Constructing the egg shell

The workspace

Now that I had finished with the Pilot, I assembled the cockpit. The silly fork-control pad setup went in to the seat and the seat on the floor piece. Before I did anything more dramatic than this I went through the remaining pieces and painted some random components red (VMC 70926 Red) both on the walls and the control panel pane.

The front pane wasn't anything special. All in all setting this up was a bit bothersome, thanks to the immensely wobbly side pieces, which were swinging like drunkards on a Friday night's disco. Only attaching them both to the front and rear units got them settled.

Lastly I glued this setup on the lower hull part. I did try before the gluing, if the front viewport was insertable even with the cockpit unit installed. I just wanted to leave it off to make masking that much easier.

Hadn't I been building this OOP, I'd built some sort of a controller for the Pilot to hold on to. Right now the figure's pose looked ridiculous, at least before I sealed him/her inside, and you could see the silliness easily.

[60]

Transparisteel viewports

On first glance the masking looked like it went just wonderfully. But then I found out that the main viewport's outer ring's panes didn't want to obey me and the masking attempt failed on them.

At least the ingress/egress hatch worked acceptably, so this wasn't that much of a disaster. If someone's now wondering why didn't I apply the famous bits and pieces approach on the main viewport, my reply is: that never works for me at all.

Sealing it

As always with the transparent pieces I whiteglued the main viewport on the lower hull and then glued the upper hull half on its place. When that gluing had had some time to cure I whiteglued the top hatch on, even though it too was supposed to stay well put with the flimsy hooks. For some reason I didn't trust those bits for anything.

I had decided that I'd paint the main window's frames by hand when everything else was done. That wasn't going to be a mentionable problem and the result would be less risky than the time consuming "kazillion flecks of tape"-mask.

Ultimately I finished up the wings, known as gluing the last three tiny bits on. I didn't attach them to the hull because I felt this'd make painting quite a lot easier and that it would guarantee a better-looking result. [75]

My educated guess regarding the continuation was that the main paintjob would be done over three sessions. First one half of the wings and most of the hull. In the second session I'd do the second halves and the remaining hull part(s). And in the third I'd do the solar collector panels all in one go and then I'd glue the wings on the hull. That way I'd get the model to stand on its already dry edges while the black areas were drying.

Everything else, like the bloodstripes and touching up would be done later. I guess I'll use a few sessions with them, the clear/dullcoats and whatnot. All this would maybe consume little real time, but easily a full work-week on the calendar.