Mir 1/400 [9]

On the edge of 2012, this is this year's last update.
Spektr has been finished. I put it on the right docking node and glued it there. The solar panels were positioned using photos of the actual docking of Atlantis with the station. For that occasion, a Soyuz was undocked and flew back a couple of tens of meters to document the historic docking. Anyway, here's Spektr.

In the meantime I have started on Kristall, the module which was placed on the forward facing port to accommodate more room for the shuttle to moor. More on that after the jump.

Most of the greeblies are more or less true elements on the module, I tinkered here and there with size and place. It's so small it just will look the business anyway. I hope.

Spektr placed on the earth facing (nadir) port of the node. The small rod protruding don will be the place for Kvant-2, which will be made next year.

The basic hull shape of Kristall. It is clear the forward part of the hull is smaller than Spektr. This meant I had to scratchbuild a lot of the parts. The tapered part is made from thick mat paper which I sanded in an angle. The pink part is sturdy card. The fact I am rolling the module's pieces around this tube makes it straight, sturdy and it will be able to fit on the tube on which Mir and Kvant-1 are placed.

The docking node at the end of Kristall was made from rolled up paper which I sanded to a ball shape. The whole module then was painted.

Kristall's outsides are full of arrays, antennas and tanks of all kinds. I made the tanks from small silica balls normally used in tiny bags for keeping (electronic) stuff dry. It is amazing stuff to use for detailing things like this.

The central node. Kristall also has its Lyappa arm and awaits just its single retracted solar panel. (the other one the module originally had was relocated to Kvant-1.

So, there you have it. All the posts of 2012. A good year. I had a lot of fun building, and looking at the stats, I'd say you enjoyed looking at my builds. I only wish more of you would be interested in commenting on the stuff I make and write. Oh well. You cannot have it all, right? This year I made at least 16 new models and made -including this one - 98 posts. My most fun build? I don't really know, Maybe the first one of this year, "Crevasse" is still very spectacular to look at, I think. But the rockets also look cool. I still have to finish some stuff, the Nimiq satellite in the Proton-M and the Atlas-V's SRB's. They will come in time. This year also saw me passing the 10,000 views. I really like that you all like to come and see the stuff I make. Thanks for that!
So that just leaves me wishing you all a very happy new year, with peace and prosperity for you all.
See you next year!
--PK