The Egg and I, part two

Still working on the egg. I got the first coat of paint on, but found that I REALLY need a moisture trap for my airbrush. I never noticed it because I'd been doing most of my modeling in the winter with a wood stove roaring in the next room.

Here's the fuselage. I faked some panel lines (with pencil and pre-shading) because I found the egg plastic did not like being scribed. Or, also possible, I'm a horrible scriber. The color is actually red, but I couldn't for the life of me get rid of the PINK color of the photo. The black thing on top is a radome.

Side view:



Front view (the thing on the front is the door. I'd planned on actually building a door and full interior but the crappiness of the plastic stopped that idea):



Here's the engine nacelle. Again, it isn't that pink.

This is the rear. The black bits are cut-outs where the propeller blades will go:



This is the intake. It features the only cannibalized part on the entire model so far (a spare bogie from some tank or another):



The propeller blades were going to be problematic from the start. I thought I'd try simple and made some out of wood strips. The result was... not good:




So, I tried again in plastic. Stuck, I hit the web and found a picture of a new Hamilton-Sundstrand prop and tried to copy that. Here's an in-progress pic. The tough thing is getting the four blades to be even closely related to each other. Next time, I'm doing one and then casting the rest out of resin:



The cockpit is turning out well, I added the instrument panel:




Here's a shot of the instruments. I designed up a set of instruments in Adobe Illustrator and, since I didn't have any decal paper yet, so I used sticker paper. The effect is not bad. The only problem is you can't move the stickers around like you can with decals.



Another view:




A close up, looking forward through the cabin door, showing the raised bits (fire suppression t-handle, throttles and some buttons). After I looked at this shot, I realized I had to re-position some of the instrument clusters as they are a bit askew:




That's all for now. I'm coating it in future and plan on assembling the engine soon. The contest is two weeks from today. I hope I at least get a nod or two from the old hands.

Sweet Enemy bought me a wicked cool Japanese model for my birthday. Oh, it is sweet. I can hardly wait to build it. But, since it is from SE, and it's hard to find, I'm putting it at the bottom of my stash so that my skills will be up to it when I get to it. Hopefully.

Listening to while posting: Scherzo: Allegro & Finale by Beethoven (played by the London Symphony Orchestra)