Monday, August 20, 2012

Lindberg Interplanetary UFO


Lindberg's "Interplanetary UFO" model.  I believe the decals used to be for the "USS Leif Ericson" but now it's the "USS Yuri Gagarin".  Which is okay with me.  The model came in greenish glow-in-the-dark plastic and I was tempted to leave it that way, but the fit wasn't good and I had to do some advanced filing, filling, sanding, and screaming to erase the seams, and that ruined the glow-in-the-dark effect.  So I painted it Fifties-style, all bare metal.  I also plugged the see-through engine nacelles with plastic bulkheads and glued science-fictiony doodads to the bulkheads (domes from an AMT Romulan Warbird on the front, and sprockets from an M113 to the backs to simulate "plasma thrusters" or something).  The paint is highly generic hardware store silver spray paint that I bought to cover up welds on fence panels - it works for models too, but MAN it goes on heavy.  Maybe that's a good thing.



The decals weren't bad.  A little fragile, but workable.  I sanded the raised windows off, knowing that I'd be using the window decals anyway.


A view of the shuttlecraft bay.  The decal sheet includes decals that simulate machinery on the shuttle bay bulkheads, which was nice of them, because the kit parts had scribbly engraving and looked troublesome to paint.  I scratchbuilt new shuttle bay doors out of sheet styrene and bits and pieces of Evergreen strip styrene, as the kit doors lent new emphasis to the term "clunky".

I still have some work to do.  The green paint on one of the engine domes is horribly smeared, and the model needs to be cleaned and overcoated, but by and large, it's pretty much done.  The one-sentence summary:  fun, but stock up on clamps and sandpaper before you start.

2 comments:

-Warren Zoell said...

A bit "O" kit bash I see. Very Nice. It makes me want to revisit mine.
Isn't it an AMT kit?

William said...

Good heavens, you're right - it was AMT, not Lindberg! I don't know why I got it in my head that it was a Lindberg kit. Maybe the bad fit put me in mind of Lindberg kits of yore...