Not a “What If”, more a “WTF???”
It’s always confused me why at the end of film credits there is usually a notice in small print to the effect “No animals were harmed in the production of this movie”. Surely if there is the potential for members of the anticipated audience to run screaming and traumatised from the theatre at the sight of something gross appearing to happen to a small furry creature it would be wiser to display the information in a prominent manner at the start of the movie? Following this logic and to reassure those of you having a sensitive disposition I make the following statement: NO KITS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS… er, THING. Yes, you can relax in the knowledge that anything you see was never intended to be part of a scale model. It could be argued that they still aren’t, the scale of what was built being still undetermined (as is precisely WHAT it is…).
Since I received the kind invitation to participate in this group back at the end of January nothing much happened for a long while. Procrastination is my area of expertise: putting off making choices means one’s options will eventually eliminate themselves until one is forced into the only remaining course of action (or inaction) thereby removing the stress of making decisions. There were multiple false starts with bits of plastic which had expected to serve a useful purpose (or already had done so) suddenly encountering a savage sprue cutter or razor saw and being rent apart, only for their disjointed remains to be discarded with scant regard. Certain ideas firmed up and became an outline of a plan although the methods by which it was achieved were constantly changing. The final appearance of the, er, object, was not determined until the last moment of its creation (or at least “latest”, I’m not sure it is completed). Some limitations I placed on myself were abandoned at need (I won’t use any Tic Tac boxes/I won’t use more than one Tic Tac box/I won’t use Grey Primer as the overall colour), the need being mainly the March 1st deadline coming towards me with the apparently increasing speed of incoming tracer shot in a movie. However, I remained firm in my resolve to use no kit bits in this instance. What I did use (apart from the aforementioned Tic Tac boxes) was plastic cutlery, plastic coffee stirrers (recently extinct), disposable razor parts, hollow lolly sticks and tubes from the middle of rolls of paper such as the thermal paper used in 1980s adding machines and hoarded away over the decades. The main problem is these are usually produced from low-grade plastic and tend to be brittle. Guilt-free greebling was achieved by re-purposing items originally acquired for other purposes; in particular those self-adhesive “gems” used by crafters. Having a Steampunk project in mind (I always have a Steampunk project in mind!) I had noticed the small “pearl” hemispherical items on the left of the packet could be useful as dome-headed rivets and grabbed a pack, followed by several different sets that could serve as car indicator lights, studs in very large tyres, etc. Creating constant-sized regular shapes from sheet styrene (other than discs using a hole punch) can be a task, so I was happy that the square black shapes could be utilised for this purpose although in the end I only used a couple. From the other set a pair of the larger gold “studs” were painted with Tamiya Clear Red to form the nacelle end caps. Any bits of sheet styrene used were small offcuts left over from other projects in the distant past. One other kit-saving mercy of using only scrap was that I wasn’t upset when the glue went everywhere (a precision applicator isn’t much use when one has trouble getting it and the component into the same Post Code, let alone controlled contact). If I had been leaving sticky fingerprints over a decent kit I’d have got really irritated with myself.
I’m calling the thingy complete (at least for now) as although there were supposed to be more coloured bits my hand was shaking too much for that; what little paint that was applied went everywhere in the neighbourhood of where it was intended to go, I was lucky to be able to wipe off the worst of the runs without leaving too much residue. I’d also intended for it to have a “natural metal” finish but for once the local cheapo shop didn’t have any in when I went looking yesterday. A wash might have helped, but I messed up my previous build by trying to do that at the last minute and I wasn’t going to try dry-brushing either.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to supply in the way of photos as I can’t get the link to the old site to work and that’s where the requirements are…
So what is it? I’m only claiming “Military Spacecraft”, nothing else specific. Given it’s just shy of a foot long overall I think the scale is probably in the 1:600th -1:720th range but there’s nothing to determine that! It must be military as there is a SoopaDoopaShoota sticking out the front. These weapons (also known as “FOAD Cannons” in less polite circles) are a staple of Sci-fi warships, and are generally fixed on the vessel’s long axis (even the Enterprise D gets one in “All Good Things”). They also tend to take time to reload/recharge, the duration determined by the amount of dialogue that needs to be accommodated. It also looks the part, there being echoes of Battlestars, Y-Wings and even the Good Old 1701 (“Nae bluddy A, B, C or D”) herself. So with the usual warning to have a brown paper bag or suitable receptacle handy, here are the piccies…
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Regards,
M