Halcyon Aliens Dropship plus APC diorama WIP

[Boldman]

Looking through later in the movie there is a scene towards the end where Ripley is tooling up to go rescue Newt which takes place inside the APC bay of the second dropship. It definitely shows green walls so it must be the lighting in that previous screencap, so I'll leave it as it. There are some interesting shots there that give more detail, but I'm not sure I'm going to do anymore detailing in there. It did remind me about the ladder as well however. That will be retraceted in my diorama as the APC will have just been deployed.

Lots of small bit done last night: painting the pilots faces and helmets, fixing the silver reflectors to the headlights, preparing the missiles for painting, lining the inside of the forward missile pods with textured plastic card to give it more texture, another coat of mr surfacer on the canopy, fixing the headlights into the forward body, drilling a hole through the angled joint of the missile pod to add a short bit of brass tube to give the joint strength. This tube has been cut to size and epoxied into position. Once its set I can use that to align a second hole and rod to secure the leg properly. Then it will be the same on the other leg.

No photos this time, just some writing... hope I haven't bored you

 

[Boldman]

...and we're back!

After a couple days break things are starting to happen again. First off, the missiles (except the ones that will be in the wing pods) have been primed

Now one of the problems that is often reported about this model is the joint between the missile pods and the main body, or rather the LACK of a joint. Out of the box its expected to just attach the pod to the side of the body with just a plain flat plate. This is of course inherently weak as the forces on it just from gravity will break the joint. To avoid this problem I have come up with a solution:

3mm holes drilled into the face of the missile pod arm that joins the body and into the body itself. Then insert a short bit of 3mm brass tube and araldite it in place. The Milliput on the inner surface gives the joint a better anchor for the rods to journal into. I'm not sure if I might leave the pods detachable whenit complete for ease of transport. I think this might just have to wait to experiment once everything has set and solidified completely.

Also, headlights done with silver foil:

Pilots got a black wash which has made them go all shiny!

and the canopy is slowly being built up layer upon layer. I hope this works because if it doesn't I am well and truly screwed

I've got a couple of days off next week so I am hoping to make some progress this weekend, so watch this space!

"Somebody said 'alien' she thought they said 'illegal alien' and signed up" "F*** you, man! " "Anytime, anywhere!"

 

[aaron]

Hi Andrew, This is coming along nicely i like how you resolved the pod issue.

Good luck with the canopy.

 

[phalinmegob]

i will borrow that idea for the pods when i come to do mine if ya dont mind,looking good so far.

 

[Boldman]

If you do use the idea, just be careful and line the rods up properly- mine ended up a bit crooked and that means gettign them in and out of the holes is a bit tricky!

Well today is a bit of an "oh bugger"!

Last night after I realised just how shiny the pilots were, I looked out the Tamiya flat base jar and put it aside tor today to mix with a little Klear to make a decent flat coat. First hing this morning, while not fully awake I decided to go ahead and give the pilots their flat coat, but instead of mixing with Klear I gave them a coat of flat base! The result:

which is AFTER they've been cleaned up somewhat! Arse!

Going to need to think about this one!

In other news, work has begin on the forward pylons. These have inside faces that are hollow and very boring, so lets fill them up a bit and give them some interesting texture...

Okay so it doesn't come out in the photo very well but I've added strips of Evergreen "Metal Siding" sheet to give it a ribbed appearance. I'm also replacing the very plain and boring strut that provides the mount for the missiles (the green oblongs at the back right in the photo) with scratch built ones from the same "Metal siding" plastic.

Thats all for today, more tomorrow when I might be able to sort out the pilot disaster!

That's great, this is really great, man. Now, what the f*** are we supposed to do? We're in some pretty shit now, man!

 

[mobear]

you can see the rib effect looking real good

mobear

 

[aaron]

Hi Andrew i did the exact same thing with the flat coat on a sturmtiger. No worries mate just load the AB with water and wash it off, It will white back over but eventually the white will wash off and stay off. Xf86 is Tamiya flat clear. Flat base needs mixing =p

Im loving the scratch building your doing to get extra detail, Thatys what its all about.

 

[Boldman]

Been a funny couple of days - spent most of yesterday uploading about 600 photos to the galleries of the new IPMS Farnborough site so didn't get as much done to the dropship as I would like. Then today on my day off I ended up doing a load of gardening since the sun was shining! Tomorrow I'm hoping to be able to pay a visit to the REME Museum in Arborfield just down the road from where I live.

In the meantime, some progress has been made. First off, the pilots have been repainted to solve the chalky problem. I'll be more careful next time!

Next I have rebuilt the missile pods, removing the moulded detail and scratch building my own:

Next we need something to fit IN the missile pods, so 32 cocktail sticks have sacrificed themselves! First step was to cut them to length, then one end had to be rounded to represent the nose of the missile. I am still not decided how to do the back end. The moulded detail shows fins at the back, however the Colonial Marines Technical Manual shows these as straight tubes and the illustration key implies that these are launch tubes with the rockets inside and no fins!

In the end the definitive answer comes from a screencp:

That shows fins on the missiles, most noticable on the right pod. Sigh, thought I might have got away with that. I'm really not sure what to do here, we are talking about 128 small fins. That thought freaks me out!

 

[mossiepilot]

Just got caught up Andrew, this is coming along great guns.

Great scratch building.

Tony.

Get on the ready line marines, GET ON THE READY LINE!!!

 

[Boldman]

I do have a question for anyone who has already built this. I came across these parts listed in the instructions but can't find them anywhere on the sprues:

What is interesting is that there are OTHER part numbers 45 and 48 that are nothing to do with this. Also note that the numbers are not inside circles which denotes plastic parts (transparencies have a square), so where do these come from? As it stands anyway I'm scratch building those as well!

 

[Boldman]

Well it turns out they are decals! Oh well never mind I've already scratch built them...

You can also see the pylons have been added on this one and are undergoing insertion (ooo makes you eyes water!)

 

[mobear]

darn fine job mate,i love it

mobear

 

[Boldman]

Been a good day today, my second and last holiday day for now from work, back to the grind tomorrow. Been fantastic bit of weather for it as well. out in the garden yesterday and today was extra good as I finally got round to driving 6 miles down the road to visit the REME Museum in Arborfield Barracks. The vehicle hall was superb with a lovely Scammell, CrARRV, Samson, Stalwart the works. Got loads of photos for future reference whn I build my Samson and CrAARV

Anyway back to Aliens... The missile pods have come together finally all ready to take the missiles!

I've tried taking pics without the flash as it bounces back to fiercely from the white plastic card.

Quite a bit of scratch building there... I think that when this is complete I will build myself a nice simple Spitfire OOB as a break from sodding plastic card!!!

The missiles themselves have received several coats of white primer spray and I've test fitted some cocktail sticks into the ports to see how things fit. It must be said, there is more space in there than I'd like, however it is acceptable - at least considering what I've put myself through!!!

I really need to start putting together some of these sub-assemblies in the near future! I spend all the time flitting form one little bit to the next its actually hard to see overall progress even though a lot of time has been spent so far. I'm guessing (and hoping) that it will all fall into place as time goes on and the sub-assembiles become less sub and more erm... not sure how to finish that sentence without skating into double-entedre territory!

Next: The APC bay gets attached to the main body! OMG!!!

Favourite line from Bishop:

I may be synthetic but I'm not stupid!

 

[mobear]

to stop the flash hang a piece of toilet tissue over the flash to diffuse it.and the pods look, well wow thats all i can say

mobear

 

[Boldman]

Thanks for the tip about the tissue I'll have a go next time I'm photographing the white plastic!

So after my comment yesterday I thought it was time to start putting things together - gulp! Does anyone else feel some sense of trepidation? You spend ages building the little bits and piece almost as if you are putting off the actual main assembly just in case you make a mistake? I found the same thing with my Challenger Diorama last year. I spent so long faffing about with little details that I lost sight of the main build for a while.

Anyway after a test fit of the APC bay into the main body I realised there was a Grand Canyon-like gap around the joint, so I slipped some shims of plastic card aroudnt he outside of the bay

Then when that was dry, this evening I did the unthinkable - I GLUED THE BAY IN!!! OMG OMG OMG!!!!!! The WORLD WILL END!!!

Well maybe not... Bit of filler around the edges some of which is going to be a bit of a bugger to sand back but it was necessary.

So I'm on a roll now and then look what I did!!!!

Yes the cockpit seems to have got itself assembled as well! I'm rather chuffed with that, it looks appropriately busy and crowded. Finally tonight the missile pds ahve gone into the otehr room to get primed up ready for their Olive Drab. They will get their missiles AFTER they've been fully painted. Also started on the engine intakes as well. Seems weird to start building new bits having spent so much time on just three main areas so far lol!

As an aside, I thought I'd share my new musical purchase which has been keeping me company over the last few days...Transatlantic Whirld Tour 2010 No its not an Amazon shill! This is a prog rock "supergroup" who produce an album every few years and in this live triple CD set they play ONLY 6 tracks! Three of around 30 minutes and one of 80 minutes!!! It struck me that the old school prog bands from the 70s must be GREEN with envy that a modern band can produce a single track of 80 minutes when they were forced to split 4 sub 20 minute tracks across 4 sides of a double album - although I've never liked Tales from the Topographic Oceans (thats from Yes) or in The case of Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick they had to split the one 40 minute track over two sides. Funnily enough Thick as a Brick is celebrating its 40th anniversary this week! Damn I feel old!

Anyway, enough of my blatherings I'm sure you're not really interested

Oh finally, someone sent me this link to Youtube Superior Firepower: The Making of Aliens - YouTube to a 3hour long "Making of Aliens"!!! Never seen it before and so far only got 2 hours into it. Might take in a bit more before going to bed

 

[Boldman]

Sadly the tissue idea didn't work on my camera - I don't think its clever enough to handle tricks like that So the fun continues...

APC bay now fitted, gaps filled and sanded and looking pretty good! Some of the major pieces for the main body now attached so I thought a bit of a test fit was in order:

The missile pods are only pushed into place on the brass rods I added, but they've been primed and ready for colour and then missiles! Under the front "wings" I've added more "Metal Sheeting" plasticard to complete the area where the forward missile racks will be. as you can see in this unfortunately blurry picture:

and finally for now, the larger missiles have been painted up:

There will be a bit of a hiatus over the weekend as I'll be in Cosford. I'll have the Starfury and Firefly with me on the IPMS Farnborough stand, come and say hello!

 

[papa 695]

Some great work Andrew coming along a treat

 

[Boldman]

So after a fun day at Cosford and some very useful extra research material, we get back to work. First thigns first, the Cosford model showed me some extra detail on the rear landing leg:

which shows two extra oleo pistons at the front of the leg and on the landing pad itself, connected to the rear foot "flap". You can see here the diagram from the instructions showing a very poorly detailed leg and struts

So some drilling, scribing and scratch building produces this set of ocmponents:

which consisit of the landing foot with some extra lumps built up to match the other model, "Y" shaped strut with some scribing done to give it more texture, a torsion beam which has had its middle drilled out, but sadly is shown on the Cosford model to be a straight strut with some girder detail. Next is the outer and inner tubes of the piston for the foot. I'll be back making the forward oleo piston tomorrow.

 

[Boldman]

So a few days have passed and here is today's update: First lets pick up from the previous update where I was working on the rear leg. This is the foot with the new oleo-like piston holding up the back of the foot:

Then when the other components are added it starts to really take shape:

There is still one more piston to add at the front of the "Y" frame, but that will have to wait until the leg is attached to the plate that fixes it to the main body. You can see the plastic card bracket to the left of the leg. This photo also shows off the reshaped strut.

So that done, I started looking at the front legs. The first thing I realised is that the undercarriage doors are missing. You can see them here

and here

So needless to say I built them from plastic card, using the inserts that the undercarriage lets slot into as the patterns

The inserts slot into holes underneth the nose and so I cut a narrow slot at the front that the new doors will fit into

The front legs built up pretty strightforward for once, so no detailing required there. Since there are no wheels, there aren't even any brake lines to add! So this leaves us with several interesting subcomponents now built...

so that means the time has come to attach the cockpit assembly and the forward missile pylons

As you can see the cockpit canopy and headlight transparencies have been attached. The fit of the cockpit to the body was pretty rope, a bit of filler and some milliput sorted that out

This was a truly shocking gap!

So things have progressed quite a long way! I'm now waiting for some 8mm acrylic rod to arrive so that I can look at where I will be mounting the dropship. I think I know where I'll put the rod - there is a large gap behind the APC bay and forward of the rear leg, so this would be an ideal place to drill a hole to take a supporting rod. I bought some 5mm acrylic rods but they are too flexible, so I looked at the largest drill I have and that is 8mm so thats what I've gone for this time!

I'll have to start work on the base soon!

What do you expect us to use man, harsh language?

 

[CDW]

Coming on just nicely, think the leg will look the business with the extra suspension rods etc, good call

"not bad, for a human"