Main Mission - Characters
Par olcabour le vendredi, 2 mars 2012, 22:32 - Main mission - Lien permanent
The moon surface is made exactly like the launchpad. The foam sheet is even taken from a launchpad spare parts, so already shaped. Then the mixture of roughcast and dark gray paint is spread on. Once dried, a light gray is airbrushed, sprayed horizontally and always in the same direction, to give illusion of a sun light. The redult is a nice dusty grey.
A few furniture items were still missing in Koenig's office : two small sofas and a large meeting round table. They are quickly scratched and painted.
Koenig desktop is improved with painting, and missing feet are added on the control station desktop.
Provided decals are really awfull. So I prepared new material on computer using photos and drawings found on space1999.net and modified to follow the sources. They are then printed in color on a thick paper.
There are the central column of the main screen, the computers walls, and, for the office of Koenig, the communication terminal, a small wall screen, and the large meeting table. Lot's of tiny papers sheet, in differents colors are also prepared.
They are simply set up with white glue (acrylic).
For the computers wall, with a cutter, I ran a few very light notches for easy folding it like an accordion. Once dry, the wall is finally glued at its definitive place.
I had originally planned to use silver tape for windows, which would have reflected light and would give the impression that the windows were lit (as was done with the studio model). But after seeing the tower painted, I thought that the whole thing would be too much gray in the end, so I kept the idea of tape (for speed) but in black, to break the uniformity of the gray.
To illuminate the corridors, viewable behind the doors left open, I will install two white LEDs. So I prepared a simple little parallel circuit, connected to an appropriate adapter: 3V and I do not know many ampere (I simply followed the advice of an electronics store guy... That was perfect for my level ;-))
The upper and lower parts of the tower are finally glued together with white glue.
The corridors are set up.
And after some testing, LEDs are installed.
The "box" is close, to prevent light from escaping behind, with a thick piece of foam board (1 cm) cutted tightly to hold in place by itself.
Now i need to populate this space with the characters. In the kit, there are only four different types, each coming in three. Based on 2 kits, so I have six characters of each type. On each of these four types, I let one or two as is, and I modified arms and legs to change their positions. Some even became sitting characters. On the following pictures: those on the left are the originals, the modified ones are on the right.
The character in space suit is recycled from an anime (Gundam I think) kit and modified.
The costumes are painted uniformly gray beige.
Hair color and pullover sleeves are determined, according to their position in the dio, and the situations I want to create. The sleeve's colors belongs to the moonbase sections :
- Black: commander
- White: Medical
- Red: command center / weapons
- Yellow: technical / service
- Orange: pilot / reconnaissance
- Violet: Security
- Brown: Computer
- and Prof. Bergman, who has no color.
The characters situations are dry tested. A meeting begins in Koenig's office. We can recognize Koenig, Dr. Russell, Professor Victor Bergman, Alan Carter, and a computer officer.
Meanwhile, Paul Morrow oversees Main Mission, and particularly Sandra Benes...
There are few characters remaining for the hangar.
Paper sheet and folders are added on tables and desks to give a little more life to this place. The furniture, the communication terminal, the mezzanine and the characters are finally stuck with microscale Micro Liquitape. This glue has the texture of a white glue, and more importantly, it is repositionable. Very handy here, so I can then correct position if necessary.
It's finished !