MPC CYGNUS KIT (PART 2)

 Some more photos of my MPC Cygnus, this time against a more suitably painted backdrop.

“When stars die, they can face many deaths: Some destroy themselves in monumental supernova explosions, some contract and cool to become a neutron star, but then there is The Black Hole, the most bizarre star-death of all…”

“All the matter is compressed into a point so small – a singularity – that it drags everything within its gravitational field down into a maelstrom of crushing destruction!”

In the film, the Cygnus is able to maintain a constant distance from the Black Hole, and even has it’s own artificial gravity. I suspect science nuts might have an opinion on that, but for now I’ll let imagination have the edge.

“It is nearing the end of the year 2193: The deep space explorer craft, USS Palomino detects a derelict spacecraft perched on the brink of a Black Hole – the USS Cygnus which has been missing for 20 years!”

“The Cygnus is the domain of Dr Hans Reinhardt, a mysterious world where scientific genius and human madness intertwine, and where dreams quickly turn to nightmares!”

“The Black Hole: A journey that begins where everything ends!”

UFO ILLUMINATOR

This caught my eye on Etsy! What a cool re-use of our friend the UFO Interceptor by make Bicmade!

Its a lamp!

What do you think?

I Want To Believe

In the seventies, I happily believed that Flying Saucers were real. The 1971 Countdown annual had a great article about UFO's, filled with fascinating photographs of classic sightings. Target books also produced a great little paperback book in 1976 'Investigating UFOs', which I still have. Along with countless other tv and film influences, I was completely sold on the idea of UFO's and even convinced myself that I had seen one, but as I grew older I realised I must have dreamed it!

As its currently 'silly season' for the press, traditionally that period of high summer, where solid news items are thin on the ground and the press invariably tries to sell papers with spurious news stories. Today, 'fake news' is endemic and the nature of the internet makes it increasingly difficult to divine what is actually true.

At the moment, there is a major court case ongoing, hearing the testimony of an ex secret service officer David Grusch, who is attempting to disclose that the US government is aware of alien contact and has recovered and reverse engineered alien craft. The whistleblower hearings are attracting much attention and the recent release of Pentagon footage of supposed UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) activity on jet fighter cameras, of objects variously described as 'tic tac' shaped or a 'black or grey cube inside a clear sphere', has conspiracy theorists eager to see the government come clean.

Photos of various unidentified objects have been around for years, with the phrase 'flying saucers' being seized upon by the press, following Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting in June 1947. Arnold's objects were crescent shaped, but he described their motion as 'a saucer skipping across water' and the name stuck.

Kenneth Arnold with artist Impression

One of the images in the Countdown article were of a 'hat shaped' object, spotted by a motorist in Santa Anna in 1965. Rex Heflin shot a sequence of four photographs of an object hovering over the Californian freeway, before it took off leaving a smoke ring in its wake. At the time of reading about this, I was completely intrigued, as the image - by the standards of the seventies - looked authentic. These days, with A.I and CGI techniques available to anyone, its impossible to tell what what's real and what is fake. 

Brazil 1960

Historically, most UFO images or footage is invariably fuzzy or out of focus and those few images which are clear, are invariably discovered to be fakes. However, there are always a few images, which deserve closer attention.

Some of them are clearly either models, or everyday objects such as balloons, or birds, but in the early 20th century, prior to the advent of computer manipulation, there are still some amazing images appearing.

Brazil 1952

Lots of different techniques were attempted to fake photographs, such as frisbees thrown in the air, pot lids suspended from wires or paper pasted onto glass.

Bremerton, USA 1970

Costa Rica 1971

This image from Costa Rica appears to show a saucer approaching a coastline, but to me it looks like the reflection of an overhead lamp on a glass slide.

Edwards Air Force Base 1957

Some shots show UFO's which are not the actual subject of the photograph and are only discovered after the film is developed, which clearly have not been deliberately tampered with.

Ohio 1932

 Others show objects which seem to show saucer or cigar shaped objects in them. 

Peru 1952

Oregon 1950

With the prevalence of mobile phone, doorbell, dashcam and cctv cameras, there has been a huge increase in sightings of mysterious lights, black triangles, saucers and aliens, but due to the general public's ambivalence towards them, very few are taken seriously. Naturally, government sources deny any involvement with alien contacts or recovered vehicles and the idea of 'flying saucers' is dismissed as the realm of fantasy. Personally, I remain skeptical of the majority of modern sightings, as no clear, categorical evidence has so far appeared. Have you ever seen a ufo - or more importantly - taken a photo or video of one ?

MPC THE BLACK HOLE CYGNUS BUILD (PART 1)

 I’m a big fan of the space fantasy film, The Black Hole, and I’ve blogged about it several times on here in the past.

One post I did was back in 2019, when I blogged about looking forward to building my newly acquired MPC Cygnus kit, which came out in 1979.

I like the unique design of the Cygnus spacecraft. While there’s no shortage of similes from people describing the ship, to me as someone who lives in a seaside town it always put me in mind of our local pier.

The U.S.S. Cygnus, which is described as half-a-mile long was first envisaged by one of the Black Hole’s art directors, Bob McCall, who came up with some stunning pre-production paintings. At that point the ship was named ‘Centaurus’, and Bob drew it as a white slab-sided craft.

Production designer, Peter Ellenshaw, who was in charge of miniature effects wanted something different from the usual solid sided spaceship design, and  sought a more translucent look. He did, however keep McCall’s basic design.

When it came to the filming miniatures, two original 1/16 scale Cygnus filming props were built, each 12 feet 31/2 inches long, and made from intricate brass lattice framework with numerous illuminated sections.

Like a lot of modellers, I like to incorporate lighting where I can, as it can sometimes add little realism to my photographs.

As the kit doesn’t have a clear plastic hull, illuminating the kit to make it look more screen accurate is limited. Also, as the model was originally manufactured missing an entire forward module section, screen accuracy was never going to be it’s strong point.

That being said, it’s still a fun, if quite fiddly model to build. From behind the scenes photos I’ve seen showing the original prop’ it’s generally just a plain bluey-white, relying on lighting to give it definition. I wanted to add some colour and took some inspiration from illustrations in The Black Hole Pop-Up book!

Masking and spraying needs a bit of thought, working out what parts are going to remain yellow, blue and finally, black. Then it’s painting the lattice-work which takes a steady hand and a fair bit of patience.

Finally, some additional piping which doesn’t actually come with the kit, and some added painted detail.

The kit even comes with a tiny Probe Ship and ‘Palomino’.

In part 2, some photos of the Cygnus near The Black Hole.

THE AMT STAR TREK USS ENTERPRISE BRIDGE SET

Last year I got something a little out of the ordinary for me - a science fiction model.

The American kit company AMT is best known for their car models, but since the 1960s they have also done many Star Trek models. Starting with the USS Enterprise herself in 1966. The Star Trek range expanded during the 1960s and 1970s, and in 1975 AMT introduced the U.S.S. Enterprise Command Bridge -showing the interior of the ship. Three of the main crew members were included.

This is a large model, being made to 1/32nd scale. According to the box top, the Bridge has a diameter of 12 inches. The model has been re-issued a few times over the years, and in 2022 it was up-graded with new parts, and extra figures. This is the version I have. The name of the kit has changed slightly, to U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge Set.

AMT is now owned by Round 2, and the kit itself is moulded in China. The box top has a rather poor painting of the Bridge, but this is surrounded by photographs from the show, with more on one side of the box. The bottom of the box has photographs of the assembled model, which looks stunning.

My first reaction on opening the box was Wow ! It is absolutely filled with large, white polystyrene parts, packed in four separate plastic bags. There are no clear parts. The total parts count is now 108. Oddly, the parts seemed dusty despite being in sealed bags, and will need a wash before assembly begins.

The Bridge is basically a circular room, with a lowered central floor, surrounded by walls. In the original version of this kit the walls did not fully enclose the Bridge - there was a gap for ease of viewing. In this revised kit, all the walls are present.

The original kit also came with only three figures - Captain Kirk, seated in his chair, with Mr Spock and Mr Sulu standing. The 2022 version now has six figures, and ten heads, so you can model most of the main crew from the original TV series. There are three Seated Males, one Seated Female, one Short Standing male, and one Tall Standing male. The heads are Captain Kirk; Doctor McCoy; Ensign Chekov; Mr Sulu; Lieutenant Uhura; Mr Spock; Mr Scott; and three unnamed generic heads (two male, one female). It may be possible to find some additional figures of the right size, to fully populate the Bridge.

The decal sheet is beautiful, and very detailed. There is a choice of three images for the Main Screen. You are advised to remove the raised detail from the chair, helm, and view screens before applying the decals.

The assembly instructions are not great, but should not be a problem for an experienced modeller. The painting guide is a single drawing, with the colours identified by name and Testors paint number. There is nothing on the uniform colours, or Star Fleet rank insignia. No indication of who should be wearing what. Your main reference is going to be the photographs from the series, and of the assembled model, on the box.

The decal placement guide is much better, and runs to two full pages.

Looking at the instructions, there seem to be a lot of joins in the floor and wall sections. From what others have said about this kit, it would probably be best to mount it on a solid base of some sort, for support.

I have a few other things to finish off first, before starting on this kit, but I am really looking forward to it. In the meantime, here are a few photographs of the kit, the decal sheet, and the box.

Five photographs. Hope you like them.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

THE CAPTAINS CARS

 

I've always liked these Captain Cars by Takara Gangu.

There aren't many bags with headers for Captain Scarlet but Japan came up with the goods.

Do you like them?

SUITS YOU SIR!

I love this hoverplane. What a design, it can only be Japanese!

My photo note says Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979.

I wish I'd been into Japanese Manga and toys back then age 18 but I wasn't.

Were you?

HOT WHEELS BATMAN PREMIUM 5 IN 1 PACK

Hot Wheels have released many Batman models over the last couple of decades, with a series of five Batman models being contained within the Mainline each year, these being of mixed metal and plastic construction. 

All of these are various forms of Batmobile. There are also 5-packs, which have become an annual tradition. These contain a selection of five Mainline models: usually one or two Bat-vehicles, a Gotham City Police car, and several villain cars.

There have also been numerous higher-priced models aimed at adult collectors. These are usually released in groups, but are sold on individual cards. These often have both metal bodies and metal bases, and more realistic Real Rider wheels.

Now Hot Wheels have started releasing their premium models in 5-packs, including a Batman set, which I picked up. The price of these varies greatly, from $39 NZ, which is what I paid, to well over $50. It does pay to shop around.

The set comes in a black box, with a lift-off lid. It is 194 mm square, and 40 mm deep. The top has a large DC Comics logo in blue in the centre, with the logos for the various films and TV shows along the bottom.

The bottom of the box shows the five models within. The copyright date is 2021, although this is a 2022 release.

Once you take the lid off, you find the five models sitting in a clear plastic tray.

Movie Batmobile from Batman (1989), in matt black.

Justice League (2017) Batmobile, semi-gloss black.

The Bat plane from The Dark Knight Rises (2012), matt black. As this model does not have an undercarriage, it comes with a clear plastic display stand which plugs in to the model.

Batmobile from The Batman (2022), this looks more like a normal American sedan than the Batmobile, semi-gloss black.

Batmobile from the 1966-68 TV series and the 1966 Batman movie. Gloss black with red stripes. This is the only model that carries the Bat insignia on its doors.

In certain lights the two matt black models look dark grey, or perhaps they are dark grey and look black depending on the light ?

All the models are marked on the underside Made in Indonesia.

This is a really nice set, although considerably more expensive than a regular Hot Wheels 5-pack.

What do you think?

Paul Adams from New Zealand