Bakster.  It's nice to be back.  May have been pushing the little grey cells past the red line with all the stuff I've cranked out.  Had to take them into the shop to get serviced and reconditioned. 

It was the unusual asteroid planking on this ship that originally caught my eye.  Kind of like the stainless steel sides of a Delorean.

Speaking of cruising in style.   Years and years ago I remember reading an article about a decomissioned French aircraft carrier that was open to private sales.  Can you imagine that as your personal yacht?  A floating home with it's own private airstrip.  Visions of manicured lawns on the flight deck with a croquet set or golf course. Playing the back 9 with a highs seas handicap.

Hey T.B.

I've been in a self-imposed exile from the forums for the last month and hadn't known you had a GB going on "What Ifs".   Found the thread and it sounds like a great idea.  i'd say the folks who did this model were definitely tuned into your frequency.  :)

Most of my stuff is sci-fi that has no relation to present day equivalents.  Hmmm, Perhaps an opportunity to peruse the bargain bins for kitbashing components.

BTW, thought you'd appreciate the poster I have hanging over my workbench.  Image quality isn't the greatest due to the glare from the garage lights.

That looks SO cool, PG. I like it. What a great model to display. Wouldn't it be cool to have an actual spaceship like that? If you are gonna fly around in space, why not do it with some style!

Glad you overcame the brainlock. I was thinking about you yesterday prior to your post. Was wondering how it's going and hours later you post. 

Glad to see you back. 

HI!

     As you Know, I Started a G.B. It's to be" What if's" based on what you have on the "Shelf of Doom" or your parts box or both. I like what you did with it. Now, just a short note on Sci-Fi. I found two old Revell Battleship Hulls. Sanded the top edge Flat and Glued them together. Hmmmmm. Could be the part of a Spaceship strong enough to withstand a Gate into another solar system-We'll See! The G.B.is to see how you would envision a design that continued with improvements from 1912-2023

Thanks everyone for their encouragement on this.  After being on hiatus for about a month, finally overcame the brain lock around colors and look.  Work on the space sub resumed last week and finished this weekend.

The rock rockets and small asteroids took some trial and error before settling on what's depicted.  Earliest attemps looked like space turds.  Needless to say they were stripped back to plastic a couple of times before settling on the overall gray scheme.

It's current resting place on my shelf o' stuff.

While it may have caused creative brain lock for me I found it interesting enough to get a different ship from the series to try in the future.

"Struggling with this one and can feel it as a reluctance to get back to the bench. 

Thinking it may be good to step away for a while and come back to it when it's possible to look at it with fresh eyes."

Hey PG... it happens! I have been down that road as well. Take the time you need and then bring it back. 

Oops, I missed a few updates there! Very cool, like the work on the engines too. 

Cool thing is you can paint her anyway you want within reason. Which is liberating but at the same time you get almost too many options. I have the same issues with dinosaur models. 

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with when you're ready to come back. 

Thanks Gamera and Bakster for the words of encouragement.  :)

This build has been surprisingly challenging from a creative perspective.  Can usually visualize what I'd like to try for and possible methods for accomplishing it.  Struggling with this one and can feel it as a reluctance to get back to the bench. 

Thinking it may be good to step away for a while and come back to it when it's possible to look at it with fresh eyes. 

Get some recreational reading in and maybe do some additional research into naval color schemes.

Hey PG, I like the engine bell and the heating effect. I think mission accomplished!

And yeah... it's always a battle to not lose weathering effects. I can see the dry brushing worked. Nice!

Not a lot of progress this week.  Things have been a bit hectic in normal life.

Worked on the engine bell.  Tried to make a subtle heat discoloration around it.

Fun part was masking it to avoid overspray.  Sill putty made short work of the majority of it.

Used layers of steel thinned with distilled water, followed by airbrushed rust wash, finished with gunmetal also thinned with water.

It's subtle and hopefully converys the impression of heat.

When I weathered the asteroid siding I'd left it without clear coat because I'd noticed a matt coat can erase subtle color variations.  However, the pastels were rubbing off so I tried the clear coat and sure enough it erased everything.  Redid it with drybrushing.

It's less subtle than before.  Perhaps after the rest is complete will see if can use pastels to blend it more.

Started masking the hull for striping.  Thinking about how I might "weather" the stripes if at all.

Gamera

Looking good Phoenix!!! 

 

Looking good Phoenix!!! 

PhoenixG

       PhoenixG, sometimes Tamiya Extra Thin is not the answer.

I'll usually follow up with the Tamiya glue, but now the part is bigger and thus easier to hold.

 

Does that mean "painting" the seam with the Tamiya?  Does it help with "filling" the seam?  Never tried it so am curious as to the method and the results it produces.

 

Yep. The thicker glue is to "tack" the tiny part in place, and the thin glue is used to zip everything up.

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.

Real G

PhoenixG, sometimes Tamiya Extra Thin is not the answer.

 

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!

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. 

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

 

 

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. 

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. 

keavdog

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