Sci Fi Model Hall of Fame

Ok...Ill add some pics to this thread.  Here's a Halcyon 1/72 Dropship from Aliens that I built a little more than 2 years ago.  This was my first model in 16 years and I was inspired by an article in one of the FSM magazines to build it.  I did a ton of scratch building on it.

Here ya go:

Fly-n-hi wrote:

Ok...Ill add some pics to this thread.  Here's a Halcyon 1/72 Dropship from Aliens that I built a little more than 2 years ago.  This was my first model in 16 years and I was inspired by an article in one of the FSM magazines to build it.  I did a ton of scratch building on it. Here ya go:

Nice build of one of my favorite vehicles! I built one when the kit first came out in the ealry 90s. Been wanting to lay hands on another ever since.

Aaron

Thanks AS,

Just for kicks I searched the internet last night for one of these kits and couldn't find any.  Some of the other Halcyon kits were still available and they were going for big $$$.  If you see a Dropship get it right then and there.

My favorite....OK but not from "a kit". this first starship was inspired by the Millenium Falcon, and was the first junkbuild that I actually drew preliminary sketches of, before starting construction.

This was also the first time I used the "Velocity Amplifier" main drive, and attitude control engines. It was also the beginning of the "Focussed Translocator Reactor" primary power source.

The second, and equal favorite, also a junkbuild. Inspired by the original Battlestar Galactica, this model measures 49" long. shown here with a coffee mug, and a Twenty dollar bill, for size comparison. The second shot is with the AMT, TOS Enterprise (close, but just a bit smaller than scale).

The most recent would be the USS Kodiac NCC 6000, documented in the StarTrek Group build '09, thread in this forum. 

All of my kits have a mar somewhere on them that makes me not want to show people them, my Gyan's finish didnt come out on the chest like the rest of the kit (sanding scratched and no where near as glossy)  The rest of my kits just... dont seem to age well as my skills get better.  This one I wont say where the problems are, im sure you will see them, I can but its my best piece

Sumpter- I love that you think through the parts you put on your scratchbuilds and use those concepts over again.  You will have your own sci fi universe of ships someday.  I remember seeing the larger ship up here a while ago and it was really impressive.  I've never seen the smaller one before but it looks just as good. 

STV- I hear you about the problem with each of mine having a flaw somewhere.  I think that the fact that your older kits don't look as good to you as time goes on is just a good sign that you are getting better.  I was proud of my first little figure, which I have yet to put on the site, until I finished my second figure and fixed a bunch of problems.  But I like seeing how I've progressed.  Your suit looks cool.  I'm too nervous I'd screw it up to buy a MaK kit. 

smeagol the vile wrote:

The rest of my kits just... dont seem to age well as my skills get better.  This one I wont say where the problems are, im sure you will see them, I can but its my best piece

  .....So far.

I've been building models for fifty years now, and I can still find fault with each and every one of them. I just try to learn from each of those mistakes, and attempt to not repeat them. Learning is as much part of the fun as building. 

wekk I wouldnt be worried about messing up a Ma.k kit, there simpler then most HGUC kits, there really fun, not hard at all really just alot of fun.

Sumpter, do those little mistakes ever keep you from entering your kits in competitions or showing them to people happily, I have a hard time doing both because I konw the errors and im sure a judge will see them

smeagol the vile wrote:

Sumpter, do those little mistakes ever keep you from entering your kits in competitions or showing them to people happily, I have a hard time doing both because I know the errors and im sure a judge will see them

The answer, in a word........no. That first starship in my post, won a second place trophy at a Northern Illinois Modelers Open contest. IPMS was involved in establishing the judging criteria for the contest. But......it's not about winning, I really didn't expect to win anything. That I did, was nice, but I was more interested in seeing where I stood in relation to some very seriously good model builders, and to learn from the experience. I wanted to know what errors a "judge" would see, and why he/she would call them errors. Learning what they were, helped me to avoid making them again. It's a case of " it can be done!............how did you do that?" 

I have accepted the fact that there are better modelers out there. They challenge me! I don't ever want to be "the best", there would be no place further to go! Where's the fun in that??! 

The problem with being "the king", is......tomorrow you can't "become the king".................. but you can be overthrown.  The struggle to get to the top, however hard it may be, is never as hard to take as the fall...... from the top. Still, while you're there, the view is spectacular! 

And here's the ever-popular C-57D Starship from "Forbidden Planet."  I'm still cleaning up silver dust from the sanding of multiple coats of primer and paint on this beast!

Very cool chuck, the only thing that bugs me a bit are the seams on the edge of the saucer disk.

♦ Sumpter,  Thats the thing about this hobby it isnt about being king, its about getting better.  Even if you win the gold with something you can still improve on your build and try to win it again.  But its not the winning I meant, its more... the fear of entering that it will be crap compared to the other kits

More of a Humor piece but based on Sci-Fi.

My Moo-rine.

MOOOO I love it!! Though, even though its black and white, it could use some shadowing around the edges to make it perfect

smeagol the vile wrote:

Very cool chuck, the only thing that bugs me a bit are the seams on the edge of the saucer disk.

Roger that, Smeagol-  But sometimes you just have to say "the hell with it, that's good enough," and at that point I was sick and tired of working on this thing.  WYSIWYG, and I was not trying to win any contests.  Anyhow, I had fun with it!

smeagol the vile wrote:

Even if you win the gold with something you can still improve on your build and try to win it again.  But its not the winning I meant, its more... the fear of entering that it will be crap compared to the other kits

LOL!   I believe it is called................ incentive.

  I'm not going to spin fables, I have been there, and there are a few, whose work made mine look like crap, who never improved. The "shoe" is on the other foot now. There are many though who I can't seem to catch up to. Yeah..............incentive.

  I still have a couple of the very first models I ever built, carefully packed and protected. I keep them to remind me "where I came from", as a model builder. (they help me insure that I can still get my head through the door.)

  Today's crap, is yesterday's perfection, and tomorrow's goal to improve on. 

I can honestly say im glad my very first kit is destroyed and all pics of it are gone.

It was a 1/144 GM sniper from the 08th ms team line.  I did a guile camo on it my first pain and mod job ever.  I used a sprue hunk to make a holder on it's pack for the rifle, added wires and chords to the pack to the rifle.  I added an antiena to the pack, all ofthose wernt THAT bad, what was bad was that I used studio gouche and two testors paints to paint it.  There were seams all over it, the gouche looked like I threw mud all over the kit... it was bad.  Then I draped a piece of netting over the gun and attached Lichen to it for Guile camo, as well as attaching it all over the kit

SkullGundam wrote:

Wow.  Now when you say studio scale, how big is it?  And forgive my ignorence, but what is it?

Answer to your second question first: It's a "Hawk" from Space: 1999.

If I recall correctly, the Studio model was about 1/24th scale and is about 30 inches or so long.

I believe "studio scale" could be anything.  For example, in making the movie "Forbidden Planet", there were three different studio models of the C-57 D spaceship- the smallest was 20 inches in diameter, the mid-sized was a 44 inch diameter model, and also they built a huge 88 inch diameter ship.  In addition, there was a full size partial set of the lower part of the ship used for the scenes of the crewmen standing on the ground under the ship, walking down the stair ramp, etc.

This info is from research in the recent book, "The Saucer Fleet" , by Jon Rogers and Jack Hagerty.  It also contains loads of highly detailed and accurate drawings for many ships that would be invaluable to those who like to scratch-build models.  Highly recommended!