Thommo

Thanks for the encouragement. All figures now completed. Most based on the 1/35 pinup girls as the 'frame', but 2 using 1/35 Tamiya military figures - these needed a drastic weight loss process with my Dremmel to get them skinny enough for the aluminium to go over. The robot soldiers painted with a mix of colours (blue/black/nato black) then various shades of Alclad, then an overcoat of Tamiya smoke on some, then a dark brown Mig wash, then sealed with Vallejo flat clear. There is some tonal variation but it is hard to see. Still pondering the background for the base - your idea of making the city a bit 3D coming out of a piece of flat curved plastic (base shape is oval), maybe trying to airbrush the big red moon on as well, or perhaps get my kids to do some clever photoshopping so I can print & glue the background (moon, city, smaller spaceships) onto the background.

Beautiful!

Wow - you have so much patience!

Build Video #2

Build Video #1

Cheers mate. Ultimately, I'll do some build videos showing more of each step. Really though, I just make stuff up as I go along & borrow ideas from other people's builds. I do sketch out a few rough drawings & measurements, but they never go exactly to plan, esp. when estimating the measurements from a photo of a painting. Allowing for perspective is hard. My biggest bugbear is getting stuff to stick with CA! It either grabs instantly in the wrong spot, or does not grab at all.

Undercoat of Tamiya flat blue, then Aztek pattern with Alclad Alum & Alclad Dark Alum. Need to have it at the right angle to really see the Aztek camo effect. It's nowhere as near as neat as I'd hoped, but with scratch building, it is hard to keep everything smooth even after numerous puttys, sands & polishes.

Building nearly done, just need to add wing flaps. The canopy was a bit of a nightmare with constant adjustments needed to the rear section to get a decent fit with the front. Then lots of putty & sanding will be needed. Then onto paint thank Christ - I'm a bit over scratching at the moment. Strikes me the pilot looks like Tin Tin!

Wow! Excellent and so small.

Cheers mate. Was going to make the spaceship pilot an Ewok, but decided against it - could not handle modeling the hairy face! Canopy, the front piece modified from a 1/72 B17 nose dome, rear piece cut from clear plastic packaging. Modified pilot from a 1/48 figure, loosely based on Starwars X-wing pilots. He had to lose his feet to fit in.

scratch, scratch, scratch.....

It is pieces of aluminium from a Coke can. Just trial & error cutting & trimming of pieces till they look about right....and multiple attempts to get them to stick down with CA 😵 Cockpit nearly done. Tiny fragments of decals used for lights etc. then much frustration getting them in position & getting them to stick. Had to brush a few coats of Future over the top to get them to stay put. Really struggling with the engines now. About to try my 5th idea after first trying carving them out of solid styrene blocks, then trying to shape styrene sheet. As you said above, all 3 spaceships are different, as are their engine profiles and all are shown from different perspectives, so getting it right requires some guesswork & artistic licence. The front spaceship which I'm building appears to have more circular/oval engine fronts than the rear ship which has much narrower engine openings????

Damn, how good are you going to be when you become a veteran at the hobby! At 1/72 scale, those Spits are epic, the weathering is perfect. I mostly build in 1/72 as getting a great result is a greater challenge than in bigger scales. You have nailed it 👍