With most of the interior walls explored, let’s take a look at the whole interior and its exterior lighting. By now, you would start to feel that the design this model is more of a light exploratory transport and not some long-term spacecraft.
But that’s just me.
I can’t sleep. That’s what two cups of coffee will do to you. Anyway, just a little dry-fitting and some moody lighting to try to give Randy Cooper‘s Mars Hopper some realistic imagination.
A view from the top, somehow made Randy Cooper‘s Mars Hopper’s interior looked more like a Star Trek Bridge module or, well, a movie set. You decide.
For the moment, Randy Cooper‘s Mars Hopper’s Interior (minus the ceiling) is done for the moment.
Sorry but in the middle of the night, this looked amazingly cool, as if you’re in an inspection ship looking from above on a half completed craft.
And so, this is how the interior looked like from above. Yeah, the space closet lights are too bright, so I will need to design some spacesuits with matte paints to absorb the excess photons.
And this would be how it looked like from the front. Just that I’m not so hot with the dim green FO near the right of the Airlock ramp. But yeah, let’s not ‘touch’ this any further until the circuit board has been prototyped.
You guys should go out and get one. Randy Cooper‘s MLEV5 (aka Mars Hopper) is a very nice kit and there are so much possibilities. Perhaps, when I have the chance to get a second kit, I’ll do my own version… heh.
OK, sometime ago, I did tell you guys to drill out two holes for the front wires, right? You need to use the front windows part #k1 as template. If not, this was what I had to do; cut some pieces away so that the wires are not disturbed.
I had a reason making the holes higher; I do not want people to see the cables that juts out from under the front airlock although I can make them as part of the decorations. So, you need to make your own judgement on this. Too high, you need to cut some parts, too low and people might see them (if you did an open airlock, that is)
And I painted the inner frames black since there would be the clear part sandwiched in between
Today is also leg day, where I start on the lower part of the Mars Hopper. As you can see, these are the landing legs of the model and boy, how I wished there were some extras as they looked so nice as 1/6 Sci-Fi weapons pack or some kind of nuclear/power reactors. Shame I have to use them for the Mars Hopper now. Ha ha ha ha.
Just a note, each of these ‘legs’ uses 14-parts and if you glue them right, they make great wine cups or even jell-o molds….
Happy Belated Thanksgiving!
Yeah, I got caught up with work and all, and I was I was given another two months contract.
Anyway, for those of you who are not familiar with the picture, these are the bonus cups that comes with Randy Cooper Cooper’s MLEV-5 as produced by Pegasus Models. Its a 14-piece wine cup with a cover and its so nicely made, there are no leaks. Really. OK, so they’re parts of the Mars Hopper’s landing gears.
And yes, I don’t drink so these are Ribena, a blackcurrant cordial drink
I don’t want to say too much here as I’m tired and although its Sunday, I have some Day Job work to complete. But DO test fit the parts before you glue them as the inside panel need a slight trim before it fits. Lastly, do not cover everything until you have threaded all wires to the 6 spotlights.
I just learnt that its not wise to eat any food that a fly has laid eggs to. And so, just some soldering before I collapse to bed.
I am now really testing the two LEDs as the Wide angle White had arrived. I have compared it with the normal 3mm White LED and was quite surprised at the result.
Seems like the warm-white version is brighter than the white version. And so, its easily decided that all the 9 spots will be using normal 3mm White LEDs.
Please excuse the ‘moody’ shot on the right as I had to dim the exposure so that I can really see the effects of the LEDs on to the reflectors.
After changing to the 3mm normal white LED, this is the lighting effect of the MLEV-5’s landing gear. Of course you can adjust the angle of the lights as the plastic part is friction fit and you can twist it (only on one direction and not too many times). Just don’t glue the lamps and make sure the wires have some leeway inside the main frame.
And so, yeah, I kinda like this effect, and I wished I had a more accurate figure. (This guy is a KopyKat and so all the features are very soft)
Its a little too dark but I just wanted to see the effect of all the LEDs. Beginning to have some scary ambience here…
“Don’t go too far out, Carl!”
“I jut saw something moved there…”
OK, I could not help but paint ‘Carl’ up and also, glue the landing gears this evening. Although the two ‘legs’ at the back might not need any gluing, the front does. This was because when I put the ball on it, the weight was quite significant!
Did I say the model was huge? Well, look at where the arrow is pointing to ‘Carl’. Yep, its huge. And heavy!. I don’t want to take a ‘lights off’ photos yet since the model is far from completed.
‘Carl’ is now fully painted but the face was horrible. Anyway, this is how the landing gear lights look right now, in the dark. Imagine the MLEV-5 landed on the dark side of Mars. Man, this Randy Cooper model was really designed for lighting and the effects is excellent!
(No, Mars is not made of newspapers in case you’re asking)
To be continued…
