Ok, so I have to admit, I’ve held back a couple days because I didn’t really have much to show. I wanted to make sure I had some decent pictures to share, but for the past two days, most of what I've built has been detail panels for the bottom of the model.
Outside of building the set (or I suppose taking it apart), you'll never get a good look at this, but they still put effort into making it look at least a little authentic, and I really appreciate that.
The model is getting rather heavy now, which has provided its own set of challenges when I need to lift it up to slide panels into place. I knocked a few pieces loose today that bounced across my desk, and had to figure out how to squeeze them back into place without taking the whole thing apart.
This was another one of those “how does this fit" kind of moments that I really enjoy. I figured out pretty quickly that I was building the loading ramp, but it wasn’t immediately clear how it was going to work. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a relatively insignificanty detail, but the mechanism was fun to build.
This set of pieces also sawcthe introduction of the quad cannons—again for the bottom of the model. This segment has more than a few unconventional connections scattered throughout, and watching it all take shape was really cool.
What’s not cool is how hard it’s been to get it attached. This assembly has four pillars that are supposed to connect to the center of the core structure, but it has to be inserted from the bottom of the model, and this thing is too tall to fit. I tried a couple different ways of sliding it into place, but so far I've had no luck.
Im sure my kids would love to help if I was brave enough to ask them, but we are definitely past the point of their help being anything but destructive, so I’ll have to power through, I guess.
I did get to add a couple “user-facing" detail panels, though, and they somehow make the model feel bigger—even if the size of the core structure hasn’t changed. I’m past the half-way point now, which is super exciting, but I’ve gotten so attached to having this behemoth sitting next to me that Im not sure I want to move it when it’s all done.