Satya's blog - models/
I just built a paper model of the Chrysler Building.
Quite simple, needs dexterity to fold the paper just right.
It even lights up!
(Activate the image link to go to the picture gallery.) Last updated: Jun 25 2005 12:27
While wandering around the Tuesday Morning store
and buying up Star Wars LEGO Mini kits,
I found
this F-18 kit from Pilot.
Since I'm building a
1:48 scale Hornet
anyway, I figured this might be nice.
It's pre-painted and the detail on the landing gear is bad.
It's also from the same mold as a different, possibly battery-powered model.
It has a hatch that was already screwed on, that hid a battery compartment.
This model does not require batteries.
Anyway, I finished it in about 15 minutes while watching Family Guy.
Last updated: Jan 22 2006 09:41
I bought these two LEGO mini kits at a glorified flea market.
Then I found that one of them has extra parts that produce one-quarter of a Y-Wing model. So I went back to buy the other three that give parts for the rest of the Y-Wing. It turned out that these kits are out of stock at Amazon and at LEGO's web site, so I bought the other three available models as well. So, a total of 8 models at $2.99 each. 
Here's a list of the kits:
These are nice, small, kits. Each one can be finished in about 15 minutes. They have mostly standard parts, plus a few non-standard ones like radar dishes painted to resemble the top of the Falcon, cockpit window parts, etc. And what's with the bristling guns on the AT-AT and the AT-TE? 
LEGO kits these days seem to contain a lot of non-standard parts, so you can't build anything else useful from that kit. (At least from what I can see on the packaging.) But these do contain mostly standard parts. 
If you look at the other picture of the Republic Gunship, you'll see a tail-like antenna on the back. The Star Destroyer kept falling apart during construction because the back was only held on by 2 bumps till a later stage. Clever use of tilting pieces and triangles to give it that sloped look. 
The Sith Infiltrator has a new shade of blue. 
More pictures available in the image gallery, of course. Last updated: Jan 22 2006 09:38
Back in October I bought this
Star Trek USS Enterprise
model.
It's a snap kit, which means no glue, but I used some anyway.
Luckily I didn't use any on the saucer section so I was able to suspend it
gingerly from a hook:
There weren't many parts, but there were many fiddly decals for the detail. Go look at the pictures. The white paint is sprayed on. Some of the green and brown is from paint pens, the red is sprayed, the rest is eitehr brush or decals. Last updated: Jan 22 2006 13:01
Puzz3D makes nice three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles.
You put together flat sections of foam-backed puzzle pieces,
then assemble them into a 3-D model.
So I bought the Titanic in December 2005 on eBay.
The box arrived very nicely wrapped:
The flat bits of the funnels, the hull and the deck were assembled in a couple of days. The brown bits are the deck pieces. The funnels, of which there are four -- I think one was decorative on the original -- are four-sided (oval in the original?) so there are sixteen of those sections, each assembed out of three pieces. Took a while to sort them out. 
Here are all the flat bits completed, and assembly of the 3D model can begin. 
Here's the 3D model. The hull is kinda hard to hold together while pressing bits of foam jigsaws. Hence the inner detail; the 'bulkhead' sections fore and aft as seen in the first picture below: 
And the fully-assembled Puzz3D Titanic model:
(The links within the text contain more pictures, and the whole thing is of course in my picture gallery.)
Since they were cheap, I bought a couple of "Best-lock" brand models. Neither
of them had a name, but one is some sort of APC and the other is clearly
an A-10 Warthog. I got them for about $5 each, and each has 210 pieces and is
for ages 7+.
The APC is a piece of... something useless, but I got it because the inside box cover looked interesting. It's got movable tracks, after all. The contents of the boxes are familiar: plastic baggies, instruction sheets (each with about 10-15 steps) and a label sheet which I didn't use. Note the big piece of warthog keel in the first link. The APC also has a big keel piece. That theme persists throughout -- big pieces that LEGO or Megabloks would have built out of smaller standard pieces. Makes my complaints about LEGO's non-standard parts pale in comparison. The instructions were kinda nice. The usual parts list per step, and at each step the current build was in "real" colors and the rest of the model was faded out. Helps with the clarity. The APC was a quick build because of those pieces. A LEGO model would have had the tracks go on at or near the end; this one, the tracks were the first thing on. Within minutes I had the basic deck, and the rest went quickly: 
There's a small black platform inside -- built out of several plate-pieces, not one, on which the minifigs awkwardly stand. The constructions feels flimsy at first as there is no interlocking like you'd expect, but as we reach the top there is a little more interlocking. The pieces don't "snap" satisfactorily so there's little feedback of a good connection. But the connection, once made, is sturdy enough. The completed model is as strong as an equivalent other-brand model. That is, the guns and other greeblies tend to fall off but the basic shape is durable. The APC's tracks move and the back opens. That's a bit sucky, as the hinges tend to disconnect. It's still a nice enough military playset thing. The Warthog was a little more interesting, being an aircraft and not a box. The hull is one piece, and so are the fins, but that is to be expected. the rest is pretty nice. It has some shaped pieces for the nose but the cockpit body (behind the canopy) is built from individual "real" pieces. 
The engines are very nice, not one-piece, and they're hinged to move up and down. Even the wheels are realistic -- Megabloks' F16 had worse landing gear (although the overall model was better). 
My one complaint with the Warthog is that the wing connections are weak; the tip piece tends to fall off. A little reinforcement would help but would be bad for the look, so I can live with it. This model was worth the price. Pictures: 
Oh, and the APC comes with 3 mini-figures and the Warthog comes with one. Last updated: Feb 18 2006 09:57
A while back, I bought a cheap
Mini Cooper
model.
It was surprisingly complicated,
lots of parts,
and being die-cast
some of the parts didn't quite fit but it looks good in the pictures.
The detailed interiors are nice without having too much of
fiddly-small-parts syndrome.
Here are the parts, and then a pic of the finished model:
Last updated: Apr 19 2006 08:11
I got the Megabloks 4-in-1 kit sometime in February and built it in March. Only got around to posting the pictures and blogging about it now. I got it pretty cheap on eBay. Mostly, I bought it for the P51 Mustang model, with the rest as a bonus. I wasn't too interested in the ship, the destroyer. But after building it, the fighter has a whee factor, the chopper is nice to start with, and the destroyer is complicted enough. The Mustang's build was just a little bit boring, but it was nice. On the whole, worth it, especially since it would have cost upwards of $100 to buy them separately -- the 40 I spent would have been for the Mustang alone. Anyway, the pictures are on my site at http://www.thesatya.com/albums/models/mega4in1/.
The eBay seller nicely bagged all the models in separate ziploc bags, with the bigger ones taking two bags. Everything was present but a couple of minor pieces were missing. The chopper was a simple and straightforward build. I like how the flat pieces built up the tail assembly. Similarly standard blocks made up the P51's graceful lines. The Black Eagle is a bog-standard fighter, except that the wings are on hinges to give them that droopy look. The destroyer is a waterline model -- only the stuff above the waterline is built. The hull is hollow, to save on weight and unnecessary pieces. It is open from below and the kit contains 4 wheels, which I did not use. presumably this is so you can run it on the floor while making appropriate noises with the mouth. The design is ingeniously built out of offset standard bricks to make a graceful hull. The P51 is a thing of beauty, and so is this model. It is large and heavy and sits atop a wardrobe. It had so many grey blocks that I discovered a new way to sort the pieces -- by making big homogenous blocks of identical pieces, say all the 2x4 blocks together, I can find them faster. This model has the most realistic under-carriage of any similar kit. It doesn't retract but it does have springs. Most of my comments about individual models are in each picture's description. But overall, typically for Megabloks, the pieces were quite standard with few special parts. Totally worth the price I paid.
A few months ago I got this Star Wars Darth Vader TIE Fighter by AMT ERTL. I found it in Ross stores.
I unboxed it and immediately (well, okay, I thought about it a bit) sprayed the interiors some kind of silver/metallic/aluminium color. Then I highlighted some of it in black. This was mainly the cockpit interior.
The best was was the painting of the panels with a black paint pen. First draw along the inset border, then fill in the rest. Real easy and fun. And that simple thing makes the model look really good.
After fitting together some fiddly small pieces I put the main parts together. I'd already read reviews about how the parts don't fit well, leaving ugly seams. I don't care, it looks good enough for me. Though I misaligned the 'wings' slightly. It's only noticable when placed on a flat surface. Yes, this thing sits quite well on its wings (I used superglue as well as regular plastic cement on various parts) but it also comes with a pair of silly legs. Even the regular TIE fighter is supposed to be structurally sound enough to park itself on the panels.
The pictures link to the image album, as always.
I've just put together the pictures of the Star Wars Snowspeeder model kit that I put together last April. Like the other Star Wars models, I painted this one white, too. But first I roughly painted the details black so that they would show through later and be more visible. Then I sprayed on the red paint that forms the trim, masked it, and then sprayed the final white paint. The clear canopy was painted black from the inside to give it a tinted look. It's all in the pictures. I think the snowspeeder came out pretty well. |
In this folder:
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