Halcyon Aliens Dropship 1/72nd Scale
Page Number
Well it's that time again...
Time To Get it On.
Welcome back to the hellhole people!
Well now, this little turn out at the behest of a client.
Yeah I know it's the old Halcyon kit and all that it entails but hey,
No one said this job was easy and whoever did say that does something else for a living.

Right then, simple enough brief, build, light, make look pretty as much as is humanly possible.
Now this will have some additions apart from the lighting, namely proper cockpit with figures and this wee thing...

Hold on, i'll get closer.

isn't that a little cutie?
Aoshima 1/72nd APC and very nice too.
This one is slated to get lights added but we'll get to that later.

Now here's the thing.
The Halcyon kit...this lot....





...is touted at 1/72nd scale, at least that what it says in the paperwork.
Now if it had said "it looks kinda close to 1/72nd scale" then I would have been ok about it.
As many already know calling this 72nd is kinda spurious, seems a couple of inches too short but you gotta go with what ya got.
Even if what ya got ain't a lot.

So i'll take it for granted that Aoshima with their APC have it correct so time for a looksee.
Here's the thing, taking the two parts of the ramp from the dropship and then lining them up with the APC.
Like so...





The words 'tight fit' just don't quite say it.
So how to make this wee APC and the dropship work together.
Well first, it's a case of looking at the fit of the kit parts.
Laying the ramp where the destructions say leads to a scoop like effort and robs the APC of about 1/2" of space needed.

And that's just to make it look like it fits.
So then, taking the ramp and shifting it back until the front end of the ramp doesn't overhang quite as much.

That's better!.
So then, much scribing of lines with some care as the plastic is soft.
Keep going until the telltale light lines can be seen on the inside.





Then in with the scalpel, working carefully round until the bugger falls out.

Now we'll save that scrap part and here's why.

Time to build in a bay for the APC.
Or something that looks like it should.
The scrap part will stand in for the ceiling.

So to the sides of said bay.
A lump of plastic sheet, about 60thou" or there about's and much scribing did happen.

So this sheet was cut up to make the sides.
The aforementioned scrap part was dressed up with some pre-patterned plasticard and the holes drilled which are supposed to be lights I think.
The parts were then assembled into a box, like so.

So now some nice and thin strips were brought in to play, cut up in to roughly 1 & 1/2" bits.
These were then glued into the scribe lines to give the impression of some form of framing.

This slide in and glue treatment was applied all round.
One or two bits from the greeblie box were slipped in just to dress it up a wee bit.
The ends of all the strips were trimmed up proper.

So then, some plasticard strips were cut from a sheet and glued into the bottom fuselage piece to crate some kind of a lip so to speak.
The surrounding surface made good and the bay fixed into position.











Now the bay looks like it might actually be big enough for the APC.
Or at least a hell of a lot closer to it that it originally did.



Well the work goes on.
But that's it for this first update until I get some more piccie's sorted.
Though next up we have hydraulic happenings, landing gear grief and cockpit conundrums.
it's all good, clean, teeth gnashing fun!...
Honest.

You goodly lot go easy now and see thee next time!
Page Number