Moonbase Alpha

Back in April, I shared the model I built of Main Mission, the command center of Moonbase Alpha from the 1970s TV series, Space: 1999. As I mentioned at the time, the command center was only one part of the kit. The main part of the kit is effectively a diorama of the full Moonbase from the series. We saw the moonbase at the beginning of each episode in the title card, and often at various points in the series.

In the series, Moonbase Alpha was located in the crater Plato and was approximately four kilometers in diameter. The central tower housed the main mission command center we saw in the first season. The overall base housed some 311 people. The premise of the series was that a nuclear accident launched the moon from Earth orbit and sent it hurtling out into deep space. The series goes on to show the Alphans as they fight for survival during their encounters with assorted natural phenomena and various alien races. Needless to say, it was challenging to see how the physics would work out to get the moon out of the solar system in a short time span. Despite that, the moonbase was designed in a way that felt real. As a child, watching the show with wide-eyed wonder, I could imagine living on the moonbase and flying the Eagle transport craft. I remember asking my parents for an early edition of the Moonbase Alpha kit. They wisely turned me down. While it looks simple, I encountered some challenges along the way, even as a relatively experienced model builder. Here’s the finished model, photographed from approximately the same angle as in the title card.

Moonbase Alpha Model

Perhaps the biggest challenge of building this model is that the moon crater ground pieces are vacu-form plastic while the moonbase pieces are polystyrene plastic. What this means is that you can’t use standard polystyrene model glue to assemble the kit. Most of it must be done with a more general bonding agent such as cyanoacrylate adhesive or super glue. This is tricky stuff to work with, since you don’t want to get it on your fingers. If you do, it’s a good way to attach parts of the moonbase to yourself permanently! Another tricky aspect of this kit was that the travel tubes, the long radial segments coming out from the buildings, had to be cut to size. Fortunately, I’d watched a good video on YouTube from Starship Modeler that suggested that I should measure the pieces on the model itself rather than use the guide in the kit instructions. It gave me nice results and I was able to fit the tubes into position with little trouble.

Eagle on the pad ready for liftoff!

One of my favorite aspects of the series were the Eagle transporters, used to shuttle our crew on Alpha around the moon or to alien worlds they encountered as they hurled through space. One of the things I love about the most recent Moonbase Alpha kit is that they provided nice, detailed decals for the landing pads and the Eagles were made to scale. The challenge is that the Eagle in the photo above is only 1.5 centimeters long! I had to paint the details using my jewler’s magnifying loops. Still, I’m pleased with how the Eagles came out. I chose to place two of them out on landing pads since that seemed typical for a reconnaissance mission.

Moonbase Alpha mounted in its frame

I ended up mounting the whole base on form board to give it extra stability, and then having it framed at a local shop. It was a little expensive, but it now makes a nice wall hanging in my home.

While working on the model, I sought a little inspiration and came upon the Gerry Anderson Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jamie Anderson, son of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who created Space: 1999, Thunderbirds, UFO and numerous other wonderful British TV series. Jamie’s co-hosts are Richard James and Chris Dale. In each episode of the podcast, they discuss trivia about episodes, share news about new memorabilia and upcoming projects related to the Anderson shows, and interview someone related to the series production or has some insight into one or more of the series. A highlight of each episode is the “Randomizer” where Chris Dale watches an episode and provides commentary and insight. At times, his remarks can be as much fun as watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater. What’s more, his Randomizer segment has induced me to seek out and watch some of the Anderson entertainment shows I didn’t know about before discovering the podcast. I was especially delighted when they chose to read an email I sent in. If you would like to hear it, it’s in show 162 a little over 13 minutes into the episode. There is a Facebook group devoted to listeners of the show. I have enjoyed being part of the group, in part because the other fans take such delight in the podcast and the shows. Any criticism of the shows is clearly made with a good-natured spirit. You can learn more about the Gerry Anderson podcast and find places to listen by visiting https://www.gerryanderson.co.uk/podcast/

The Waiting Game

Two weeks ago, I mentioned that I’m about to wrap up three book projects. One is the novel Upstart Mystique by Don Braden, which I’m editing and publishing. One is the anthology Exchange Students edited by Sheila Hartney that I’m publishing. The third is my novel, The Pirates of Sufiro, which I’ve revised for its twenty-fifth anniversary release. Over the last couple of months, each of these projects has involved a lot of time at the computer. I’ve been reading, revising, sending emails and making sure that everything is ready for typesetting and final cover creation. I have completed preliminary typeset copies of Upstart Mystique and Exchange Students and I’m just waiting for the covers to proceed. The Pirates of Sufiro is out with early readers. And so now I wait…

Okay, my cover artist, Laura Givens, works fast enough, I don’t imagine I’ll be waiting long, but finishing the typesetting does depend on having a finished cover. That might surprise some readers, but the reason for this is to assure the book has a cohesive look. I like to make sure the fonts used in the headers and on the chapter titles is a close, if not exact, match for the fonts used on the cover. This is certainly not an absolute requirement for publication, but I think it gives the book a much more polished and professional look.

For me, the transition from being very busy to waiting for stuff I need to complete projects is always a bit of a challenge. I wonder what my early readers are going to think about that stuff I’ve been slaving over for the past year. Are they going to like it or tell me I was wasting my time? I always look forward to seeing the covers Laura comes up with for work. Waiting for those is more akin to waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. I know good stuff is coming, I just don’t know exactly what it is. Of course, it’s not productive to sit around fidgeting about either of these. I think the very best things a writer can do while waiting to hear back from people is write something or read something. In that spirit, I’ve been catching up with some fun reading and will share some of that over the next couple of posts. I also started working on a model of the Enterprise from Star Trek: Discovery that I received as a Christmas present. You can see the work in progress in the photo.

I spent a day during my first break of the new year making sure I had everything I needed to complete the model. I planned to start it once these projects were all complete as a sort of reward to myself, but I decided to get an early start. It turns out this model is a very simple build, but it has a LOT of decal work. I decided that I really needed to invest in a product I’ve seen recommended to me on several modeling forums and by some friends called “Micro Sol” which really helps the decals settle onto the surface of the model. Of course, this is the one thing I needed I couldn’t find locally, so I had to order it. So, I’m waiting on that project as well! So, I’m back to reading and thinking about what writing projects are next for me. I do a lot of my thinking by walking, so I am getting some exercise in while I wait. If people keep me waiting long enough, who knows? I may just get that next writing project started.

Enterprise Cut-Away Model

Last Christmas, my family presented me with a wonderful cut-away model of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the classic Star Trek series. This is actually something I wanted long before the model actually existed. I was a fan of the original Star Trek from a very young age. The very first model I ever helped my dad build was a model of the Enterprise from the show. The one in the photo below is the new one, but it looks very much like that original I helped with.

I remember when the Universal Studio Tours started up in Southern California and my aunt and uncle went. When they came back, I asked them how it was. My aunt told me all about how they learned how movies and TV shows were made. I asked her if they had a model that showed the inside of the Starship Enterprise, because at that young age, I equated the imagined reality of the show with how the show was made. In order to placate me, my aunt assured me that such a model must exist. I was disappointed when I went to Universal Studios with my parents a few weeks later to discover such a model did not exist after all.

Flash forward some forty years and I saw just such a model in a Hastings store in Albuquerque. After doing some research, I specifically requested a version of the model produced during 1996, during the show’s thirtieth anniversary. My understanding was that the mount was more steady and the pieces fit together better than the later edition of the model. My wife found the one she gave me on eBay.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to dive right into building the model. I had a novel to finish this year, plus I worked on the book trailer for The Astronomer’s Crypt. However, once both of those projects were complete, I finally built the model and was pleased with how it came out. In the photos of the exterior, you’ll see some seams, but those are simply the places where the model comes apart to reveal the interior.

When I was a child, I confused the idea of what the fictional ship would look like with the sets a TV show would be filmed on. However, as I became a professional writer, I found detailed visualizing and understanding of how a fictional ship works is very handy for selling it as a real machine in my writing. Over the years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time understanding the deck layouts of the ships in my Space Pirates’ Legacy universe and how the solar sail Aristarchus works in my novel The Solar Sea. Given that perspective, it was fun to return to one of my first science fiction loves to see how the creators of Star Trek envisioned the interior of the Enterprise.

The photo above shows the completed interior. One thing that was disappointing in the 30th Anniversary edition of the model was that it included a very limited decal set. It did not include the interior decals for the secondary hull decks you see above and many of the exterior decals were the wrong size for the model scale. I discovered that Round-2, the company that owns AMT who produced the model, had improved the decal set. What’s more, they sell decal sets for their models. So, I simply bought the decal set for the later model and used those instead of the decals that came with the model.

This year, I came full circle on the idea of visualizing spaces for a novel and learning how to realize them for film. While writing The Astronomer’s Crypt I kept a chart of my fictional 5-meter telescope at Carson Peak Observatory. While similar to the Mayall 4-meter at Kitt Peak where I work, there were key differences and those differences made it easy to get confused. When we filmed the book trailer, I had hopes we could use the control room at the 4-meter. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get permission, so we dressed an office space to look like a control room, which really isn’t that much of a stretch. We had to put together shooting locations that weren’t adjacent to one another and make it look like they were. If you haven’t seen the results, you can check out the trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIcXPxmnVmQ.

A Restful(?) Week

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I have quite a few projects lined up for this year. Also, by “luck” of the draw, I had to drive to work at Kitt Peak National Observatory on Christmas Day and stay through New Years morning. So, I decided to take this first week of the new year as a low-pressure week to unwind from the stress of the holidays before jumping into new projects.

One of my Christmas presents this year was a model of the spaceship Bentenmaru from the anime Bodacious Space Pirates (Click on the title to see my discussion of the series). My wife included a copy of the movie based on the series, Abyss of Hyperspace. The movie was pretty good. It’s essentially an extended episode of the series and doesn’t add much to the bigger story arcs. Still, it was great to see Pirate Captain Marika Kato, the crew of the Bentenmaru, and the Hakuoh Academy Yacht Club back in action.

The model itself was an import from Japan made by Hasegawa Hobby Kits. I’ve had fun building other anime space ship models from Japan. Most of those were Bandai kits. As with the Bandai kits I’ve built, the actual assembly of the model was smooth and the model includes lots of detail. Unlike the Bandai kits I’ve assembled, this one came with a generous sheet of decals. This is where my week of fun and pleasant diversion morphed into challenging learning experience.

Now as someone who has enjoyed building models since I was in elementary school, I’m no stranger to water-slide decals. So, I didn’t think I needed instructions for applying them—useful since the instructions that came with the kit were in Japanese. However, as I began to apply the decals, I discovered that they were both a bit thicker than the American decals I’ve used and seemed to have less glue. The result was that I found them a challenge to stay in place and several started to peel up again as they dried, instead of remaining stuck to the model!

I ended up going out to the internet to find methods for rescuing the decals. I found one site that recommended sticking them down with a little watered-down white glue. This worked for a few of the smaller decals. I was able to rescue a few of the decals by applying a tiny drop of superglue underneath with a toothpick and pressing the decal back down. The biggest decal was on the base—the series logo. That one went down easily and seemed to stick well, but as it dried, its edges seemed to lift up. My attempt to rescue it led to the worst disaster of all. One forum I read suggested sealing the edges with clear nail polish. I’m sorry to say, clear nail polish melted these decals. Fortunately, I’d only tried on a small area and only did a little damage that I was able to touch up with some paint.

Eventually, I found my way to a forum for Gundam models, another Japanese hobby company focusing on mecha. Their video for decal application suggested that I was applying the decals correctly, but that I should also use a clear liquid called decal set after applying them. I’ve been aware of decal set, but I have never found it all that necessary on the American models I made. I picked up a small bottle and tried it on the last couple of decals on the Bentenmaru and they did indeed seem to stick down better than the ones applied without decal set. In the end, I’m pretty happy with the results, though I’m a little concerned that the model won’t age well if decals peel up and fall off.

If anyone reading this has built Hasegawa models with decals, I’d be interested in any tips you have. If the model doesn’t hold up to time, I may attempt it again. If so, I want to go in with as much knowledge as possible!

Because of the decals, the model took a lot longer than I expected and wasn’t really as restful as I hoped. Even so, it did clear my mind and gave me a change of pace for a few days before leaping into new projects. As writers, we’re often told we have to write every day and apply every waking hour we’re not writing to marketing our books. I think it’s important for writers to step back from that and realize that they’re self-employed business people. Everyone burns out if they don’t take a break once in a while. If you’re a writer, remember to be a good boss to yourself and give yourself some time to play—whether it’s some time relaxing on a beach, indulging in a hobby, or even taking a class. It’ll pay dividends in your efficiency, and who knows? You might have an experience which could be used in a future story.

Building an Ornithopter

I had a great time at MileHiCon last week. During the convention, I had numerous productive business meetings. Some of these has to do with moving forward on projects in process, some had to do with improving the workflow on the ezine edition of Tales of the Talisman, some had to do with short story submissions and possible anthologies. I’m sure at least some of this will bear fruit in the coming weeks and I’ll keep you posted as things develop.

Once I returned home and caught up with other work this week, I took time to build a model of an ornithopter. In essence, it’s a craft that flies by flapping its wings. Although this was recreational for me, it was also a form of research. Ornithopters feature prominently in my Clockwork Legion Steampunk series, which begins with Owl Dance. I’m currently waiting for edits on the second novel, Lightning Wolves, and I’ve been making notes on The Brazen Shark, which is the third novel in the series.

I find that building a model of something that appears in one of my novels is a great way to visualize it. This model isn’t identical to the ornithopters of the Clockwork Legion series. The model is inspired by Leonardo DaVinci’s drawings, and it’s meant to be powered by the rider. The ornithopters in the clockwork legion series rely on a small chemical reaction steam engine to power the craft. However, this still serves as a reality check. I see that the small engine with cables and pulleys should be able to flap the wings as I imagine. I also get ideas for additional details that may be described.

If you haven’t already discovered the Clockwork Legion series, you can read all about my ornithopters in Owl Dance. You can learn more about the novel, read a sample chapter, see what some reviewers think, and find places to buy at: davidleesummers.com/owl_dance.html