The Tardis

Yes this is a spaceship. It’s from Dr. Who, a campy British sci-fi series I fell in love with for several years as a teenager.

I found this kit on Federation Models during one of my buying sprees. It’s put out by MMI: Millennia Models Int’l “Building the Future Today ---A Little Smaller.” I like that.

The kit is just three inch high resin kit with all of 7 parts and stickers instead of decals. I built it in a week, working on it ten minutes at a time.

Though I don’t think I would have had a problem finding “Royal Blue” which the box called for, I mixed it myself with my trusty set of Liquitex colors. I matched it to the box and got a close match I think.

Assembly was a little tricky because I had to make sure the corners were square. The kit came with a base with the correct angles, but it was still a little tricky and took several attempts, scraping superglue off each time.

Another problem I discovered after assembly was surprising gaps between the base and the box and in between several of the panels. I didn’t think I’d have to do any puttying at all. Even so, I did very little.

I airbrushed a base color of blue and let it dry. I lighted the mixture with a little white and airbrushed highlights where I’d normally drybrush. I drybrushed anyway and shaded the panels a bit with the original blue as the airbrushing had lightened them a bit.

I painted the light white but neglected to put on several tiny rods around it to simulate a light casing. I must have lost them.

When I was satisfied with the color, I hit the model with Future floorwax in anticipation of the decals. I over-sprayed the Future ( a mistake I make too frequently) and had to sand off a couple drips and repaint a bit.

I guess I should pay more attention to the kit and instructions because I was surprised to see that I didn’t have decals, but stickers for the model. This comes from working on four models simultaneously.

The stickers went on very easily - easier than decals. I could get used to them. I could even trim them in place. I picked out the silver details and painted the base gray for a little added something and put in on my shelf.

It was a fun quick kit - a fine addition to my sci-fi model collection.