Finally, after a decade of searching, I finally have the Halcyon 1/144 Alien Narcissus in my hands. This Escape Pod was the last battlefield between Warrant Officer Ripley and the Alien. In her last desperate attempt, the Alien ejected and then killed by the Lifeboat’s quad engines. With the Autopilot activated, Ripley then enters Hypersleep with her cat, Jonesy for the next 57 years.
Note:
There are some additional notes and link revisions as I am revisiting this model in 2022.
Halcyon Narcissus 001
When it first came out in the early 90’s, I was not interested in most Halcyon Models since I could not get the APC. But now, after looking at the Narcissus on and off again, I kind like it even more than the APC. In fact, IMHO, its the best model ever from the Alien Series.
This model has been passed through a few hands and has a History. But what is more important now is that this time, it WILL get built and also lit up!
Halcyon Narcissus 002
It has been built before, by the first owner before his untimely demise. He loves to build a little and then put it back in his stash. Why? Because he could.
Anyway, all the parts are here and this is how it was, when I opened the slightly soiled box.
Halcyon Narcissus 003
You can roughly tell the Age of the model and also, how it fared when stored in a normal humid Malaysian house; yellowing and patches of fungus.
Halcyon Narcissus 004
The instruction manual is also quite simple and I can actually ignore it without suffering from much mishaps.
Halcyon Narcissus 005
Here is the problem. On the box, the model is touted to be 1/144 but if you look at the picture, the seats are too big for a 1/144. I used the seats of a 1/144 Helicopter model for comparison.
Taking the figure from 8th Passenger, the Narcissus is 16.3m long, 19.7m wide and 7.5m high, the actual scale of this Halcyon Models which is about 21.5cm, the scale is close to 1/76. I could be wrong Still, this is something for me to mull about as I might consider doing a rough interior since I am going to light it up.
This is the 8th Passenger link (OK, it is dead link): http://www.8thpassenger.airart3d.com/?page_id=93
Halcyon Narcissus 006
As far as fitting is concerned, you have the usual gaps and all but nothing too serious I couldn’t pass to friend to help me out (heh)
But I think, for this model, I will try to weather it with pastels.
2022: At this time in 2014, I did not know how to use pigments, etc. Even now, I still do not know how to use them well.
Halcyon Narcissus 007
When I say I want to light it up, apart from the 9-holes per engine exhaust and a dimly lit interior, I am going to apply some artistic license on the Narcissus.
Alien purist will hate me for it but I want to light it up the way I think is effective. For when there is a lifeboat, it needs to be rescued and also, tell the rescuer where the access hatch is.
So, it will have some blinkers that well, blinks lazily and a pair of lights (highlighted in yellow) which will point to the airlock.
Yeah, I can feel some Alien gatekeeper fury building up already…
Halcyon Narcissus 008
I am using the 3806 LEDs. Although they’re tiny, its quite easy to solder them. All you need to do is to dab the contacts with some soldering flux. Please note that although they have been soldered, they are still quite fragile. One tug on the wires will tear the metal contacts apart. So, I twist them to prevent the wires from being accidentally snagged. Oh, to show you how big these 3806 LEDs are, I put a 3mm LED next to them.
Next, I roughly measured the length of the 3806 LED and used a 1.5mm drill to create the holes. Using a combination of sharp pointed scalpel blades, files and a micro chisel, I got the holes done! The holes are to let the wires through and to keep the LED in place.
Halcyon Narcissus 009
This is a test of the pair of 3806 LEDs at 10mA. The LEDs are very bright. In fact, they’re too bright which means I would need to dim it down.
Tomorrow or the day after, I will use Aves Apoxie to secure them in their respective holes. Right now, I have to wait for the Aves to thaw out as I always put them in the freezer when I am not using them. As for the light leak, I guess I will slip some aluminum tape under the roof of the tiny holes. You can tell I am a very lazy modeller.
Halcyon Narcissus 010
This is my plan to minimise the light leaks of the twin spot lights. Please note that this is not a ‘canon’ modification as there are no such lights in the movie of Alien and Aliens.
I have cut out four pieces of the aluminum tape. This is much easier than shaping it to become a ‘T’ as sometimes, if you’re not careful, you can actually tear the tape. Once you got the tapes correctly in, press/score it a few times to let the adhesives stick.
I did not go with the Krylon Fusion Black this time as it rained this morning and it actually too cool to spray stuff. Also, the aluminum tapes (I hope) will help reflect the LED lights more towards the downward direction.
Halcyon Narcissus 011
The Aves has thawed this morning and so, I quickly got to work. Again, I am not using hot-melts here because SMD LEDs tend to light up at the rear too and I do not want that since the interior I am planning to do would be quite basic and I do not want you guys to see how horrible it is.
Plus, I don’t have any CA or Superglue since I hate using them. I have a 80% failure rate with those things.
Since I have cut the height of the holes quite tight, the aluminum tape actually help wedge the 3806 LEDs in there. But this does not mean you can push the LED in with force. You can either break its contacts or break the solder joint.
Halcyon Narcissus 012
Let’s compare the results. Yeah, its not easy to compare the brightness but you can see now that the light leak has been minimised. And hopefully, when it is painted with some matt or semi-gloss white, the brightness of the LED will be further reduced with the paints absorbing them. If not, I would have to tweak the circuit.
Narcissus 013
12cm or 14cm? I found this floorplan from the Propsummit Forum which was posted by a member called Space Jockey. As I was in the rush to get to the office, I measure the distance between the cockpit ledge and the hatch which was anything from 12cm to 14cm. You can also see the engine exhausts I have made in the upper left corner. Later I am going to cut some out to measure against the exhaust part before actually printing it on tracing/drafting paper.
Narcissus 014
Eventually, I settled on the 14cm version as it looked ‘correct’ if the seat positions were to be taken into account. This means, from end to end, its almost correct. Or, I could get it to 13cm? Hmm…. (told you I was bad at scale model stuff)
Narcissus 015
Sometimes, its very hard to get what you want when the other person, based on their own experience and information available to them, believes it cannot be done. Or they are not interested to be exposed to something new.
Take for example, a simple request to print my file onto a piece of tracing paper (AKA drafting paper). At first, their answer was no because it would jam their machines. But when I held up my own tracing paper (not those flimsy types) and informed them that it was 80gsm, they know they could not handle me and so, I was passed to their Senior who was their Dad. Another round on convincing and finally, I got what I wanted. It was a great risk for the both of us because it could go wrong. All I needed was the Dad’s approval and if anything goes wrong, its my fault. I know in this case, they were worried their machine could go wrong what with this being the three-day weekend.
There are facepalm moments in Malaysia, but based on my experience, it was either because they’re not sure or, they’re afraid to try since it would be out of their normal daily challenges. However, the ones which angers me are the ones which outright do not want to even try since it would inconvenient them or, they have never heard of it despite being proven that it could be done. For those who did, the rewards are something they can do to help boost their business. Or not.
At the end of the day, I got what I wanted although it was not perfect but hey, at least I can get some work done,
Narcissus 016
OK, I caved in and redid the template to be 12.5cm as it looked more reasonable to me. And so, its time to start work on the interior.
I am quite surprised at the model’s plastic. Its hard in certain places and very easy to chip off on others. So, yes, it took me the whole night to literally scratch out the rear inner hatch and the front cockpit.
The square of the inner hatch is actually to hold the dark clear piece in place. And if you watch the movie again, IMHO the clear parts are not darkened, but made to think so because of the unlit interior. Am I going to do something about it? I don’t think so. OK, maybe just the rear hatch, then.
Narcissus 015
Remember the time I tried to convince the printer people to print the designs on tracing paper? Well, this is the engine part as described to me by Lee Stringer. As for the exact details, I am not sure but this will have to do.
At the moment, the lights do look bright due to the Nokia n8 but in actual setting, I can still see the 9 holes. So, the 5mm LED will have to move to between 1cm to 1.5 cm so that its hot-spot can cover the whole thing. I am tempted to use wide-angle LEDs but they’re warm white. In the movie, its bluish-white. And I did not have that LED. Yet.
Took me ages to get the hole drilled out since all I had was some drill bits and a blunt scalpel. Later on, when all four engines have been drilled through, I would need to look for a flat file.
Narcissus 018
Its too hot to work today, so I just glued in some triangles at the airlock area to make as some kind of airlock thingy. The picture on the right shows how it looks like, with some ‘atmospheric’ spot lighting….
Narcissus 019
Because of the shape of the model which is more like a triangle, I used the triangle scraps from the original rectangle when I traced out the template. Good thing was, they actually fit?
The walls are more or less fit and it is not a problem because if you were to look in from the hatch, you will never see if the walls are touching the ceiling or not. So, for me, its close enough.
Narcissus 020
OK, got the walls up more or less. Once I thaw out the Aves again, I’ll reinforce them. The next step would be to start populating the interior with lots of parts. The problem is, where to get some since I don’t have much spare parts compared to when I was a kid.
Hmm….
Narcissus 021
The four Engines exhausts must be hollowed out, including their boosters. This was because when I first drilled the 5mm hole during testing, it was a bad idea. As I move the LED further back, the hole actually limits and shapes the final projection into, yep a 5mm hole.
In the end, I had to scrape out the walls in the booster that connects to the exhausts to give it more room and create a bigger LED hot-spot.
Narcissus 022
This is driving me nuts! I was searching all over the place last night and I could not find the missing part to one of the Engines! I know its somewhere on the table and just hope it did not fall into the plastic bags which I use for rubbish.
Also, there are the surviving sprues from a Academy Merkava MkIII, which was lost to termites and their vinyl parts attacked the plastic road wheels. Roughly from here, I can use a few parts to populate the interior but I need to build the structure/walls first. To be honest, I need to look for more parts, esp 1/72 tanks and vehicles. Anyone care to donate some broken/unfinished models?
Narcissus 024 (There is no #23)
Have you seen this part?
OK, what I am missing is the identical part as marked in yellow, which, to my dismay, is really, really, lost. I can’t find it. Not on the Piscean Works table, the rubbish bags, the model kit’s box nor even Hobby HQ. Still, I’ll try to continue with this as much as I can as it really dented my enthusiasm. I might have to beg for a recast or another model to get this finished. LOL.
For the moment, everything is on hold as one Client is rushing me to get his things done in two week’s time. Plus, the guy who does my circuit board has resigned, leaving the shop to pick up the pieces. The Phone call this morning
pissed me off as they will partially do the board and I now have to buy a proper PCB drill with its stands to drill all the holes myself. Something I did not foresee as not only does this cost money, each snapped drill bit means one big chunk of $$$ gone.
Narcissus 025
I finally found it, after more than a week of searching and in a place I did not suspect: The window sill!
So, its back to doing this but at a moderate and slowed pace since I have a deadline to fulfill. However, because of the bad news at the shop, I have to give them until Tuesday before I go for my backup plan. But the stupidity is, I can only be free on Saturdays to collect the circuit board.
In the meantime, this is the best that I can do. If the Client does not like it, he can take back his model. I would rather put this on Carbonite.
Narcissus 026
I have started to populate the interior based on the floor-plan I found on the Internet. I planned to use most of the parts in the Merkava but in the end, it was the KopyKat mechanical chain base which gave better parts. (OK, so the AFV Group Build was on and some needed parts from my termite infested Merkava)
Narcissus 027
I ‘borrowed’ a pair of 1/72 F-14/18 seats from HHQ which I planned to buy when I have the money but this is more or less how the interior would look like. The lighting would be toned down one I give the interior a dark gray. Next would be the airlock area and the electronics before I tackle the decals.
I have programmed the lighting sequence for the Halcyon Narcissus model with the following steps, while the Emergency Beacon is activated. Bear in mind, this is not the actual set up as I just found this board with red LEDs for testing. This video is just to observe the lighting sequence in the Narcissus when Ripley ‘woke up’ in the middle of her Sleep. You know that feeling, when you need to go to pee in the middle of the night.:
Sleep Pod lights up,
Interior Lights plus airlock doors are ON,
Front Lights are ON,
Engines starts up,
Engines shuts down,
Front lights are OFF,
Interior lights are OFF
Sleep Pods are OFF
2022: At that time, I ran out of Prototype Boards and found this prototype PCB, so I used that I had in hand. It was first programmed into a DIL chip before being finalised and then uploaded to a SMD version of the chip.
Narcissus 028
Here is the actual PCB I’ll be using for the Narcissus Model. Its the yet to be released Warhammer PCB which all of a sudden has found itself to be very useful in various situations.
I will be using two types of LEDs; SMDs and through-holes. In the test, (video will be up soon) the two Airlock LEDs are still too bright but I’ll see if I can further reduce them later. The chip I am using has only five I/O ports, which is insufficient. I had to share the Airlock LEDs with the Cockpit port as a last resort.
2022: Yeah, the Warhammer Project did not go through and I am stuck with a lot of these boards.
Narcissus 029
Although I had used Krylon Fusion Black on the interior, I’ll still be giving it shades of grey and some random shiny surfaces. The shaded areas (Blue for Sleep Pods and Yellow for 1/72 F-14/18 resin seats) will be worked on next.
I still think the floor is a little too neat and maybe I’ll give it some panels since I could not locate the mirror PE netting from the Merkava. The original plastic version is now glued to the front floor, just behind the proposed area of the seats. But all this would be for nought since the model’s front canopy is smoked black and I do not know how to recreate it in clear. But the back airlock piece would be clear…
Narcissus 030
Its a long day and so, there’s a change of plans. I decided to do the four engines instead of the Sleep Pods tonight. Using a combination of hot-melts and aluminum stickers, the LED’s hot-spot is a perfect bulls-eyed in the middle of the ‘squares’.
Here’s a little light test. The seams are horrible for me even after I have sanded them. So, I applied a little bit of Mr. Dissolved Putty, leave it dry and sand again. I’m too tired to show you how I did the LEDs too.
Narcissus 031
After waiting for one night for the rotary drill’s battery to get charged up, (I still cannot find the other weak 9volt drill) I got the resin F-18 seats removed from its base. Surprisingly, the resin sticks well to the cut MacDonalds coffee stirrer. Looking at the seats, I know its a recast from somewhere since there are a lot of bubbles at the back. Anyway, a quick spray with Krylon Black and when its dry, on to the interior plate it went.
Narcissus 032
I am rushing to get this done as fast as I can so, in summary, the two LEDs on the left are 3258’s instead of the 0805 I planned to use. The two ‘LED holders’ I used were actually some sort of crimping part for a computer Network system I saved in the late 90’s. Because of its deep recesses, its a natural light shield for the SMD LED since they do not have a focusing lens. I used some quick epoxy and its wires to get it wedged stuck before I use a clear SMD plastic to secure everything. See the Aluminum tape in the centre? Its to secure the top beacon instead of using hot-melts. As for the top beacon on the right, its a OSRAM LWP473.
Those who knew me, knows the difficult History behind this LED
2022: Wait. Why did I use the aluminum tape to secure that LED? Wouldn’t that short out the leads once the glue fails?
THE NARCISSUS HEADLIGHTS
OK, so they’re not headlights but forward thrusters after seeing this video and Roger Bowen‘s suggestion. I admit that I’ve not seen this movie completely. Maybe I did but for a kid, it was so scary and I can only remember Ash’s head on a table and that chest-bursting scene.
Narcissus 033
I picked up the Plastruct 6.3mm (I think, as its between 5mm and the 7.1mm) which has an ideal inner diamter for the 5mm LED. I also used some plastic patterns to replicate the weird openings of the spotlights. Its hard to bend it and also, with relation to scale, the horizontal bars were too big. Still, its the best I can do. The test result on the right. I had to fix some light leaks after this shot as the LED’s light also shines to the back.
Narcissus 034
OK, so the two holes in the front are not headlights but rather, thrusters. The only thing which bothers me now, is that from the reference photos of Mr. Juan Garcia Vazquez’s Album, the shot in the studio is warm-white while in the movie, its bluish-white. Hmm…. decisions, decisions.
Me? I am quite partial to warm-white but since the thrusters are white…. if only I had a copy of the Alien movie to watch to see how the reverse thrusters were being used; as headlights (ahem) or really thrusters.
2022: Yeah, I’ve watched that and it’s dissapointing bluish-white.
Narcissus 035
Thanks to Roger Bowen’s suggestion, I have changed the LED colours from warm-white to pure white, which is the same as the rear engines. Luckily, they’re not glued yet as the sleep pods are not even done.
Man, I am going to miss those warm-whites…
Narcissus 036
I used Daler & Rowney Liquid Mask to seal up the front and rear thrusters before giving the Narcissus a nice coat of Krylon Fusion Matt Black. One thing I like about the latex mask is that its very easy to remove them from plastic surfaces by just rubbing them or through peeling. They do not take the paint below them too.
2022: A few years later, I’ve discovered Mr. Masking SOL-R which is a water based liquid mask. But do not be confused with Mr. Masking SOL which has a orange label.
Narcissus 037
Time to mask the canopy! What I do is just cover it with masking tape and then play my favourite MP3s while I use a sharp blade to cut the excess tape off…
Narcissus 038
These Sleep Pods took me the whole night. I was trying to take a short-cut by melting the pla-plates with a lighter (left) and the result was horrible. So, I took a 7.1mm Evergreen tube, cut them into two 1inch tubes. And then I cut a 1 inch 8mm square tube as base for the tubes. However, instead of splitting the square tube in the middle, I cut them at an angle. Using 2mm drills, I drill four rounded corners for each tube before using a rotary saw to remove the plastics. But don’t throw these away just yet.
Once they are ready, I glued them together, soldered the 0805 LEDs and inserted them into the Sleep Pods (right). I then rolled some clear plastic and shoved them inside the tubes, followed with some flat tissue paper as soft bedding before sealing up the Sleep Pod with more pla-plates.
Narcissus 039
Remember the excess plastic after making the pods? I cut one in half and used it as a ‘shield’ for the LED’s wires. But before that, I stuck some aluminum tape on the end of the pod, then cut out enough for the plastic to be welded into the pod (left). For each Pod, I drilled a hole underneath for the wires to go through before cementing the Pod to the interior’s flooring.
And this (right) is how it looks like when lit. I originally wanted to used the 3528 SMD LED but it was too bright and so, I chose 0805 instead.
Narcissus 040
Since Hobby HQ was still having the 50% Sale, I bough another 1/72 seat, this time its a F-18. So, the usual, which is to remove the resin base, use Tamiya Thin Cement to glue it to another MacDonald’s drink stirrer. Then, its some coats of Krylon Fusion Matt Black and that’s it for the day (or morning. Internet is pissing me off, took an hour to upload 5 photos)
Narcissus 041
You can tell by now that I don’t have much paints except for greys, black, white and a brown. So, this is the best I can do do for the Narcissus. Painted everything I can throw at, plus some silver dry-brushing and that’s it.
Narcissus 042
Just a small test with the pair of ceiling lights inside the Narcissus. You can see the not-so accurate Ripley’s chair. It’s a little too bright so, I think I am going to dim it down a little further, not with circuits but maybe, some plastics.
Narcissus 043
I am back again, from Hobby HQ. Needed to go to a quiet place for a few hours so I can solder and modify some changes for the Narcissus lights. It all worked fine during testing and also on each individual LEDs. But the evening requires total concentration of which LED goes where. The wires do look messy from here but this is considered OK for me since a few dabs of hot-melt glue will make sure they don’t mess everything up. This can only be done once the PCB is secured under that interior plate and not before.
Narcissus 044
I have found a nice lockable push switch.
Narcissus 045
These would be the last LEDs to be installed into the Model, which are the side strobes. For me, this is quite a challenge because I wanted the holes to line up correctly, both in the plastic part and also the upper hull. This took me about an hour since I need to figure out how to achieve it.
What I did was, mate the upper and lower hull together, and then drill a small 2mm hole in the middle of the square dimple. This will be the access hole for the very thin wires to the LED. At this stage, I was tempted to change to a 3mm LED but I decided not to. As the piece is still drying, I quickly drilled the same 2mm hole. using the original hole as guidance.
Once that is done. I use the chisel to make square holes for that piece and re-glued it again. The picture on the right shows the result. But this time, I am not going to light block it to show the perfect square hole. The white paint that comes on later will help shape it. I just want it to shine as bright as possible.
2022: I still do not understand what I typed
Narcissus 046
This is how the Narcissus looks like this Sunday morning and hopefully, by afternoon, I will plug in the fibre-optics. Then I will redo the power cables and seal the whole model, ready for next week’s painting.
Narcissus 047
Now, I drilled a small 2mm hole next to the ‘cross’ area. Then I swapped the power cables to a thinner version (don’t worry, since this circuit does not use a lot of power), tied a knot inside to prevent from breaking when accidentally snagged.
Narcissus 048
Now, I this is the last thing I need to do before closing the model completely. I need to prepare four fibre-optic strands.
The one end, I need to sand it until its flat. Keep sanding in a circular motion until you can see a flat and unchipped surface with your eye.
The other end, is for a mushoom head. The picture on the right shows you what I mean. In order to achieve this, you just hold the strand between 1~2cm next to a naked flame and slowly melt it. As it melts, it will deform and create what its called, the mushroom head.
The reason why I like to do this is that it indirectly becomes a lens and (in theory) helps spreads the light more.
Narcissus 049
So, why the four fibre-optic strands? This was thanks to Juan Garcia Vasquez’s kind contribution, which you can see in his album, the four alignment lights the the lowest part of the picture. This is the shot where the Alien was jettisoned out of the airlock and is about to be toast.
A real life actor inside the Alien costume is hung from the 1:1 mock-up of the Narcissus.
2022: Note you can also see most of the 9 lights inside both engine thrusters.
Narcissus 050
I have a problem here. How can I make sure the four fibre-optic strands sticks to the LED? Since I do not have the proper heat-shrink to hold them to the LED, I decided to drill a small hole into the LED lens instead…
In this picture, I am using a White LED with clear lens to show you what I mean. Just make sure the diameter of the hole is enough to fit the four 0.75mm strands. I drilled about 2.5mm into the LED and then wedged the fibre-optic into the tight hole.
Narcissus 051
This is how the four fibre-optic strands looked like. I used a small heat-shrink tube and quickly heat it with the soldering iron. Since the heat-shrink tube is already very tight, just a light dab to the tubing would cause it to shrink a little but. Of course you won’t be able to notice it but its already tightened.
Narcissus 052
I cut off one of the fibre-optic strand as close enough the the model to show you the effect. But later on, I might have problem forming the mushroom head since this might melt the plastic too. Ha ha ha ha.
Right now, I am clamping the Narcissus part by part and gluing it using Tamiya Thin Cement; I love this cement as it really goes into crevices which normal glue cannot reach and glued it to heck.
Narcissus 053
I did some slight hollowed out holes for the rear sides of the Narcissus, then using a combination of Q-tips stalks and styrene tubing, I formed what I think could be passed off as details of the original on the left. (Courtesy of Juan Garcia Vazquez’s Album)
Narcissus 054
I needed to fill the gap at the front because no matter how hard I clamped the hulls together, the gap is still there. So, what I did was to mix a small blob of Aves Apoxy and smoothed it into the crevices.
Narcissus 055 That stubborn fibre!
I have slipped some scrap plastic to wedge between it and the dried Aves putty. This was because when I was drilling out the hole earlier on, I made a mess out of it and the constant popping out of the fibre-optic was a constant reminder.
I should not have cut the fibre-optic too early as they could have been used to leverage it back into the hole. Anyway, I hope to get some more Aves putty into it tonight.
Narcissus 056
The thrusters are going to be fixed next. Cut the double-sided foam tapes into 5mm x 10mm pieces. These will be used to hold the tracing paper onto the edge of the plastic part. Once you have all the four sides done, you might also want to stick strips of aluminum tapes to the exposed sides of the DST.
The thickness of the DST also affects the final light pattern thrown onto the tracing paper. Try looking for any thickness from 1mm to 1.5mm. I used 2mm (standard) and they show up on the tracing paper…
Narcissus 057
All done! Next, would be painting session this weekend!
Narcissus 058
With an hour to spare before I leave for Work, I decided to play with the Airbrush (given to me by Bruce Toh) for a while.
The paint is Gaia Flat White #011 mixed with about 30% of Mr. Colour #97 LIght Gray. Then I diluted it with 60% of Hobby HQ thinner to make it milky white. But because its not thin enough, I spent most of the time spray trickling instead.
And so, this is the first coat where I tried my hand with ‘colouring’ the panels. It’s still a long way to go though…
2022: WTF is Spray trickling?
Anyway, at that time, I was not that great with airbrushing esp with a fish aquarium pump as the compressor. Also, I did not know about the dithering technique (but that would not be convinging in Space)
Narcissus 059
This is a facepalm moment for me. As I was preparing the other external parts for painting, I realised that Halcyon did give the parts for the thingy at the rear. Shows that although you need to RTFM, you need to do it till the last page. Still, I did learn something there. So, I will put the part in, except for the smaller one which is located at the side of the ship.
Narcissus 060
This is how the Narcissus looks with a second coat of white. This time, I used the pure Flat White which is Gaia #011
Narcissus 061
I have not had the time to try some pastels so, what I did was to use Tamiya’s Panel Line Brown and Black. But you have to be very quick, especially Black.
Narcissus 062
This part is my most favourite plus the surrounding square edges. White was thinly sprayed onto certain areas. Then it was first ran with Brown Panel Line and then followed by Black. Lastly, a cotton bud dipped in Zippo lighter fluid was used to rub around the base. Final step was to apply the Black panel line all over before wiping it off with tissue paper.
Narcissus 063
Finally, the painting of the Narcissus is done and I’ll let it dry overnight as some areas feels sticky to the touch.
I have also peeled off the masking for the windows and its so dark, you can’t really see anything in there…
2022: Yeah, that was the ‘Oh shiiiieeet’ moment as the smoked glass was too dark and the LED lights was already being absorbed by the black paints.
Narcissus 064
This is my second most favourite part of the Narcissus. The two LEDs are very bright and does give the effect I wanted. However, because of the colour of its lights, I had to adjust this image closest to that I see with my own eyes. Note that I have not peeled off the masking tape for the hatch. I will do this tomorrow. But right now, I call this done as I need to move on to the next item on my list and come back to this later.
Narcissus 065
OK, this is the last image for the Halcyon Models Narcissus as I need to complete my backlogs. For the moment, I leave you with my most favourite shot, which is the lighting to the hatch and the white strobes.
However, bear in mind, these lighting effects does not exist in the movie. But I just want to put them in.
Because I can.
