Wow, the groundwork on that turned out great!  I think you did an amazing job of capturing the look and feel of the moonscape.

As for the gap.  You can attribute it to thermal expansion due to being out in the sun.  ;)

Oh that looks fantastic! The grey looks perfect for a moonscape. Though the first photos where it's unpainted and still red I was thinking would be perfect for a Mars base. 

Work done on the base,

added more texture, experimented with "moondust" (roughly equal mix of fine semolina flour and baking powder)

After primer coat and a clear coat just to help keep everything in place (no idea what I'm doing here, kind of going on instinct).

First round of paint

layered on a couple of gray shades

Layered on a little silver

And seeing how it looks

Of course what I didn't realize was how the opeining for the Monolith had I guess wided or warped, and now doesn't fit well? Oh well not going to sweat it.

Close to being finished...

Yeah fantastic work there on the astronaut's face and suit! 

Love the work on the astronaut.  The attention to detail on his suit brings the piece to life.  And the lit up monolith is such a cool effect.  One could understand why the astronaut is so mesmerized by it.  :)

Couple more updates. Most of the weathering done, and pieces glues on

Added custom rim to helmet glass

Last thing to do if figure out how to conenct all the hoses to the PLSS backpack

You're making great progress! Everything looks good but I esp love the watch! 

A little more progress

Backpack is pretty much done

Watch is complete, with a custom decal I made, first time doing this! Seemed to turn out ok.

Front power pack thingy, forgot the technical name for this

Well, about the positioning of the hoses... it's science fiction anyway so all is good!

Nicely done!

Gary

"My God...its full of stars!"

Nice work so far!

Aw krap, somehow I missed your post! 

Great job on the astronaut, he looks really good! 

Sorry to hear about the masking tape, I hate it when it pulls up paint and I have to repaint stuff. 

I am aware that the connector positions are pretty far off, part of the problem is that the one hose that Revell gives you with the model is positioned way too far off to the side, so to keep things symetrical, and to reuse the hole, I put the others off to the side. Also the weird rectangular cover/pocket/doohicky that Revell molded right in the abdominal region isn't even in the real suit! And it means you can't really position anything there. I guess if I had planned ahead more I could have sanded some of that away? Not sure if the plastic is thick enough for that? I suppose you could always put something on the other side to support it? Oh well, next time! 

Painted the boots and gloves

Started putting in the hose connectors

test fitting with hoses (some of the paint came off when I pulled off the masking tape :( )

Then realized the astronaut was wearing a watch! So obviously we need one too!

Primed

Painting in progress

Made a custom decal for it

Made my first decal today, but it didn't go so hot, used Tamiya cleay acrylic to cover the printed decal paper. I'm guessing I need to try something else. And don't use Tamiya mark fit solution, that seemed to mess things up.

Next got the lighting for the Monolith wired up

Powered on, arduino controlled, but will work out the flicker pattern later on.

Finally some more progress, kind of got bummed during the holidays, and lost interest.

So I realized that there's a lot of detail that the Revell kit misses out on, decided to add the right number of hoses/cables, because, why not?

I scratch built the little piece with bits of left over or sprues that I sanded down. 

Here's where they all go

Testing the fit

Various "hoses" made from cut up gloves

Primed all the parts

Painting

A layer of Model Master aluminum, then tamiya clear Red and Blue.

Great job! The face looks fantastic! 

A little more progress on the astronaut

first time painting a face at this scale, damn it's tricky! 

JimC2020

I really don't know what the hell I'm doing here, completely winging it.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts at the start of every build, and yet I still finish each with a smile on my face. 

Yeah looks neat to me! 

I remember one of the issues with the monolith in the movie is they had to keep cleaning the darn thing so you couldn't see any fingerprints during the close-up filming. 

Cool idea...

Thank you! I really don't know what the hell I'm doing here, completely winging it. 

Styrofoam is difficult to work with.  You've done a superb job!  Can't wait to see it finished.

Gary

GAF

That's great!  What did you use for the monolith?

I built up the monolith by using some leftover styrofoam (which next time I do this I'm getting the purple foam core stuff, the white stuff is a mess to work with), measured out the correct dimensions on plastic styrene sheets and then glued it over the styrene. The plastic sheets I had couldn't cover the complete height, so I had to glue two together, which did result in some uneven bowing on one side :(

Turns out making a box, and making it nice and smooth and even is pretty tricky! LOL.

I made sure I could take out the foam core, and that's what will hold my LED lights. I attached some sprue scraps to form attachment support so it would mount to the bottom section.

Now I'm trying to add some detail with bits of stone and foam and then modeling paste.

Not sure how this is going to turn out, this is my first time doing something like this. The modeling paste goes quick! And it's $17 a jar! 

Very cool!

JimC2020

adjusting one of the hands (my apologies for the hand amputation, I did glue it back, sorry for the lack of anesthesia...)

Lol, that's great!
Excellent concept from an iconic see.  Keeping my eye on this one to watch it develop.

Yeah that's so cool!!!!! 

Someone made a garage kit twenty or so years ago of the monolith with an astronaut in a 2001 EV suit touching one side and a man-ape touching the other. Always thought it was amazing but at the time money was a bit tight so I didn't buy one.  

That's great!  What did you use for the monolith?

Gary

Very nice, such an iconic scene.