<V/O: SPAAAACE GHOOOOOOOST!>
That kinda gives away where this one comes from...
Fantastic Plastic have been having a series of flash sales over the last few weeks -- to celebrate their 15th anniversary as a business, IIRC -- and one of them was the Phantom Cruiser, that most elegant of spaceships (when visible
). I couldn't resist the "bargain", and the kit arrived with Allen's usual remarkable speed; you pay for the shipping, but no more than is necessary and the stuff turns up almost before you realise it!Here's the box:
Inside, after removing the usual load of styrene peanuts, you find:
- the instructions -- one A4 sheet, ot thereabouts
- the two main hull pieces, which is most of the kit
- the small parts -- three undercarriage legs, six seats, the cockpit floor and instrument panel -- and a vacformed canopy
- and a large single decal (the ziploc bag is mine, to protect it)
a) it's resin, with all that that entails;
b) there's a bit of flash, as may be seen -- not much, but it's there, and I suspect that there will be a bit of fettling involved to get everything to fit properly, with the inevitable filler to accompany that;
c) a vacform canopy, which I've never had a lot of success with; and finally
d) the main body is a complex curved shape, and also large and flat. In order to mould it, FP have had to distort it, or so it looks to me. This photo shows what this means:
That's the main part of the hull, and it shows two things that will have to be dealt with. First are several bits of resin that poke out from the upper surface, presumably to avoid short shots. If this was an aircraft, I'd think they were antennae of the sort you get on AWACS or ELINT birds; but it isn't, and so these things (which are not just on the topside) will have to go. And secondly, the Cruiser has upswept wingtips, giving it what is sometimes called a swallow look, and this part does not have that -- if anything, one wing is bent downwards. Luckily, FP resin softens readily with heat, so hot water or a careful application of hot air from a hair dryer will allow that to be corrected.
I should say that I am very pleased that the kit includes that big decal for the upper side, because I wasn't looking forward to hand-painting it. Apparently, it requires MicroScale Liquid Decal Film, but I just happen to have bought some of that a few weeks before the kit, so that was serendipitous.
So, a good kit of a beautiful subject. There's only one thing it lacks: an answer to the decades-old question of how does the PC move?!
No visible engines (though its appearances on screen were always accompanied by the classic Hanna-Barbera jet/rocket engine sound), intakes, exhausts or anything, so what makes it go? Answers on a postcard, please, addressed to the University of Upper Kambukta West; let them worry about it!
