Archives April 2016

The original Alien movie is still one of my favorite films. Like it’s sibling Blade Runner, also one of my all-time favorites, I’ve no idea how many times I’ve seen it. Let’s just go with “A lot.”

I recently bought some of NECA’s fantastic Alien and Aliens figures, so I decided I wanted to build dioramas for at least two scenes, maybe three. For sure I wanted to build one of Ripley and the ‘Big Chap’ xenomorph in a Nostromo corridor. Another I plan to do is an airlock scene with [all space-suited] Dallas, an Amanda Ripley figure standing in for Lambert, and Kane with melted visor and facehugger. I’m also considering a Narcissus shuttle scene with Ripley in the white ‘compression suit’ and a Big Chap, but I’m not sure if I’ll get up the nerve to tackle that as it’s a bit more complex. I also have the NECA Powerloader, so… who knows what could happen with that one day!

Here’s the first diorama, Ripley (and Jones!) and Big Chap in a corridor of the Nostromo. The overall structure is made of white and black foamcore glued to a hardboard base. The pipes, slats and straight bits are Plastruct styrene elements. The floor is Plastruct terracotta roof sheet sprayed black. The other bits (mostly hidden behind the xenomorph in the photos, unfortunately) are kit-bashed from sprues, the Tamiya Flakvierling 38 kit and I think a couple of things from a AMT Saturn V kit.

Recently Round2 released the model I’ve been waiting most of my life for: A 22″ Eagle Transporter from Space:1999. I can’t adequately express my love for this [fictional] spacecraft design. It is simply brilliant and utterly believable. It’s practical and beautiful in its utilitarianism. The show itself hasn’t aged well, but the design of this wonderful craft certainly has. So. I had to build one… maybe two. As I told my friend John [Foster, also an Eagle enthusiast], I have an Eagle Rule; When any new Eagle model is released, all other projects hit the backburner.

In the past, I’ve built one each of the old (and just ‘adequate’) MPC and AMT 11″ kits. This was some time ago and I don’t have either any more. But since then I’ve built a Warp Models kit (resin kit with lots of white metal parts including an all-metal spine) and the Round2 Deluxe re-issue of the MPC kit with lab pod and booster.

But the 22″ is the one I’ve been waiting on… for years. And not only did Round2 produce a 22″ Eagle kit, they also offered an upgrade kit with metal engine bells and another kit with metal attitude thrusters. Being the lover of this fictional spacecraft that I am, I went for the upgrades along with the kit. In fact… I ended up buying two sets of all. One day I’ll build another 22″ with, maybe, a rescue pod. (I recommend visiting CultTVMan if you’d like to buy your own)

OK. Apart from being bigger, what’s the deal with this whole 22″ thing? During the original production of Space: 1999 three scales of Eagle Transporters were built. 44-inches, 22-inches and roughly 11-inches (OK, and a 5-inch version, but… no one ever talks about that one). I don’t expect I’ll ever build or acquire a 44″ Eagle, but I’m quite happy with the 22″ version. I also built a 1:48 scale buggy to go with it as I did for my 1:72 Warp Models Eagle (shown below for size comparison).

So without further ado, my 22″ Eagle Transporter (I may post some ‘in progress’ pics later):