Mars Liner

I found this kit on vacation. It’s a re-issue of an old kit from the 60’s. I understand that it was originally based on some Walt Disney’s creation. Supposedly this craft would ferry people to Mars from Earth. I like the kit because it was so retro. It reminded me of Duck Dodgers and Marty the Martian ships.

I didn’t even pretend to deal with all the clear plastic window pieces. Instead I glued styrene inside the ship behind the windows. This gave it some depth. I glued the bridge windows in place, knowing I’d just paint them black later.

The molds that made this ship were old. The fit was terrible. Most of my time on this model was spent puttying and sanding. I knew this going in having seen a build up of this kit on Starship Modeler. I don’t mind sanding. It was kinda fun. I took my time and inhaled carcinogenic putty dust for a week to get the shape. I didn’t lose interest in puttying and sanding even after days and days of it. It was kind of a Zen thing.

I should say that besides the horrible fit and the all the contour sanding, the pieces were also flimsy and malformed. The leg struts broke several times and just getting them to fit in their position was a trick. But, I like a challenge and I tend to overeat when I’m depressed and sometimes I sleep just too long. Oh, and I need a haircut.

Taking my inspiration from the uninspired box art, I painted the ship flat white. I lost count on how many coats it took to cover the model. I think it was about a lot. After the white, I sprayed Future in preparation for the decals.

Those of you who have followed my model odyssey know that decals and I don’t always get along but this time it wasn’t my fault. I don’t know if the decals were old, irradiated or suicidally depressed, but when I put them in water the basically shattered and disintegrated. Only one decal made it to the ship, but it was a good one - the door. The rest were just junk.

Knowing that I had the most boring science fiction phallic symbol in all of Pleasant Hill, I whipped out my trusty blue masking tape and broke up the monotony with red angles and stripes. It’s simple but effective. For my final trick I went crazy with the black and burned the ass end of the ship where the exhaust had blackened the ship and struts. I had my usual secondary motivation on this step - to hid flaws, specifically the super--glued support struts that had snapped off during painting.

This was a fun build. I didn’t feel obligated to do anything with it except finish it in some way and it was a good release project I could turn to when I was tired of building something else. I concede John Lester did a better job - he usually (well - always) does.