Since Frank Winspur has officially announced the Jupiter 2 model at WonderFest, I can tell you some details about the kit and show a few photos. A few factoids:
The studio set fit almost perfectly inside a 52 ft saucer, so that's what I used when I designed the model. The 1/35 scale saucer is a hair under 18" in diameter, which is the largest size that Moebius' budget could handle. (The price of tooling goes WAY up if you go any larger, and the kit would become too expensive for the mass market.)
I sent over 170 sheets of plans and more than 300 reference photos to Moebius.
Decals will be included.
I have a casting of the 4 ft hero model's hull, so I lofted its profile for the Moebius kit.
The entire upper half of the hull lifts off to reveal the interior. There's a lot of space between the interior walls and the edge of the saucer, so scratch-builders can have a field day adding the greebles & rooms we never saw.
The kit has TWO fusion cores - one with the fins extended, and one with the fins retracted.
The model has optional position landing gear, with landing gear wells, as well as outlines for the Chariot hatch and the Space Pod hatch.
The interior reflects the 3rd season version of the upper deck set, which didn't have lighted roof beams. Deleting the roof beams saves tooling costs and provides better access to the interior, but adding scratch-built roof beams should be very straightforward.
There's no lower deck, since it absolutely, positively won't fit inside the hull. Trust me!
The interior of the main airlock is represented, but Dave Metzner had to nix a sliding door for budgetary reasons, since the parts count was already way north of 200. Again, this shouldn't be hard to scratch-build, if you want.
There are a number of clear parts to facilitate lighting.
Dave and Frank allowed me to go absolutely crazy with interior detail, and the model is a near-perfect representation of the studio set. The elevator cage is a delicate work of art! I had help from several LIS experts, and I'll name names in a future article.
Here are a few early shots of the prototype model, which has undergone numerous changes since the photos were taken....
An overhead view of the prototype, with the ceiling soffit in place. The airlock floor hasn't been added yet.
The astrogator (the joystick controls will be in the deployed position on the final model)
One of the flight chairs. They can rotate, like the ones on the show, so the actors can talk to one another.
The circuit board panels will be cast in clear plastic, to simplify lighting
The elevator cage is a work of art. The clear floor panel is supported by crossed beams - just like the original
A few last words: while I was reviewing the LIS episodes on DVD, I noticed that details of the ship's interior would change seemingly from episode to episode. If the model doesn't have a certain feature you want, you can always scratchbuild the part or buy an aftermarket item. Don't criticize Dave Metzner too harshly if he didn't include every bell & whistle you wanted. Laying out all the kit's parts on a limited number of VERY expensive tools is way more complicated than I thought, and Dave did his best to provide the most bang for the buck. The J2 model ended up being far more detailed than first envisioned, and I commend Dave & Frank for allowing me to run hog wild.
That's it for now. I'll post more pics & answer questions later.
Cheers,
Gary
I'm sheechless.
