This is what happens to me when I go to a hobby shop - only instead of being ambushed by three-headed snakes, I'm ambushed by models. I go in for something simple, like some super glue or decal solvent, and I end up buying so much stuff I almost need a porter to help me get it all to the car. No wonder my tires are wearing out; I'm constantly hauling all that wretched cargo.
This is, of course, the recent re-release of the famous old kit. Not hard to build at all, though the three-headed snake was a bit ill-fitting. The snakes had seams in a concave part of the tops of their heads that I couldn't find a convenient way to fix, so I cut fake crests out of sheet plastic and glued them in to hide the seam (and to make them look a little less like ordinary terrestrial snakes). There are also bits of stretched sprue in their mouths, to hide other seams that I couldn't fix. And the strap for Spock's tricorder wasn't acceptable, so I cut it off and burned it (to to speak) and replaced it with a strip cut out of doubled-over electrician's tape. The final thing I did - I glued Woodland Scenics "blended turf" on instead of trying to paint and drybrush the molded grass. It looks a little park-like, but better than the stock parts, and it was useful for filling the yawning gaps between the asparagus-like tree and the base.
For whatever it's worth.
5 comments:
When they re released this I wish they would have done something about Spocks face. It doesn't look like him.
No, it doesn't look like him, or Tuvok, or any other Vulcan that I know either. And the way the head is molded, there are ugly seams on his cheeks below his ears that are hard to fix, and his eyebrows are way too heavy. The head is a separate assembly and could be easily replaced with a seamless resin casting. What do you think the odds are of Eduard making a replacement head? Yeah, pretty much zero...
Two other problems with the kit: first, he isn't really aiming his phaser at the snake, and fixing that would require a certain amount of surgery. And second, the phaser and communicator are molded into his hands, which makes painting either one difficult.
But it was still fun. I'm glad they bring things like this back from time to time.
I have the original of this kit and though there are many design flaws it does hold a lot of nostalgia for me. It takes me back to my childhood. By the way they are planning on re releasing the Romulan bird of prey next year.Can't wait.
I'm glad they're releasing all these things - even the K7 space station, which I figured was gone forever. Some of them I doubt I'll build, like the 1/350th scale Enterprise - I just don't know where I'd display it.
Perhaps one day they'll get around to reissuing the DS9 runabout and the Defiant too.
I got this kit for Christmas around the time I "stopped building models." I always regretted not finishing it as it was a great looking kit.
Second chances.
Post a Comment