Metal Earth Model – British Mark IV Tank

Like the Monitor half of the previous kit, this one was a straightforward build without an excessive number of tricky steps. Were there super tiny pieces? Did I end up looking for some of them on the floor? Yes, of course. But overall this was a fun build.

Added bonus: World War One is one of my special interests, so I found this kit fascinating not just as something to build but also as something I’d read about. Kinda fun to have this historical reference perched on the bookshelf above my desk. 

Model - Plutonium Bomb Core

It’s been quite awhile (literally years) since I’ve built a model. But a friend bought kits of the central components (plutonium core and explosive lens sphere) of a nuclear bomb. 

I’m out of practice, and the glue we started working with was well past its prime. The result was a bit rough. Thankfully it’s a little easier to hide problems on a sphere that can be oriented so the gaps don’t show.

 

Model – Event Horizon

Awhile back Ken bought two resin-printed models of the Event Horizon, the spaceship from the movie of the same name. Though the source was an uneven experience, the ship itself was visually fun.

He and I did the bulk of the painting on our models last summer, so it’s taken me this long to make up my mind about how to finish it. I bought some specialized colors with the intent of painting the model to match the images in the movie posters. But after careful re-examination, I decided that most of the weird colors were intended to be tricks of the light rather than the actual surface tones. 

So I added some spots for running lights, touched up a few small details, and called it done.

Model – Star Trek Planet Killer

My friend Ken recently bought two models of the Planet Killer from “The Doomsday Machine” episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. We both loved the episode when we were kids, so it was fun to find a model for the gigantic, planet-destroying antagonist.

It required no assembly at all, so we decided to get creative with the painting. Ken did an excellent job achieving a weathered effect on his, but I opted to go in a different direction. The models lacked the lumpy look of the “wind sock dipped in concrete” machine from the show, so I thought it might be fun to imagine what it looked like when it was first built many millennia ago. Though it was constructed by some unknown alien society, I wanted it to have a more familiar, 21st century Earth military appearance. So I started with a basic Army green, which worked well.

Though I thought briefly about trying to build a light into the inside, that would have required so much time and effort that it would have taken away from the just-for-some-summer-fun nature of the project. So I used paint to recreate the machine’s glowing interior as best I could.

But from there I admit I was at a loss. I wanted to add some more details, but the main issue was the scale. Without a starship next to it for reference, it’s hard to see what size it should be (if you haven’t seen the episode, the Memory Alpha entry has a photo that provides some scale reference). So I had to be careful not to paint or apply anything that would make it look like it was the size of an airplane. Or worse, the size of an ice cream cone.

Thus the first thing I tried proved to be a serious step in the wrong direction:

I had a sticker sheet left over from the V2 model I painted earlier this year, so I thought I’d try one on the side of the Planet Killer just to see how it looked. As clever as the concept was – nuclear weapon allegory decorated with proto-ICBM markings – it just didn’t work. Numbers and letters painted on something huge don’t violate the laws of physics; reference the decks of aircraft carriers for that. But for something alien with no obvious size reference, the brain makes it into something way smaller.

Plus the sticker sucked. It wasn’t even a decal, just a self-adhesive stick-on with the edges of the clear plastic clearly visible. Fortunately that also meant that it wasn’t hard to remove.

I opted to go with silver rings around the “joints” and some black around the mouth to simulate smoke. Even airbrushing would have violated the keep-it-simple principle, so I used a fine detail paintbrush for it.

Thus it proved to be exactly what we were after: something quick and easy with ties to fun childhood memories.

Model – V2

 

I started this model so long ago that I don’t even remember when I began. I got it put together and applied the white paint. But after that it fell by the wayside. I think maybe I was nervous about trying to do the masking that had to happen before the black coat could go on. 

Plus I had a mishap with my old airbrush and only recently replaced it with a new one. I’d always used siphon brushes, but the new gravity fed brush is much easier to work with.

The build and the paint both are rough around the edges, but I think I’m going to leave it that way rather than try to fill the cracks and sharpen the edges. It’s a good testament to the process it took to put it together.

Along the way I also learned that V2s were larger than I thought. A person standing next to one would be at around shoulder height with the top of the stand.