The LIS Chariot was my dream kit. When the Space Pod was originally announced along with the Chariot, I really had no intention of buying or building it. But when images of the kit started showing up, and then I saw some of the builds .... I just had to have one. I don't know if the retro look was what did it for me, or the nice interior, or that Irwin Allen Orange is starting to grow on me.

I only made a few small mods. Added landing gear steps, a radio with mic and coiled cord, and an interior ceiling to hide the seams and put an interior hatch structure to match up with the exterior. I'll be the first to admit that the ceiling idea came directly from one of the posts on this board.

Painting was fairly generic. I did watch the DVDs a few times for inspiration, and generally matched up the panels to what was shown on screen, but didn't get bogged down in precise replication. In a couple of spots I used some control panel decals from various aircraft kits, but mostly it was hand painted.

The couple little touches that I think really made it come to life were on the exterior. I painted a steel outline around the black grill on the front to make it look a bit more like the full scale equivalent. I added some shading to the escape hatch interior detailing. And I airbrushed a bit of shadow in the center of the hexagonal scanner, when the antenna is put in it gives the scanner a lot of depth.

And before anyone mentions it, I'll confess I got the front and rear spotlights backwards.... but when I discovered the error I decided to leave well enough alone because I actually like it better this way.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/john_trek/LIS%20Space%20Pod/front2.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/john_trek/LIS%20Space%20Pod/Hatchinterior.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/john_trek/LIS%20Space%20Pod/Hatch.jpg

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:



Great Job! It's a Beautiful Kit and you did an awesome Build Up!!



BP

Beautiful work!! I keep telling myself I'm just waiting to start mine until everyone gets done posting their's, so I can decide which ideas I'm going to borrow!! Thanks for a couple of new ones! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Wayne

Very nice job.

Sean

Looks great thanks for sharing it with us.

Dave

Sweet build. Looks like you puttied up the front hull seams -- did you have much problem attaching front hull plate to the rest of the pod shell?

This is the one aspect that I love about this kit. It's so well done to begin with, you could build it box stock, paint it up and it looks terrific. That being said, the little variances and minor details that each builder add to the kit do have a very positive effect and make it that much more than it was to begin with.

When I think of how the Space Pod might've looked if Aurora had done it back in 1967-68, I'm not so sure that the quality would be quite as good. I do realize that Aurora made some very unique kits in it's day and is well known for them, but I like what Moebius is turning out.

Bryan

:thumbsup:

Excellent. I love the microphone wire.

Sweet build. Looks like you puttied up the front hull seams -- did you have much problem attaching front hull plate to the rest of the pod shell?

I don't know about other people's experience but the fit on my pod was terrible. Most individual pieces fit their adjoining neighbors perfectly, making me think this was going to be an easy final assembly.

Hah! I should be so lucky.

Most kits I can pretty quickly figure out where most of the parts go and how the thing assembles. The pod continually vexed me, and as I painted the interior I kept fitting and refitting things trying to figure it out.

When I went to start assembling the exterior I discovered that the attachment pins are arranged in a manner that seems to make it impossible to get everything put together unless you cut some of them off. Slide parts one and two together and it works great. Then you see that #3 and #2 should go first, then #1. But then you discover that #4 won't work unless it have been done with #1, but then #2 is blocked. And so on.....


I could not find any order of assembly that would not result in some pins blocking me. It was like having to solve the Rubic's Cube before you could put it together. I never could figure out that one either, so I gave up and started chopping off pins.

Even that didn't really solve everything, because I couldn't get everything to line up.... it was like there was a slight twist somewhere that just grew and grew from one place to the next.
The joint between the front panel and the two upper side panes was terrible. There was a lot of putty work there and elsewhere. In fact, after about three passes I gave up and started painting.

Well, despite your struggle, the kit turned out great.

I had similar challenges with the final fit, but I didn't have the patience to putty the seams as the interior was already in and everything else was pretty much painted. I guess I could have puttied and masked things off again, but I had already re-masked on a few mistakes I made with the front panel orange, I was all masked out! :)

Anyways, nice build and thanks for posting pics and explaining challenges with build and what you did to overcome them.

A+!!!!! Very clean!!!

Great job. :) Well done :thumbsup: