The Crowded Moon

The Apollo Lunar Module is one of the most easily recognisable spacecraft in history, having been used for the first successful landing on the moon. Because of this, it has appeared in countless toys and models over the years, in greater and lesser degrees of accuracy. Recently, my good friend Terry Harle sent me a lovely little Japanese kit of an Eagle 5 LEM, made by Nikken. It was clearly a vintage kit and came in a small bag with a paper header.

The instructions show an Apollo Command Module on the header as an additional kit, so it’s possible there were two models in one box.

The kit itself is 1/80 and a shade smaller than the familiar Airfix version, but without a base or figures. It does however come with a neat feature in that the legs can fold inwards as they did at launch, before being released from the booster by the Command and Service module in orbit. As it was an otherwise unremarkable version of the LEM and almost all the delicate leg struts had napped inside the bag, due to the fragility of the plastic, I decided to try something different and decorate it in the style of Triang Spacex series 1 vehicles, such as the MEV or Prospector.

I already had some fiery orange and lime green paint from an ongoing MEV model project, so I was able to spare enough for the little kit. The leg struts and antennae were finished with a chrome pen.

The model doesn’t have any cockpit windows like the Airfix or larger versions, so I added some simple red film as tinted glass.Unfortunately, as it’s an older kit, the decals supplied perished before I could apply them.