Collektor
Well-Known Member
Its been a while since I did either a kit or a scratch build, so I decided to try my hand at scratch building the lobster spinner from Blade Runner. I chose it for two reasons, one its the first spinner you see in the film, and two nobody seems to make a kit of it. I found a few decent size reference photos of the studio used model, and worked off of those. I had to take a few liberties with the design/build to account for where there were no images of certain parts, and where I was unable to reproduce parts.
The whole thing is built up from .40 and .20 styrene sheets, sections of square plastruct strips, and a couple sets of plastruct ladders. The only kitbashed parts are the two cowlings between the air intakes and the forward antigravity pods, which came off a 1/72 panzer kit I had left over. The build took a little over a week to cut and assemble, then another day or so to add all the detail panels and greeblies.
The studio photos show a pretty basic airbrushed weathering, but since this is a static model that is going to be seen clearly for more than 4 seconds of film, I opted for a more detailed weathering approach. I primed the model using Createx black paint, then went over it with a red oxide paint that gave it a good rust/primer look. When this had dried, I shot it with a light coat of Tamiya flat clear, then using a small sponge and some water I applied a salt chipping to areas of the spinner that would get wear and tear. I mixed Golden Yellow, with red oxide and a bit of white to increase the opacity of the color as the first test showed the golden yellow to be too transparent.
I then gave the whole model several coats of the golden yellow mix building it up slowly. The only thing I didn't like about using the Createx paint was it dries to a really hard finish (even harder if you hit it with some heat while its drying, but this being styrene I didn't want to risk melting or warping it), which meant I had to use a bit more pressure with the toothbrush to get the salt off the model once the paint was cured. It did give a pretty good paint chipping effect, but in my opinion I think the salt chipping works better with the Tamiya paints than with the Createx.
Once the model was cleaned of the salt, I added a little more grime using some pastels here and there. For the silver scratches I took a Prismacolor silver pencil and just ran it over the edges and high spots, as well as a few other points to reveal some bare metal. After applying a few decals I sealed it with another coat of flat clear and installed the front headlights on the pods. Those were made by taking strips of clear polyester plastic sheet that were heated and bent around a rod and inserted in the front of the pods. Before installing them, I shot the inside surface of the strips with flat white.
This was a fun build to work on, and even though I wasn't able to get to 100% screen accurate I feel that I achieved a look and build consistent with the film used model.
On to the pictures,
The whole thing is built up from .40 and .20 styrene sheets, sections of square plastruct strips, and a couple sets of plastruct ladders. The only kitbashed parts are the two cowlings between the air intakes and the forward antigravity pods, which came off a 1/72 panzer kit I had left over. The build took a little over a week to cut and assemble, then another day or so to add all the detail panels and greeblies.
The studio photos show a pretty basic airbrushed weathering, but since this is a static model that is going to be seen clearly for more than 4 seconds of film, I opted for a more detailed weathering approach. I primed the model using Createx black paint, then went over it with a red oxide paint that gave it a good rust/primer look. When this had dried, I shot it with a light coat of Tamiya flat clear, then using a small sponge and some water I applied a salt chipping to areas of the spinner that would get wear and tear. I mixed Golden Yellow, with red oxide and a bit of white to increase the opacity of the color as the first test showed the golden yellow to be too transparent.
I then gave the whole model several coats of the golden yellow mix building it up slowly. The only thing I didn't like about using the Createx paint was it dries to a really hard finish (even harder if you hit it with some heat while its drying, but this being styrene I didn't want to risk melting or warping it), which meant I had to use a bit more pressure with the toothbrush to get the salt off the model once the paint was cured. It did give a pretty good paint chipping effect, but in my opinion I think the salt chipping works better with the Tamiya paints than with the Createx.
Once the model was cleaned of the salt, I added a little more grime using some pastels here and there. For the silver scratches I took a Prismacolor silver pencil and just ran it over the edges and high spots, as well as a few other points to reveal some bare metal. After applying a few decals I sealed it with another coat of flat clear and installed the front headlights on the pods. Those were made by taking strips of clear polyester plastic sheet that were heated and bent around a rod and inserted in the front of the pods. Before installing them, I shot the inside surface of the strips with flat white.
This was a fun build to work on, and even though I wasn't able to get to 100% screen accurate I feel that I achieved a look and build consistent with the film used model.
On to the pictures,
