 Scratch Building a Studio Sized Replica of Space: 1999's Ultra Probe |
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| Gerry Anderson’s classic seventies
Science Fiction series Space: 1999 was a landmark television program showcasing
some of the best special effects seen at the time, and indeed holds credibility
even when viewed today. The show treated us to beautiful model work in
action, and creating replicas of these interesting craft can be quite challenging.
When we try to create accurate replicas of Sci-Fi spacecraft like these,
we must remember that the builders of the original models often made design
changes or used available parts as they went along to make it easier or
faster, or less costly to build. Some of the parts or materials that were
easy to obtain at the time may not be available any more, so sometimes
we must fabricate these parts or use substitutes that give a similar effect.
The Original Models Three models of the sleek Ultra Probe were built by Martin Bower for the episode "Dragon’s Domain" to three different sizes. The smallest one was built two and a half feet long at approximately 1/96th scale, one five feet long at 1/48th scale and one more partial model at 1/24th scale. This larger scale model had only the front quarter made and was used to show the Command Module separating from the front of the ship. As a point of interest, the model that got the longest, most revealing time on screen was indeed the smallest and crudest version, seen in closeup docking with the alien spacecraft! |
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| My decision to build the Ultra Probe
was based on three factors. One: I liked the look of the ship (obviously!).
Two: I had access to accurate documentation of the original models provided
by professional model maker and good friend Chris Trice (who, by the way,
builds the most incredibly accurate "Eagle" and "Hawk" spacecraft replicas
the world has ever seen), and he was kind enough to give me exact dimensions
allowing me to build a very accurate model. Lastly, it was a project I
thought I could do fairly easily once I had studied how the model was built.
With this in mind, however, I decided not to replicate the kitbashed detailing
exactly as on the original for three reasons:
1. The originals were done in a tremendous rush, and Bower didn't really have time to think through the detailing, resulting in the crude and fairly "sloppy" detail that, although it looked quite nice on film for the brief moments you see it, doesn't make for a very nice display model. 2. The original parts used were from kits that are now, in some cases, quite collectible, thereby expensive and difficult to find. More expensive than parts I ended up using, anyway! 3. I wanted more detail on my replica, and I also wanted it to "make more sense" in terms of a display model that would be scrutinized a bit more closely than one which zooms by a camera on your television screen. So, keeping all this in mind, I strived not to replicate the detailing exactly, but to keep the overall "aura" of the ship looking the way one would expect the model to look after watching it on screen. My philosophy on kitbashing used on this model is also based on the fact that the three models of the Ultra Probe had vastly different detailing on them because of the impracticality of reproducing it exactly on each of the three sizes built. Therefore, all of these discrepancies are "fair game" for creative licence on my part! Construction Begins I began by preparing the various subassemblies which are primarily made from the extremely expensive plastic tubes, domes and cones available from EMA (Engineering Model Associates) which is a division of Plastruct. This was the material the original Ultra Probe models, and indeed many other Space: 1999 FX miniatures and props built by both Bower, Wag Evans of Space Models (who built two of the 44" Eagles) and the crew at Bray Studios, were constructed from. I made the basic fuselage and the various cylinders and spheres first, then positioned and glued them in place with cyanoacrylate (super glue), which was used for the bulk of the model’s construction. The three discs that are positioned along the length of the fuselage which guide the layout of the complex spine were glued in place before the rear cylinders were positioned. The cone mounted on the front of the fuselage had to be made from scratch, as it’s tip has an elliptical cross section to mate with the back of the Command Module. I did this by making a circle from styrene plastic to match the wide fuselage and an ellipse which would match the back of the Command Module, drilled a hole in the centre of each and glued them onto a length of tubing at the correct distance apart from each other. I left a bit of the tubing sticking out the front to mount the CM to. Using some scraps of balsa wood, I glued in stringers to roughly shape the outer skin of the cone, then I mixed up some auto body filler and plastered it all over this rough frame and sanded it to shape when it had set. The Command Module on the original small model was quickly and rather crudely carved from wood, but I made mine from an Airfix/MPC Eagle nosecone I’d had laying around. The back of the CM was made in the same manner as the front body cone, using plastic elliptical spacers, balsa wood frame and plenty of filler. A hole was left in the back to accept the stick I left on the front of the cone. The module was then detailed with bits of paper labels and tiny model kit parts. The side attitude thrusters are those from the shoulder pods of an Airfix Eagle kit (the original used thrusters from the service module of the Airfix Saturn V kit). The docking clamps, or arms, were simply made from sheet styrene. The main thrusters on the CM were made from vacuum forming some plastic sheet over an "Elmers" glue-tube cap! For my second model (not shown) I built another nosecone from scratch that turned out even more accurate. For the third model (also not shown here) I came out of my Homer Simpson "DOH!" mode and pulled an RTV mold off the completed second nosecone and front fuselage cone. It’s a lot easier and faster to cast them up rather than make them from scratch! (For those of you who wish to build your own Ultra Probe at this scale I can make a casting of this nose section available to you). |
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| The fun part of the model was doing
the kitbashed detailing! The only kit I bought specifically to use on this
model was the Tamiya German eight-wheeled armored car. This is the kit
used most prominently in key areas on the original small model and I felt
I should at least try for some authenticity. The rest was done with whatever
I had on hand at the time. I mostly used a 1/48th scale Mercury/Gemini
kit. The second model I built for a friend saw the extensive use of some
NASCAR kits, as the local Wal-Mart here in Brandon had a whack of them
on sale at one-third of the regular price, so I bought a couple of arm-loads
of them. These kits will show themselves in a lot of my future projects
I can assure you! When gluing on the kitbashing, you must keep a note of
where the components such as the antenna, frames and red balls will be
placed so that you don’t accidentally "block" these areas.
The most grueling part of the model was the intricate girder work surrounding the fuselage, which is all made from EMA tubing, actually plastic coated piano wire. This makes the stuff difficult and very frustrating to cut and trim, however it’s quite necessary for a stronger model. I began by making the six frames that surround the main cylinders at the front half of the ship. All the short pieces that are at 90 degrees to the longerons are attached with little EMA snap tees. The angled parts are cut to size and glued in with place with cyano. The main spine, along with the two "outriggers" halfway down, are made in the same fashion. There are about a hundred and fifty of the expensive little snap tees used, and at about forty cents in Canadian scratch EACH, that comes to about sixty dollars... JUST for the little snap tees!! Painting And Final Assembly After the main bulk of the model was finished, leaving off the engine bells and anything else that was not to be painted white, I sprayed the entire model using white primer from an aerosol can. When this was dry I gave the whole thing a "wash" of heavily diluted flat black and gray paint. A "wash" is made by taking a small amount of the colour of paint you wish to use, and adding a lot of thinner to it, somewhere around a twenty-to-one ratio or more. It should just look like very dirty water. I used Tamiya acrylic paints (my personal favourite) and thinned them with alcohol. Normally you could just slop the wash over the model using a wide, long bristled paintbrush, but because the detailing under the frame was so "deep", and relatively inaccessible, I opted to load the wash into my airbrush, held the model pointed nose up, and blasted the liquid all over the ship ‘till it was saturated and actually dripping off the model, doing as much in one shot as I could to avoid unnecessary build-up as it dried. Any excess was dabbed away with a cloth or blown out with a blast of carbon dioxide-laden wind from my lungs! It’s best to have the wash too thin to start out and add more paint when necessary, rather than have too much paint and have to get out the can of white primer again! After the wash was applied and had dried, I used some grey primer, again from a spray can, and dabbled a couple of very quick shots in areas that needed a bit more shadow, sometimes using a piece of paper held loosely against the model as a rough mask. The few remaining components were then applied to the model. These included the big engine bells on the back. For the original small model, Martin Bower reportedly used some plastic egg cups, but despite my searching (and to my amazement!), I could not find any! I guess people prefer their eggs fried or scrambled nowadays, so I had to use a substitute. I didn’t want to go to the bother of making a mold from scratch and vacforming them, so I used a couple of 1/48th Mercury capsules sprayed silver! Not really in keeping with the shape of the originals, but they’re just about the right size and look reasonably good in my opinion. The probe’s "testicles", the two balls on either side of the fuselage (I wonder sometimes if the small spheres were put on there as a kind of inside joke!), were sprayed seperately with red-oxide primer and attached to the fuselage.
Display Finally, I made the stand to roughly resemble a section of the derelict spaceship that the probe docked with in the show. The proportions are not exact here because I had the wooden base and support rod built before I came up with the idea of replicating section of the "Dragon" ship. Since even without exact proportions this manages to get the point across, I wasn't too concerned with the fact that this part of the model isn't completely accurate.
Conclusion... It’s Just The Beginning! I hope you enjoy scratch building models as much as I did with this one. As someone who, until then, was used to building and maybe modifying kits, it was my first attempt at building a reasonably accurate special effects replica using accurate dimensions, and I was quite pleased with the results (even if I do say so myself!). I estimate that it cost me about three hundred Canadian dollars in materials to build the model, and I think it was worth every penny. I intend to utilize my relatively newfound scratch building skills to their extent, and I look forward to making a lot more replicas of Space: 1999 ships. Special thanks to Chris Trice for providing much of the research material which allowed me to build this model.
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