Halcyon Aliens Drop Ship

[RealG]

It has been well over 30 years since I picked this kit up at Yamashiro-Ya in Ueno, Tokyo, so I figure I’d better get on with it before I get too old and it’s “Game over, man. Game over!”

These Halcyon kits can look rough in the box… and they really ARE rough sometimes! But with some proper assembly, TLC and a good lick of paint, they can look quite nice. So, until someone does new-tool Aliens kits, this is what we have to work with.

When will we get new Aliens kits? We don’t know. All we do know is that there is still no contact with the colony, and that the xenomorph may be involved. So, gear up Marines, and get ready for a meme-heavy build thread!

A quick dry fit reveals a shape that looks pretty good to my eyes. Yeah, there are a lot of gaps and sink marks, but are we not men? No? We are Devo? Remember that God made man, but the monkey supplied the glue. And the monkey sometimes APPLIES the glue. And I am sometimes a monkey.

So, the first question we modelers ask is for aftermarket.

Retrokit makes a lot of interesting little resin accessories, and a Drop Ship cockpit is one of them. It even includes optional seated figures of Ferro and Spunkmeyer.

They also make a 1/72 APC, although there is a scale discrepancy between it and the Drop Ship. Maybe there is a difference in actual scale, maybe it is one of those “Tardis effect” things where movie props just don’t match in the “real world”.

I’d better get my grinding bit and motor tool out. That is a LOT of resin that will need to be removed!

The two things I would have liked are decals and a PE spotlight screen. IIRC, I purchased both kits from Retrokit directly.

A comparison with the Halcyon 1/35 APC and a little non-scale toy.

[djmodels1999bis]

Looking forward to see this completed!! I know the RetrokiT/RetroSF kits rather quite well.. I designed them.. I know the resin block under the APC body is a pain, but I decided that a single-piece hull would be better.. The other option was a hull in several bits with almost certainly gaps to fill in on visible areas of the hull.

[RealG]

Oh, the creator of the detail sets is here watching! I’d better not mess up.

Say, looking at your user image, it goes a long way explaining this:

“Uy am da bannanaaaaaaa!”

It’s so obviously the Stallone Dredd.

[RealG]

To get the creative juices flowing, here are some trading figures I have accumulated:

[djmodels1999bis]

Judge Bananaaa! was sculpted by a friend of mine. But I’m guilty of sculpting 85 or so other ‘Bananaaas!’, so far.. LOL

[RealG]

Construction of the Drop Ship has officially begun. The kit is a bit of a pig, and the parts look blocky and have all manner of scars and sink marks. BUT, a little modeling horsepower will go a long way to making this kit shine.

One of the options in the kit are the deployable weapon pod arms. They sit crisscrossed on the roof of the ship when folded and splay upwards and outwards when deployed. I almost had a geek attack the first time I saw the weapon pods deploy in the movie.

Here is a little toy showing the Drop Ship with everything hanging out:

Looking at the kit arm parts, the hollow undersides become obvious. If the arms are built deployed, the hollow portions would be highly visible.

I filled in the backsides with 0.030" sheet plastic. I glued in some strip on the arm inside edges to give the sheet plastic something to rest on, as well as provide some additional gluing surface.

All better now.

[RealG]

I worked on test fitting the resin cockpit and started to correct the weapon pods over the weekend.

I thought it was cool that the resin figures were made to resemble Ferro and Spunkmeyer.

Ferro’s neck looks a little long, but the resin set provides optional empty seats. So, the plan is to carefully remove Ferro from her molded-in seat, shorten her neck, and fit her to the spare seat. One pleasant surprise was that the resin cockpit was a drop-fit into the kit with no adjustments. This is no mean feat, as anyone who has attempted to install an Aires or CMK aircraft cockpit will attest to. Looks like we are nominal to profile.

I was a little hasty correcting the weapon pods and will now have to rip out almost everything and start over. The little 2X2 rocket pod that sits in the corner recess needs to sit a lot lower, plus I forgot about making the little triangular recessed rocket ports.

This is one of those times I feel like pulling my hair out after committing a stupid mistake. But redoing it will make for a better model in the end. This just goes to show you should always check references, plan the attack, then cut only once. Something I almost never practice.

[PhantomFixer]

I got the Halcyon drop ship, the APC and the loader, some time after the movie came out. I’ve have built them over the years. They were crude models.I did a lot filling, sanding and some scratch building to get them together. Here’s some pictures of them. I hope that you enjoy them. Keep on modelling.

[RealG]

PhantomFixer,

Thank you for posting those photos! You have shown that these Halcyon kits actually scrub up nicely when the proper amount of TLC is expended on them.

I came to the same conclusion when I finished my APC. The biggest mods I did to the model were to the chassis and tires. The detailing work on the exterior body shell were actually quite minor by comparison.

Your Drop Ship looks every inch a bad a$$ and captures the menacing looks of the original prop

[Frozin]

The tires on the APC are the biggest issue to fix as far as I’m concerned. There was a resin set to replace (long ago), but I’m going to try to print a set (one of these years).

[Frozin]

Nice work on the loader, I’ve got one in the box yet. You don’t see many ever built. Do you remember the colour you used on it?

[RealG]

Yeah, the tire treads are the worst aspect of the APC kit.

I fixed mine by hand, but I cannot recommend that path, as it leads to madness. Plus, you get…tired. (Ba-dum, tish!)

[Frozin]

Aha!!! I’ve seen that one before, I’m sure on another website. That is very impressive tread-work, not to mention the steerable wheels. I started down that road many years ago and just couldn’t push through. I’m hoping the printed wheels will allow a reasonable finish.

[Samphoto]

I knew I was going to enjoy this thread somewhere around “Are we not men? We are Devo.”

I’m also enjoying watching you work your way through another 30-plus-year-old kit. I’ve been doing some of that myself lately, and it definitely reminds you how much kit engineering has changed over the years.

Between the old plastic, the problem solving and the running commentary, I think this is going to be a fun build to follow.

[Samphoto]

I always have a little devil and an angel sitting on my shoulders in situations like this.

One of them is saying, “It’s okay. It’s good enough. Nobody is going to notice. Just leave it alone.”

And the other one is saying, “You know you’re going to have to rip it all out and start over, but it’s going to look so much better when you’re done.”

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the second one usually wins.

I feel your pain.

[RealG]

Yep, that’s right. I say we take off and nuke the part from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

[RealG]

A little bit of progress! I worked on the second weapon pod to fix it up the right way.

I had forgotten about the triangular recessed rocket launchers when I started fixing the first pod, so I figured I would work it out on the second pod and then go back and address it on the first.

The recessed launchers do NOT line up inside the pod. This is just one of those things that happen when a movie SPFX team builds a prop. Geometric perfection is rarely possible. So, it is up to us modelers to accept it and just move on. We must try our best to NOT become like those kids in Galaxy Quest where they demanded logical resolutions to every inconsistency in a movie or TV show. By Grabthar’s Hammer, that would be a waste of time.

Onwards Teb, onwards…

[PhantomFixer]

I’m sorry to say it has been too long ago and I just don’t know. Looking at the date, I would guess a Testor’s yellow. I found a photo of a loader that was at the 2024 AMPS show, in South Bend IN. Here it is. Happy Modelling!!!

[RealG]

Moderoid has a much newer Power Loader in 1/12 scale that has articulated joints.

The Halcyon version, like most of their other Aliens kits, was a little unsophisticated but could be made up into a terrific looking model.

[Frozin]

Well, I guess that’s just one more kit for the wish list.