Got Turian?

First year in Massachusetts: sick 4 times in 4 months. Year 2 started out better...until last week when I finally succumbed to the cold that went around the office. Seriously, everyone in my immediate area got sick about two weeks ago. I went all of PAX without getting sick but due to the insanity that is our HR policy of shared PTO and vacation, EVERYONE comes in sick. On the bright side, I took a day off and missed some office drama (yay) and did some building.

This is a Turian frigate from Mass Effect. I've been wanting to build one of these guys for a while but since you only ever see them a couple times in two games, I never had proper reference. A couple hours spelunking in the ME game folder and voila! Viewable models. Hacking does, in fact, sometimes pay.

One of the things that's been keeping me from building a hero-sized SR1 (other than lack of skill and bricks...and laziness) is a complete lack of experience building large models. It didn't seem like a complicated build on the whole when I started, but "50 inches long" didn't seem big either until I got the keel down.

I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out though it didn't seem like it ever would. There are a pile of hacks to make it work but it's fairly solid in spite of them. I wouldn't swoosh it around the room but I'm not dreading transporting it to the kitchen for final photographing either (I mean, come on, it's right in front of the TV).

All told, it's about 50 hours of work but that includes a lot of futzing around with stuff. Every piece that hangs off at an angle (as in: everything but the keel) was rebuilt multiple times to get a) the angles right, and b) the structure such that it wouldn't fall apart if my neighbors upstairs stomp around.

I've probably got two or three Mass Effect related builds left in me before it's run its course. I'll probably finish on the hero-sized SR1 which will hopefully be spectacular.

Edit: glam shots + final adjustments can be found here.