So, I’m one of a bunch of people who purchased the Randy Cooper Studio Scale BLADE RUNNER “SPINNER”.:thumbsup I started out to be as screen accurate as possible, which as I slowly learned, proved to be difficult. :facepalm In the end I decided to have a hybrid of details between the on screen Spinners, both full scale & miniatures and my own additions. I changed some of the interior colour scheme because I found the actual colours, the ones that I could actually reference, kind of boring detail-wise. Anyway…here’s my “spinner build/paint” journey….
To start with, on a previous thread I asked other members to clarify exactly what colour the exterior of the Spinner was. :confused Needless to say there was no agreement on that issue. I tried investigating the colour myself and found there are a few different colour variations of existing spinners ranging from light blue to a darker metallic version. A lot of the reference photos didn’t jive “detail- wise” with the spinners in the film, so how could I trust that it wasn’t a post filming version, an altered repainted version used in other films (BACK TO THE FUTURE 2, SOLAR CRISIS, TRANCERS, etc) or one that was rebuilt through the years and in turn also repainted. I found it hard to find actual on-set photos, in colour, that weren’t compromised by the on set night shooting lighting scheme . Then comes the issue of colour itself, colour is effected by light so unless you’re standing right next to the actual spinner, whether full scale or hero miniature, with a balanced light source illuminating it, it’s hard to get the dead-on colour anyway. I ended up painting it twice :facepalm (not counting primer …I also bought a third colour which I eye balled in the store which turned out to be way off ) before I found out it still wasn’t right, a little too dark than I wanted but painting it a third time tried my patience as well as further clogging up some of the models details with too much paint so I left it the way it is now and decided to live with it. :unsure In the film the spinner looks dark so my version of “screen accurate” has now become how it looks in the film itself rather than how the actual model looks in real life. That’s my justification of it…like it or not. Again some of the ref photos show a metallic blue while others a straight colour so I went with a metallic blue to make it “pop” more visually, especially when the lights are fired up. I have never liked the “brand new look” when modeling so I weathered my Spinner down more than what is present in the film. But I did read somewhere Ridley had the spinners dirted down before filming anyway.
Like I said, I wanted to be “screen accurate” but then it then comes down to “screen accurate” to which Spinner in the film? :confused The issue of details varies from miniature as well as to the different full scale SPINNERS used in the film…. Here are just some of the differences I spotted…
1. The fiberglass “flying” Spinner has two horizontal “lift-off” exhausts roughly under each of the bucket seats that the miniature doesn’t have. Instead it has a flying/landing light in place of each of the exhausts. Randy’s version had no exhaust ports so I added them myself.
2. One of the better shots of the hero miniature coming head-on towards CAMERA shows that it only has the rectangle lights on the roof rack and is missing the flashing dome bulbs whereas the full scale ones have both versions.
3. At least one of the onset “drivable” spinners has a dome light on the driver’s side roof next to the top “fin” that is present on some miniature(s) “being built” spinner pix but I couldn’t spot it on the flying version in the film nor was it on Randy’s version but I added that to mine.
4. Forget about even trying to match the roof rack light colour schemes from spinner to spinner. There are two versions for the full scale versions…#1. Rectangle lights left side; blue, red, white. Rectangle lights right side; red, blue & #2. Rectangle lights left side; red, blue, white. Rectangle lights right side; blue, red. The dome lights are the same on both full scale spinners… left side; yellow, blue …right side; blue, yellow. The dome light colours that Randy provided aren’t perfectly accurate as well. Some ref photos of the miniature being built show a rear facing rectangle light on each side of the roof bar while the full scale spinner didn’t . :confused But things happen when making films so the differences are not surprising.
5. The two bucket seats in Randy’s paint job showed them as a light brown, which is wrong as far as the full scale mock-up filming version is concerned but I only found this out after I painted it and weathered it to my own satisfaction even adding some black trim. The real ones are blue vinyl which I decided after the fact may be screen accurate but is boring when holding the model in front of you, plus the fact I was pissed to have to repaint them. So they stayed brown. F--k it! :cool
6. the “vent” sections on the underbelly are black on the miniature(s) but they are silver on the full scale flying version in the film.
7. Details, interior and exterior are abundant as well between full scale and miniature Spinners. :confused
I followed Randy’s advice and didn’t even bother trying to have the gull wing doors operate, just dealing with the canopy as a whole piece was a minor adventure. I did a little bit of kit bashing for further detailing for the interior and exterior that were missing on the Randy version, ie. Underbelly lights, lighting for the rear exhaust, the horizontal lift-off exhausts etc. Again, it was hard to find an actual colour scheme for the entire interior so I went with my own version. In the film most of the interior of the spinner that can be seen, full scale version, is mostly dark blue, which again I found boring visually. I added lights and bits and pieces to make it more detailed and interesting to my eye. I left the interior colour of the cockpit the French light blue that I had originally painted the entire interior and exterior of the spinner the 1st time around (which matched some of the ref photos I found on BladeZone) which I personally found was too light a colour.
So in the end even though I tried to be screen accurate I changed things to suite my own taste.
So for those of you also embarking on the “screen accurate” trip, you gotta ask yourself screen accurate to which one? :cool
To start with, on a previous thread I asked other members to clarify exactly what colour the exterior of the Spinner was. :confused Needless to say there was no agreement on that issue. I tried investigating the colour myself and found there are a few different colour variations of existing spinners ranging from light blue to a darker metallic version. A lot of the reference photos didn’t jive “detail- wise” with the spinners in the film, so how could I trust that it wasn’t a post filming version, an altered repainted version used in other films (BACK TO THE FUTURE 2, SOLAR CRISIS, TRANCERS, etc) or one that was rebuilt through the years and in turn also repainted. I found it hard to find actual on-set photos, in colour, that weren’t compromised by the on set night shooting lighting scheme . Then comes the issue of colour itself, colour is effected by light so unless you’re standing right next to the actual spinner, whether full scale or hero miniature, with a balanced light source illuminating it, it’s hard to get the dead-on colour anyway. I ended up painting it twice :facepalm (not counting primer …I also bought a third colour which I eye balled in the store which turned out to be way off ) before I found out it still wasn’t right, a little too dark than I wanted but painting it a third time tried my patience as well as further clogging up some of the models details with too much paint so I left it the way it is now and decided to live with it. :unsure In the film the spinner looks dark so my version of “screen accurate” has now become how it looks in the film itself rather than how the actual model looks in real life. That’s my justification of it…like it or not. Again some of the ref photos show a metallic blue while others a straight colour so I went with a metallic blue to make it “pop” more visually, especially when the lights are fired up. I have never liked the “brand new look” when modeling so I weathered my Spinner down more than what is present in the film. But I did read somewhere Ridley had the spinners dirted down before filming anyway.
Like I said, I wanted to be “screen accurate” but then it then comes down to “screen accurate” to which Spinner in the film? :confused The issue of details varies from miniature as well as to the different full scale SPINNERS used in the film…. Here are just some of the differences I spotted…
1. The fiberglass “flying” Spinner has two horizontal “lift-off” exhausts roughly under each of the bucket seats that the miniature doesn’t have. Instead it has a flying/landing light in place of each of the exhausts. Randy’s version had no exhaust ports so I added them myself.
2. One of the better shots of the hero miniature coming head-on towards CAMERA shows that it only has the rectangle lights on the roof rack and is missing the flashing dome bulbs whereas the full scale ones have both versions.
3. At least one of the onset “drivable” spinners has a dome light on the driver’s side roof next to the top “fin” that is present on some miniature(s) “being built” spinner pix but I couldn’t spot it on the flying version in the film nor was it on Randy’s version but I added that to mine.
4. Forget about even trying to match the roof rack light colour schemes from spinner to spinner. There are two versions for the full scale versions…#1. Rectangle lights left side; blue, red, white. Rectangle lights right side; red, blue & #2. Rectangle lights left side; red, blue, white. Rectangle lights right side; blue, red. The dome lights are the same on both full scale spinners… left side; yellow, blue …right side; blue, yellow. The dome light colours that Randy provided aren’t perfectly accurate as well. Some ref photos of the miniature being built show a rear facing rectangle light on each side of the roof bar while the full scale spinner didn’t . :confused But things happen when making films so the differences are not surprising.
5. The two bucket seats in Randy’s paint job showed them as a light brown, which is wrong as far as the full scale mock-up filming version is concerned but I only found this out after I painted it and weathered it to my own satisfaction even adding some black trim. The real ones are blue vinyl which I decided after the fact may be screen accurate but is boring when holding the model in front of you, plus the fact I was pissed to have to repaint them. So they stayed brown. F--k it! :cool
6. the “vent” sections on the underbelly are black on the miniature(s) but they are silver on the full scale flying version in the film.
7. Details, interior and exterior are abundant as well between full scale and miniature Spinners. :confused
I followed Randy’s advice and didn’t even bother trying to have the gull wing doors operate, just dealing with the canopy as a whole piece was a minor adventure. I did a little bit of kit bashing for further detailing for the interior and exterior that were missing on the Randy version, ie. Underbelly lights, lighting for the rear exhaust, the horizontal lift-off exhausts etc. Again, it was hard to find an actual colour scheme for the entire interior so I went with my own version. In the film most of the interior of the spinner that can be seen, full scale version, is mostly dark blue, which again I found boring visually. I added lights and bits and pieces to make it more detailed and interesting to my eye. I left the interior colour of the cockpit the French light blue that I had originally painted the entire interior and exterior of the spinner the 1st time around (which matched some of the ref photos I found on BladeZone) which I personally found was too light a colour.
So in the end even though I tried to be screen accurate I changed things to suite my own taste.
So for those of you also embarking on the “screen accurate” trip, you gotta ask yourself screen accurate to which one? :cool
