# MiM Alien Nostromo



## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

I've been working on this for quite awile between other projects. I bought it already started and cheap off @bay a couple of years ago, I thought it was the Halcyon vinyl kit as advertised, but when I stripped the old paint off with Easy-off I found pink resin, I've learned since it's one of MiM's kits and a recast. But I didn't know any better back then so please no recasters-are-evil flames! The basecoat was Testors Lt Aircraft Grey with a smidge of blue added. I outlined every panel line with a mechanical pencil over the course of about a week. Then I started weathering, first with the airbrush and thinned oils, then drybrushing with the basecoat with a drop of white aded. I tried something new I saw in a car thread, I mixed some model RR weathering powder in a little alcohol, then drybrushed that with a Imex brush to create the "streaking". It's actually pretty easy, just keep a few Q-tips handy, you can feather it with a dry one, or lighten or start over with one wet with alcohol. And you can layer it with different colors like grey and rust to give it depth. The flash kind of washed it out, but it looks pretty good in person. It's still got a way to go, but the end is finally in sight!




























Gotta remember to thank JohnO, who scanned the instructions for me!


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

PhilipMarlowe said:


> The flash kind of washed it out, but it looks pretty good in person. It's still got a way to go, but the end is finally in sight!


Looks pretty damn good in the photos to me! Have you thought of putting your camera on a tripod and shooting in ambient light with a timed exposure?


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

I will take some better pictures as she's more complete, I was just really happy with how the weathering powder and alcohol worked together and wanted to post some quick pics of the streaking effects, I think that combo is easier to work with for weathering than the powders alone or with powdered chalk.

The effect I really liked was the mechanical pencil-outlined panels, they're so small that between the flash and the lower res they are almost invisible in those pics, though there's a few hundred there!


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

Closer up under natural light


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## GLU Sniffah (Apr 15, 2005)

Capt. Dallas: " Kill drive engines. Kick in the floods. "

:thumbsup:


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

More weathering, finished the engine "flaps", and starting on the antenna array. Those flaps, the antennae, and the delicate landing gear make this VERY nerve-wracking to move or work on!


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## jheilman (Aug 30, 2001)

Excellent work! 

I wish I could afford one of the Halcyon kits. The Nostromo, and Alien in general, has always been a sentimental favorite.


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

Thanks, but it's just an amazingly good kit anybody can probably make look good, the detail in the hull is fantastic, even in this resin recast. I actually think the resin version is easier to build, I've read several accounts of problems with the soft vinyl hull collapsing after it's built, and vinyl is more of a pain to paint in general.

Halcyon seems to re-re-release all their other Alien kits except this one and the dropship, the two everybody wants! I got lucky, I got this with an old Colonial Marine Tech Manual cheap on @bay in the summer, I later resold the manual at enough of a profit to make this _almost_ a free kit.


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## JeffG (May 10, 2004)

I have the original Halcyon vinyl kit and its awesome. The Nostromo is still one of my favorite ships. It's chunky, not streamlined or pretty but it looks like an old vulture. It's a really cool design and it looks like you're doing it justice! Plus it had Parker-the coolest engineer since Scotty. "We ain't outta here in ten minutes we won't need no rocket to fly through space!".


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## Prowler901 (Jun 27, 2005)

Great work Philip!

Jeff, I feel the same as you. It is such a cool design. One of my favorites. Makes me want to watch Alien again


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

I like the _Nostromo_ and _Serenity_ because they remind me of ocean-going tugs. Here she is almost finished, the wife made me a sweet little name plate she printed on sticker paper. I cut it out and stuck it on .030 sheet styreen. The font is called data70's for obvious reasons, I like how much it resembles 70's movies "computer displays".


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

Finished! I'm pretty happy with the results with one little gripe. The antenna were pretty crooked, I straightened them in boiling/cold water, but as I've attached, painted and weathered them a few have tried to return to a curved shape, though not as bad as before. I can live with it, I'm not even going to try to fix them, they're delicate enough as it is!

I'll be glad to get this thing off the table, it's huge! And yes, I tried to get "artistic" with a black tablecloth with mixed result!


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## Johnnyb1 (Oct 14, 2004)

Nice job Philip. Now when are you going to scratchbuild the refinery to go along with your Nostromo.


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## Prowler901 (Jun 27, 2005)

That's awesome Philip! :thumbsup: I've always wanted to build one of those.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

PhilipMarlowe said:


> I like the _Nostromo_ and _Serenity_ because they remind me of ocean-going tugs. Here she is almost finished, the wife made me a sweet little name plate she printed on sticker paper. I cut it out and stuck it on .030 sheet styreen. The font is called data70's for obvious reasons, I like how much it resembles 70's movies "computer displays".


Great looking model! I've always liked the grungy, functional, well-used look of all the "Alien" hardware -- an interesting contrast to Kubrick's sterile, antiseptic "2001" ships. BTW, I believe the Data 70 font is based on the machine-readable characters that used to be printed in magnetic ink on bank checks and other documents, before the development of OCR software.


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

Thanks for the nice comments, doing something grungy was kind of fun!


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## Steven Coffey (Jan 5, 2005)

The ship looks great ! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: But I hear it has a bug problem.


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## PhilipMarlowe (Jan 23, 2004)

Steven Coffey said:


> The ship looks great ! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: But I hear it has a bug problem.


Why not _this_ ship. This ship was owned by a little old Weyland-Yatuni lady that only took her out on Sundays to church and to get groceries occasionally, and she always drove under the posted light-speed.

No bugs here, no sirree! That's them _Narcissus's_!


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