Aliens APC

[Real G]

Let's see if I can successfully post pics.



This is Halcyon's Colonial Marines' APC from the movie Aliens.  It's an older build, with a bit of detailing and retreaded tires.  I added a structural chassis to allow the wheels to steer, as seen in the movie.  Plus it was easier to work out the bugs in the steering mechanism, and to tweak the wheels to all set evenly on the ground.  LED lighting was included, because as we all know, they come mostly at night.  Mostly.

[tcoat]

I have lusted after one of these and the dropship for 20 years!
They had a kit at the show a couple of weeks ago but it was a nonnegotiable $600 and even I am not that dumb!

What do you mean they cut the power? How could they cut the power man? They're only animals!

[buddho]

Oh ma gawd....fabulous! One of my all time fave sci fi movies 🤓

[tcoat]

OK the more I look at this the more I want one! It is so beautiful.

Scratch build time!

[Real G]

The kit looks really ugly in the box, with rough moldings and that eye-gouging frog green colored plastic.  But assemble it carefully, give it a lick of paint, and it looks pretty darned good.  The tire treads are the real letdown in this kit.  There is a resin replacement set available, but I wanted to try to do it myself.  It was tedious work, but satisfying - after I was done that is!  Yeah, it was pure sucky drudgery while I was applying the tread blocks.  It seemed to never end.

I would love to see a new kit of the APC with cleaner moldings and correct tire treads, for all to enjoy at a reasonable price.  Good greif $600 for this kit?  That's beyond highway robbery!  Maybe it was the die-cast toy, or one of those large scale premium collectable vehicles?

Aliens had such cool hardware that is surprises me that we don't see new kits coming out.  The Goodsmile Company's 1/12 Power Loader is the one shining exception.  I have the Halcyon Drop Ship in the stash, but would take off and nuke it from orbit in an instant if a new kit with accurate details and proportions appeared. But again, careful assembly and a lick of paint can do wonders, even for this doggo kit.



Holy molley Tcoat, you have PLANS?!

Yeah come on Bishop.  Do it Bishop, DO IT!

[Leon]

That is really cool looking!

Never saw this kit before.

[tcoat]

Apr 3, 2023 19:42:12 GMT -5 Real G said:

The kit looks really ugly in the box, with rough moldings and that eye-gouging frog green colored plastic.  But assemble it carefully, give it a lick of paint, and it looks pretty darned good.  The tire treads are the real letdown in this kit.  There is a resin replacement set available, but I wanted to try to do it myself.  It was tedious work, but satisfying - after I was done that is!  Yeah, it was pure sucky drudgery while I was applying the tread blocks.  It seemed to never end.

I would love to see a new kit of the APC with cleaner moldings and correct tire treads, for all to enjoy at a reasonable price.  Good greif $600 for this kit?  That's beyond highway robbery!  Maybe it was the die-cast toy, or one of those large scale premium collectable vehicles?

Aliens had such cool hardware that is surprises me that we don't see new kits coming out.  The Goodsmile Company's 1/12 Power Loader is the one shining exception.  I have the Halcyon Drop Ship in the stash, but would take off and nuke it from orbit in an instant if a new kit with accurate details and proportions appeared. But again, careful assembly and a lick of paint can do wonders, even for this doggo kit.



Holy molley Tcoat, you have PLANS?!

Yeah come on Bishop.  Do it Bishop, DO IT!

Nope it was this kit. They wanted $800 for the drop ship. You can get them online for Between $200 and $500 but as you said it isn't a great kit out of the box anyway. 
Quick look on the old interwebs shows I can get 3d printer files for some of the more complex parts such as the guns and wheels for free and my grandson can print them. The rest is pretty straight forward and it is pretty much all flat angles. 


LOL look what popped up while looking for interior pictures. Yes interior!
 cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/6/t/168638.aspx 

[chromdome35]

This is one of the most BA vehicles of all sci-fi movies. If I was in a Zombie apocalypse, this would be my vehicle of choice.

LOVE your build!!!

[Tobi]

I never knew there were actually so many kits from Sci Fi movies available. In Europe they are not too common, at least not that I know.
Exceptional work on the tires and the chassis. The lights are the icing on the cake.

[tcoat]

Apr 3, 2023 23:27:34 GMT -5 Tobi said:

I never knew there were actually so many kits from Sci Fi movies available. In Europe they are not too common, at least not that I know.
Exceptional work on the tires and the chassis. The lights are the icing on the cake.

There looks like a lot of Sci Fi movie kits but most of them are very limited runs by smaller companies so even when first released they can be hard to get. It only takes a few months after they come out before they are rare and expensive. You really need to be on top of news or in the right place at the right time to get many of these kits. 
Well... other than Star Wars or Star Trek kits that is since they pump them out by the millions. 

[Real G]

Yeah, I picked up the Drop Ship when I was in Japan. It had just come out, and the $42 or so I paid seemed reasonable. Halcyon did a number of Alien/Aliens kits - APC, Drop Ship, Power Loader, Sulaco, Narcissus, warrior alien and dog alien in injected plastic. They did the Nostromo, Space Jockey, face hugger, and chest burster in vinyl. That’s quite a catalog for a small company based in England. Sadly they disappeared after maybe 10 years or so.

But with the appearance of new kits of old properties like Space:1999, 2001, and Star Trek, we may yet be able to have new tool Alien/Aliens kits. I’d love to have a plastic Nostromo, even if it was really huge - but not big enough for a family of raccoons to move in, like what happened to the studio prop!

[tcoat]

Apr 4, 2023 9:36:29 GMT -5 Real G said:

Yeah, I picked up the Drop Ship when I was in Japan. It had just come out, and the $42 or so I paid seemed reasonable. Halcyon did a number of Alien/Aliens kits - APC, Drop Ship, Power Loader, Sulaco, Narcissus, warrior alien and dog alien in injected plastic. They did the Nostromo, Space Jockey, face hugger, and chest burster in vinyl. That’s quite a catalog for a small company based in England. Sadly they disappeared after maybe 10 years or so.

But with the appearance of new kits of old properties like Space:1999, 2001, and Star Trek, we may yet be able to have new tool Alien/Aliens kits. I’d love to have a plastic Nostromo, even if it was really huge - but not big enough for a family of raccoons to move in, like what happened to the studio prop!

I never quite understood why this franchise was never scooped up by the mainstream manufacturers. I built the MPC (later AMT issue) of the Alien from the first movie but to the best of my knowledge it is the only large company kit ever made. I doubt the issue was huge licensing fees since the companies that did put out kits were very small almost cottage industry level ones. We may (just may) see the plastic injected kits appear some day but I hold out little hope that any of the larger companies will touch the vinyl ones. Maybe someday somebody like Atlantis or Moebius will come up with something new since this would be right up their ally.

The MPC/AMT kit was not great by the way!



Although he could be nicely posed if you were doing an opera diorama

[Real G]

A guy on another forum worked for Aoshima back in the day, and he tried to get the suits to obtain the Alien/Aliens franchise rights for model kits. They basically said “meh”. I also read that the big kit makers think that bad guy stuff doesn’t sell. As a consumer of these products, I say they are all wrong.

When MPC came out with their Alien xenomorph kit (“Excuse me sir, a what?”), I happily grabbed one and built it. The pose was so-so, and the detail around the hips was weak, but I was thrilled to have a model kit from the first R-rated movie I saw (and scared the freakin bejesus out of me).

Maybe the suits were thinking of other products that bombed, like Kenner’s 3’ tall Alien action figure. Now THAT one was a clear example of misplaced target customer demographics. Why a little kid would want a toy from a nightmarish R-rated movie is beyond my comprehension. Of course, this was in the early 1980s, so adult action figure collectors were just an emerging market.

Alien Opera? It just might sell!

[mustang1989]

Now THIS.......is frickin' COOL!!! I never knew this vehicle existed in scale form. You made a single color subject stand out with all the paint ground work. All the tonal variations bring this one to life!! Great job on this Neal!!!