My wife surprised me the other day when she came home bearing a package from QMx. I didn't expect to ever own one of the maquettes. I certainly couldn't justify buying one right now, since we're as cash poor as we've ever been, but I was touched that she went to the effort of sneaking the purchase for the sake of getting me a Firefly. That's what makes this so bitter sweet.
I love Firefly. It's the only show that I've collected for since my childhood. Something about it just spoke to me when it came out, so I can't begin to explain how underwhelmed I was when I opened the box to reveal my very own little Firefly.
She's darker than I imagined. You have to set her in pretty good lighting to see contrast in the coloring. The windows aren't dark, so the cockpit looks flat. She looks 'boarded up' from the inside. The overall shape and little details are fine, but there's something soulless or dingy about the model that I makes me sad and I don't know why.
It doesn't help that one of the heat exchangers is broken and she's bent out of true in places. A friend of mine bought one and he describes the casting better than I could.
"The bent parts remind me of molding errors in the old Micromachines Star Trek miniatures."
A panel was off right out of the box.
The word 'munged' keeps coming to mind when I try to describe her starboard engine.
I hate that things I should love keep making me feel more sad. I had to put it on the shelf for a few days just to forget about it long enough to figure out why it bothered me.