Welcome to the Fantasy Factory

Life is on its usual, steady course. Work, school, family life, afterschool activities…the days are pretty full, which is a good thing, I think! I’m back in class, naturally, and officially approved for graduation in August. Whaaaa-whooo! And idiot that I am, I’m already looking at Masters programs!

If you haven’t caught the latest episodes of Doctor Who on BBC America, you’re really missing out. There was a changing of the guard since last season, or series, as the Brits like to call it. There’s a new Doctor, a new showrunner, and a decidedly different tone to the show. The first couple of episodes were introductions (getting to know the Doctor; Amy, the new companion; and so on), and to be frank, I was getting bored. Tell some stories already! Thankfully, the show hit its stride with the most recent episode, which included the Weeping Angels. Don’t ask, just go watch Blink, which is one of the finest pieces of television I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been able to work a little more on the Big-E hanger bay. This is pretty basic stuff here. I shot everything with black primer (for light blocking). I then airbrushed the floor with a dark gray, and the rest of the pieces with a 50/50 mixture of dark gray and white. After drying, I applied a lot of masking tape, and hand brushed the raised details on the hanger walls, and the cargo sections with a medium gray. I then filled in the portholes with flat black, and detailed the rear wall with some desert yellow, after which I sprayed everything with a dullcoat lacquer.

On to the assembly!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks – School is done for this term; I should have an A for this one. The wife is out of town visiting family, so I’m playing Mr. Mom for a few days. It’s been kinda cool, taking the kids to their afterschool activities, helping with homework, and cooking dinner. I might actually get used to this kind of domesticity. And I miss cooking so much! I’m thinking of taking a few classes (cooking classes, that is) after I’ve finished my degree. Sounds like more school, doesn’t it? I resigned myself long ago to the fact that I’ll be a student of something for the rest of my life.

I gave in and purchased a Barnes and Noble nook a few weeks back, and I absolutely love it! It’s very easy to read on, but the content itself could use a boost (c’mon, release ALL of Parker’s work already!). I’ve been making regular donations to the community book pool at work as a pare down my DTB (dead tree book) pile at home.

With a little extra time on my hands, I’ve done a little more work on the Big-E, namely the Hanger Bay. As I mentioned before, it’s almost a kit in itself. I started by trimming all the little detailing pieces from the brass photo-etch fret, and using cyanoacrylate (a.k.a Super Glue) to attach the pieces to the model parts.

This is looking at the starboard side of the bay; the left looks identical, just reversed (duh!). I figured that I’d skip taking pictures of that. Off to the painting booth for a coat of primer.

This kit is full of several mini-projects, like the Arboretum in the previous posts. Here’s another one.

Basic stuff here. I shot the whole thing with flat black primer from a rattle can, then airbrushed the Tamiya Desert Yellow. I then taped off the walls, and handbrushed the medium gray flooring. More tape, followed by the red recliners and benches. More tape, followed by the brown tables. Some decals, some ballast, some bushes, and a layer of dullcoat lacquer. I kinda like it!

In last post, I left you with wondering how I got gravel onto a model of a garden spot on an imaginary spaceship. It’s quite easy, really…you use model railroad supplies! I got the idea from a couple of other builders, and modified it to suit my needs and tastes. I got a bag of Woodland Scenics Fine Ballast, Fine Turf – Green Grass, and Scenic Glue. And no, I don’t get a dime from the company.

You’re supposed to put the glue down, then put this stuff in some kind of shaker bottle, and…well, shake it out over the scenery to get a natural look. The pre-made shaker bottles are 8 bucks apiece…time to improvise! I took a small workbench container, drilled some small holes in the lid with my trusty Dremel, and…

Home-made shaker bottles!

The pics below show the method to my madness. I used the exact same steps for both ballast and turf, so we’ll skip the complete play-by-play. The first pic shows all the ballast down, and some of the turf. The second shows show I “painted” the glue over the area to be covered. I used a cheap hobby paint brush for this, making sure to get a uniform coating.

Next, I took my shaker bottle, and generously coated the glue area with the turf. After allowing it to dry (2-3 hours, depending on the humidity), I tapped the sides of the part to shake away the excess. If a little got outsie of the lines, I scraped it off gently with an unfolded paperclip. Once complete, I sprayed the whole thing with some Scenic Cement, to seal all the ballast and turf. The final pic shows the fully covered Arboretum.

Do you see those little holes scattered around the turf? Remember those lame trees (the sticks with cotton balls)? That’s where they go in. I figured that I could do better, and Woodland Scenics was able to help out again. I trimmed some of the branches off their Deciduous Armatures, and glued them into the holes using the Scenic Glue. I then dropped a blob of Scenic Glue in the fork of the branch, and dropped a Medium Green Bush onto it. I teased and trimmed the stuff to look like tree foliage, painted the doorways a medium gray, and sprayed the entire setup with a dullcoat lacquer.

And with the ceiling piece in place, ready for the rest of the lower hull.

I’ve got some of the smaller pieces of the Big-E in work, and wanted to update my progress. The first section that I tackled is the Arboretum. It’s like a little park tucked away in the secondary hull of Enterprise. There are very few pictures of it, model or screen, so imagination is pretty much the name of the game.

This pic shows the unadorned part. The part came with some triangular points sticking up from the base; I guess they were supposed to be evergreen trees. A little work with the Dremel, and they were gone. There were also some add-in parts meant to be deciduous trees, but looked like sticks with cotton balls on top…tossed ‘em.

I then added some detail to the interior walls, courtesy of Paragrafix’s excellent brass photo-etch enhancement set. A lot of the pieces here will show up as the model progresses. I love the look that the wall pieces add.

Next up, I hit the whole thing with some flat black primer. Because the model will be lit from various places, I’ll need to black out the backside of most everything, to allow the light only where I want it.

After that dried and cured, I hit the whole piece with my airbrush, using Tamiya’s Desert Yellow acrylic. I chose the color simply because I thought it added a nice warm tone to the ship’s interior. I then detailed the pond areas, and began laying down my gravel path.

Gravel? What the heck am I talking about? You’ll have to wait until the next post!

Well, the holidays treated the family and I well. Lots of good times with family and friends, waaay to much good food, and not too much family drama. I think everyone with a family knows what I’m talking about with that last comment. I’ve always assumed that the drama is always there, under the surface, and that the stress of the holidays simply brings it out.

I was saddened to hear that my favorite author, Robert B. Parker, passed away on January 18th. He was apparently found at his writing desk, the victim of a sudden heart-attack. I began reading his works since my early teenage years, and thoroughly enjoyed everything he’s published, especially his Spenser novels. The writing is spare and witty, and the characters pretty well formed; there’s little room, or need, for origin stories or background. Growing up, I was a pretty rebellious and directionless kid, and his novels struck a chord in me; Spenser (or Parker, undeniably the Boston detective’s alter ego) had many qualities that I tried to emulate. Sort of like trying on clothes, in that you see what fits or looks good, and discard what doesn’t. They weren’t  bad role models, all things considered. I’m gonna miss the joy he brought with each new release. Further details about the man and his craft can be found here, and pretty much all over the ‘Net.

A coworker of mine was demonstrating his Amazon Kindle e-reader the other day, and I have to say that I’m hooked! Of course, the recent Consumer Electronic Show showcased some 20 plus e-readers, not to mention the forthcoming iPad from Apple. I almost pulled the trigger on a Kindle, but then read about battles between Amazon the major publishing houses. That, coupled with Amazon only supporting a proprietary format/DRM scheme on the device, has given me pause. Maybe a Nook, with its industry de facto format and DRM?

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I cooked a turducken for family, and a Cajun-style deep-fried turkey for a friend. The turducken turned out wonderful, after 10 hours of slow roasting in the oven. The stuffing (a cornbread, and an onion and sage) were a perfect complement to the layers of roasted birds. Hats off to Don at Great Lakes Butcher Supply for putting it all together. 

Unfortunately, the deep-fried bird was a little…well, extra crispy. One of my dogs slipped her collar right after I dunked the bird into the oil, and it got a little extra heat (temperature-wise) while I chased the dog down. I was really embarrassed to deliver the bird to my friend, but assured him that the meat itself was just fine. He later told me that the meat was just fine, but that his family was looking forward to the crunchy, peanut-flavor infused skin. Maybe I’ll get a chance to redeem myself at Christmas…

In between school and the holiday, I managed to finish some pieces of the Big-E. I’m still wrestling with the best way to handle the bigger assemblies, so I thought it would be best to work on some of the smaller stuff.

I’m actually pretty proud of how this all turned out. Handling the tiny details that these pieces brought to the table has really bolstered my confidence about this whole idea. Hopefully, that translates to faster progress!

RMW

When I bought the Big-E home, I’ll admit it took a couple of hours of me looking at the box before I tore off the shrink wrap. Was I intimidated? Maybe a little…it’s 17 inches square, and 5 inches deep.

I finally gave in, and ripped the plastic off. The box was stuffed full of parts.

I gave the instructions a once-over while looking at the part bags. I decided to take a look at the model’s base, to see how I could get it to support the actual model and it’s electronics.

I consulted the Oracle of Google, and decided I could accomplish this with a brass rod through the center of the base. Out came the Dremel, and several drilled holes later, I got my results.

Not bad. Off to the painting booth for priming…

RMW

Does anybody remember this scene from “Bull Durham”? The one where Kevin Costner lists the things that he believes in? I pulled something very similar just the other day…

It’s October 31st, around 3 or 4pm. The TV is busy showing an advertisement for holiday-themed pancakes at IHOP, followed by an ad for a creepy motion-capture Disney version of “A Christmas Carol”. WTF?

I gave up hope, long ago, that the Christmas advertising blitz could be held off until Thanksgiving. But Halloween afternoon? My kids were just starting to get their costumes on, and you want to peddle eggnog pancakes?

Needless to say, I launched into a rant of the things that I believe in. A lot of it fell under the category of “When I was a kid”, and my daughters responded with the predictable “Dad, you are SO old school!” comments. Whatever…I’m used to it. Anyways, in no particular order: 

• School shouldn’t start until after Labor Day (and I mean nationally)
• Regular-season football shouldn’t start until the weekend after Labor Day (greedy NFL)
• Christmas decorations should stay “in the back” until after Halloween (Thanksgiving centerpieces need respect, too)
• Ditto for Christmas-themed TV ads (umm…can’t remember any Thanksgiving-specific ads)
• Keep the Valentine’s Day cards off the shelves until after New Year’s Day (do I really need to buy these while I’m returning gifts?)

Anything that I’m missing?

RMW

Well, it’s only been a month since my last post…that’s better than two months, isn’t it?  Since I’ve been talking about the Big-E in a couple of posts, I figured I give a breakdown of what I’m actually doing here.

The model itself

This is actually a slightly modified rerelease of the original Polar Lights kit; the whole Polar Lights/Round2 mess is a tale best left to the interwebs. I actually have two of the original kits, as I royally screwed up a major assembly on the first one. Luckily, a kind soul on the HobbyTalk message boards sold me his spare kit, still in the shrink wrap, for 40 bucks. As eBay prices for these little buggers have gone as high as 250 bucks, I counted myself VERY lucky.

Brass photo-etch details

This kit is designed to add extra detail to the stock kit. You can get much finer detail with a brass photo-etch part than you can with injection-molded styrene. You need a very sharp Xacto knife and a very delicate touch to get some of these pieces off the frame, or sprue.

Replacement parts and enhancements

While one of the, if not the, best Enterprise kit, there are some pieces that are woefully inaccurate. Scroll down until you see the PL Refit Detail Parts. I’ll be working those into the build. Scroll up a little, and you ‘ll see the Travel Pods, Work Bees & Cargo Containers. These pieces are used to detail out the shuttle/cargo bay on the main model…and most modelers consider it to be a model in itself!

The lights

I got the DIY kit, in order to save a little cash. I had no idea the undertaking this was going to be! It looks as if I’m going to be drilling holes all through the model, in addition to LOTS of soldering resistors to LEDs. I might look in to some wire-wrapping tools to make this a little easier.

I’ve also got a ton of paints, brushes, tools, and model railroading supplies (?). Oh yeah, an airbrush and a home-made painting booth to capture and exhaust the paint fumes. But more on that later!

RMW