Hey gang. I know we've been dropping subtle hints about this kit coming, and now I 've finally sat down and had the energy to post all the pics of her big Bashing, as well as give you some history of this unique model.
I've always loved this movie, and it's my favorite Clancey novel/film. Great cast, great acting, great story, and even better effects(ILM). For those of you who don't know, the movie effects were done rather cleverly. All of the large models hung from complicated wiring, and were, in short, marionetted through a smoke filled warehouse. This was also used in "Batteries not Included" and "Always." For some of the better "October" scenes, tall pillars of rock, etc were placed on the floor and the model was literally driven through. The largest model, was obviously, the October. Their were two or three of her, but the big one was 11 feet long and weighed around 350 lbs. Say it with me . . . "Big sonuva bitch."
No model company has ever actually tackeld the Red October, except for a repackaged Typhoon from Revell in '89. You could also get the Alpha, the Dallas/Marine Helicotper, and even F-14's and carrier kits were repackaged with the movie release in '89 (ah, what a year for film.). What really sucked was no one was in scale with any on else (big damn surprise). A simple Typhoon model simply won't cut it, as the "October" was longer and had many different configurations from a standard Typhoon.
We started with a Revell Germany typhoon, which is the same one from the repackage, cast a section of top deck, and started the build. First, I lopped of her nose and extended her hull to make her the proper "footage." Then, did some hard sanding to get her nose the right shape, the blocked, blocked, blocked. I also noticed, that although longer, she still had twenty missle tubes, so I subtracted one in the rear, and three nearest to the conning tower. Conveiantly, this matched the studios model perfect. Nice happy mistake. However . . .
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As I took a break, I was going over the photos, and caught that the back prop shafts were WAYYY different than a standard Typhoon. So I chucked up my dremel and got to work. I then matched the shape, and filled it in.
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After this was all set, I sanded her up, and started more filling, and sanding, and . . . ugh, scribing. While most Typhoons have brick patterns, the studios model is smooth, with very few scribe lines. Most of the detailing is done with paint. You can see the paint job she has in te film when the small SRV sub shines her lights on it. So I bondoed the rest of the body and let her sit over night. But what should she sit on? "Why not Thor's Twins?" This awesome suggestion came from my girlfreind, who upon our first date, picked this movie out to watch. Turns out, it's her favorite. So I grabbed an old base (Seaquest anyone?) from my parts box and some clay, and sculpted up a nice base for her.
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Then I went back to my usual building habits (Ghostbusters) and waited for some silcone and bondo to cure.
Here's the results so far, with the correct prop shafts, props, and lower tail. A few more things have to be done, but she should be ready to paint and test build by next week. Oh, and the real kicker is that Dragon has a Los Angelas class and Alpha class set in 1/400.
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As the week begins, I'll be giving the main body some more details and a once over, and casting her. Then it's off to finsih the front planes, the top tail, and the catapiller drive doors. I'm willing to bet, if anyon'es interested, we'll have castings ready in two weeks. The kits price hasn't been figured yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say between 60-90 bucks. Hope you guys likey.
I've always loved this movie, and it's my favorite Clancey novel/film. Great cast, great acting, great story, and even better effects(ILM). For those of you who don't know, the movie effects were done rather cleverly. All of the large models hung from complicated wiring, and were, in short, marionetted through a smoke filled warehouse. This was also used in "Batteries not Included" and "Always." For some of the better "October" scenes, tall pillars of rock, etc were placed on the floor and the model was literally driven through. The largest model, was obviously, the October. Their were two or three of her, but the big one was 11 feet long and weighed around 350 lbs. Say it with me . . . "Big sonuva bitch."
No model company has ever actually tackeld the Red October, except for a repackaged Typhoon from Revell in '89. You could also get the Alpha, the Dallas/Marine Helicotper, and even F-14's and carrier kits were repackaged with the movie release in '89 (ah, what a year for film.). What really sucked was no one was in scale with any on else (big damn surprise). A simple Typhoon model simply won't cut it, as the "October" was longer and had many different configurations from a standard Typhoon.
We started with a Revell Germany typhoon, which is the same one from the repackage, cast a section of top deck, and started the build. First, I lopped of her nose and extended her hull to make her the proper "footage." Then, did some hard sanding to get her nose the right shape, the blocked, blocked, blocked. I also noticed, that although longer, she still had twenty missle tubes, so I subtracted one in the rear, and three nearest to the conning tower. Conveiantly, this matched the studios model perfect. Nice happy mistake. However . . .
<div align="center">
As I took a break, I was going over the photos, and caught that the back prop shafts were WAYYY different than a standard Typhoon. So I chucked up my dremel and got to work. I then matched the shape, and filled it in.
<div align="center">
After this was all set, I sanded her up, and started more filling, and sanding, and . . . ugh, scribing. While most Typhoons have brick patterns, the studios model is smooth, with very few scribe lines. Most of the detailing is done with paint. You can see the paint job she has in te film when the small SRV sub shines her lights on it. So I bondoed the rest of the body and let her sit over night. But what should she sit on? "Why not Thor's Twins?" This awesome suggestion came from my girlfreind, who upon our first date, picked this movie out to watch. Turns out, it's her favorite. So I grabbed an old base (Seaquest anyone?) from my parts box and some clay, and sculpted up a nice base for her.
<div align="center">
Then I went back to my usual building habits (Ghostbusters) and waited for some silcone and bondo to cure.
Here's the results so far, with the correct prop shafts, props, and lower tail. A few more things have to be done, but she should be ready to paint and test build by next week. Oh, and the real kicker is that Dragon has a Los Angelas class and Alpha class set in 1/400.
As the week begins, I'll be giving the main body some more details and a once over, and casting her. Then it's off to finsih the front planes, the top tail, and the catapiller drive doors. I'm willing to bet, if anyon'es interested, we'll have castings ready in two weeks. The kits price hasn't been figured yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say between 60-90 bucks. Hope you guys likey.
