It’s a good job that I ordered a fresh bottle of Alclad white primer – this kit of the Eagle Transporter is going to take a lot of paint.This is the base of the passenger pod. The rocket engine bells and feet look great with the kitbashed parts and the painted panel areas adding enough detail to stop it just looking like a vast expanse of white. For the command module beak I masked a pattern leaving the grey primer behind, painting the rest with white Alclad primer. The white Alclad primer makes for a great white paint, and for a smooth finish it’s sandable and over-spill can also be scraped back with the edge of a blade making it easy enough to work with and to fix any minor mistakes. The quick drying time is a bonus. For the pattern, I used the available reference material, box art and magazine I’d bought as a guide, and then continued in the spirit of what I could see in the areas where I couldn’t. The pattern is therefore not strictly accurate, but it should look nicely in the style of the  original models. I lightly sanded the parts so as to reduce any build-up of white paint along the mask edges.

I used Tamiya weathering master oil stain around all the edges. This looks a bit heavy now, but will be backed off as the next layer of white paint goes on. With another layer of Alclad white on, I was able to get just the density of grey and weathering I wanted. Under this light you can see the panel effect more clearly. It’s subtle but visible and looks pretty good!I glued on the rest of the cage framework around the corridor sections and flat coated them with Alclad flat.  Because of the magnets, I was able to test that the command module beak would indeed join nicely onto the body of the spacecraft. Without gluing, I had to put the completed corridor sections together with the spine to see how it was all going to look. This is going to be a nice size model when done. Now for masking the beak! Beak masked and black paint gently sprayed on. Yes, this really is now looking like an Eagle Transporter. The black isn’t completely dense, but I think a flat coat will tidy that up nicely, but I’m leaving that to the end, just before installing the windows. Following on with the same panel masking idea as the beak, I put lots and lots of masking tape squares and rectangles onto the rocket motor sections. I tried to follow a pattern, but without exact duplication on each of the 4 identical pieces. I masked up the passenger pod, again following reference material and following the style for areas where I couldn’t see or make out on the pictures I have. I’ve got the first layer of white paint on here. This is the masked and weathered top of the passenger pod, ready for a coat of white to back-off the panels and weathering. I really like the look of the engine parts with their masking tape removed and the edges weathered. After painting with a layer of white paint, the effect is subtle, but rather nice. Here’s the top of the passenger pod with the layer of white paint.The passenger pod looks fantastic with all the panels and weathering. On seeing this I think I’m going to have to very carefully add some weathering back in at the end. Now with a light coat of white on top, the passenger pod still looks lively, and hopefully the panels will just  show through on the red stripes that I’ll have to mask and paint next.