88reaper88 - wow, 1:6? The only one I've seen at that scale was by Chris Chulamanis back in he day.

retrogarde - thanks man. I hope to have some thing soon (lighting wise) that's never been seen before in an APC build.

A disco ball?

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

Haha - now there's a thought!

Right, I'm back to this after a horrible few months. The wife's mum was living alone during lockdown and deteriorating rapidly (she's 86 and has dementia) so we've got her into a residential home where she's now secure and as safe from Covid as anyone can be. There was a lot more to it than that but that's the potted version.

I've blown the dust of the crate I packed this build in, taken stock and started back at it.

I promised something special in my last post and I've always wanted to see real practical strip-style lighting on the seating restraint bars but never seen it done on a model. I did some experiments and finally sorted a solution with a micro LED, a small section of white 2mm tube and a couple of short lengths of 0.5mm fibre optic to enhance the effect.





It works fine and I've tested using some thin brass sheet to block the light from half the 'tube' as in the full scale version.

Next up with this piece is producing a full moveable prototype attached to the seating.

Parden the harsh language, but, Damn! that is too cool!!!!

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The impossible takes a while longer and goes over budget too...

Thanks Knoxville Joker! It feels great to be back at it.

I got as much time in on this as I could before work starts tomorrow. I got some tiny magnets (2mm diameter, 1mm thick) to use as door closures and for fixing weapons to racks, hands etc.



You can see one of these in the door edge and a corresponding one in the cabin shell. I had to dig out and reverse the one in the door.



The tiny magnets hold the door closed just fine. Here you can see the side running light temporarily installed too.



The running light is a shaved LED glued onto a shaped section of clear sprue.



The headlights have been a little tricky since the filming vehicle had circular lamps behind a rectangular opening. Here's what I have.



The white will be light-blocked and painted dark. The donor lamps are from stick-on push-lights, for cupboards and such. I cropped down the boards they were on and soldered/made good the connections, keeping the resistors attached to help extend the life of the lamps.



I kept a switch from one of the push-lamps and this will be painted and installed in the cabin, disguised as a greeblie.

Here are the left and right side lamps temporarily placed. The batteries (3 x 1.5v) will go on the right side and be hidden from view.





Here are the headlights switched on. I didn't realise until I lit them both together that one of them is a warm white, and the other one a cool white. I'll place a gel in front of them to balance them out.





Well, that's it for now. I think next up will be wiring all of this stuff in properly but we'll see if anything else jumps to the front of the jobs list. I'm still waiting for supplies to get going properly on the seat-restraint modelling/lighting.

This just blows me away. Excellent work.

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

Pretty cool !
Keep the good work !
And thanks for sharing.

Retrogarde, Buissonland - thank you so much for your kind words. This is a passion project for me so I try to get to it whenever I can!

We've got a small (3 week) lockdown just started so I 'might' get more time in if work slows too (I'm a college teacher).

I got another push-light and matched the LED from it with one of the others to give me two headlamps that now look the same.



I'll use the third one for the top-mounted searchlight. I cut it down and with a little soldering it'll now will fit into its housing - which I started work on. It'll eventually have a brass grille in front of it.

I had some time off so because we're in lock-down what else is there to do, eh?

The searchlight ref I was looking at was way off (a CG source) so the build was totally off. I have better pics so once I realised that I remodelled the light housing properly.

Here's the new light housing in pieces. I bent some styrene sheet around a knife handle and used boiling water to set it in place. I used baking foil as a light blocker (glued with contact adhesive).



It's all installed and temp dry-fit to check everything.









..and a lighting test.


APC_21011306.jpg

Checking what the lamp looks like when the roof is on (and checking that it's straight).







Yup, that looks OK so it's glued in place. There's a slight light leak at the back but I reckon the paint will sort that.

I'll think about handling the grille in front later. There's probably some teeny-tiny brass-work in my future.

I've been neglecting Gorman's console for too long so I thought it should get some love today. Here's where I'm at.



I printed the screen bezels months ago so I put those on and assembled the sides and the desk. The rail for the swivel chair had me stumped for a while but I came up with probably the simplest way to achieve a sliding, swivelling base.



My crappy phone camera refused to focus but you can see that at the base of the chair there's a small circular piece of styrene with a larger one under it. I made 2 rails from wire core plastic rod and the chair base sits within them. I left one end of one rail free for now so I can take the chair out when needed.



Eventually there'll be lighting behind the screens and I'm working on possible wire solutions for the grab-handles that go at each side of each screen. The whole console is a separate module that slots in place so I can work on it outside the APC shell.

I had thought of trying to get a 35mm slide transparency of the screens (in scale) that I could cut apart and glue in, and that might still be possible. Alternatively, I'll use inks to paint them in.

That rotate/rail system is pure brilliance!

Thanks Badkarma. I don't know why Hiya Toys didn't do the same with their APC - from what I've seen online it's got 2 rails too and slides but doesn't swivel.

Glad to see this again!

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"Awww, someone tell me that's a boot!

It's a boot!"

III drops

Thanks Dropshipbob - glad to be back!

Just a small update today - amongst a few other small tasks I've added the rail end-stops for the top turret so it doesn't drop off the back.



I also added the rack behind Ripley and Burke's seats that houses the smart sentry gun packs.





I'm going to pop out a couple of 3d prints of them in resin. Because they've got removable lids and they'll have more detail in resin I've added a roughly modelled interior based on what reference I could find.



Well, that's it for now. I'll be back with more soon.

Ill give you some food for thought if I may. You might want to rethink the LED's. I say this as the light they throw is 'modern' and lacks the warmth of incandescent bulbs. I swapped out the bulb in my shoulder lamp and while it put out more light, it lacked the character of the older bulb. Other than that, you are killing this project!

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Wow, I got a brazilion for this?

Thanks Lear60man - every opinion is welcome here!

I agree that LEDs can look 'soul-less'. The warm white ones look better. For me, using LEDs is a matter of speed and convenience, they're 'what I have'.

I will be adding either a coloured gel over some of them (like the red cockpit lighting) or colouring them with an ink wash. That kind of finessing is a ways off yet though.

Just a small update today. I've been doing lots of smaller jobs - tidying up the look of the rear exterior including adding the fender-ey bits on the wheel arches and smoothing some of the joins between the styrene panels.



There's still gaps to close and some bits are taped together for now but it's looking better and my to-do list is gradually getting ticked.



Now then, best way to accurately check the thickness of a scrap of styrene? Why, Mr. Vernier to the rescue. I love my clockwork Vernier - no batteries to replace.

Wow man, what an awesome project. Just now saw this and I am highly impressed.

This is going to be a beast!

Thanks obiHahn! It's been a long haul with a lot of breaks. I'm just happy to be getting on with it.

I've knocked up some 3d models of what I call the 'exterior furniture', specifically the bits and bobs that are on the back of the APC. These have been printing tonight and have just finished. A little bit of clean-up and they'll be fine. I would use my resin printer but that's in the shed, and it's minus 3 degrees here today.



..and here they are just started.





..and here they are done and ready for a quick fill/sand/paint.

Another small update. Greeblies for the back of the APC have a coat of primer to show up the layers for filling/sanding and have been attached temporarily to the structure. Because my APC isn't exactly the same shape as the model or the full size prop, I've used my judgment on placement (the filmed versions had differences anyway).





I had a heart stopping moment when I wondered if the turret would clear these new elements but it's fine.. Phew.



I'll probably print resin versions in future but these look ok!

Great progress. I am hooked now!