Philip Hamrick’s Martian War Machine
I decided to go all out on the Martian War Machine kit from Pegasus Hobbies. It has lights, sound, and all the accesories I could find.
The lighting kit is the VooDoo FX kit installed per the instructions included. This a great looking lighting kit. I am an electronics novice but found it easy to assemble. The only problem I encountered was that the wingtip LED’s kept showing through the plastic. After putting electrician’s tape on both halves of the body at their locations in addition to having painted the inside of the War Machine flat black, I decided to shoot a coat of flat black on the outside and then apply another final coat of copper. Problem solved. I know these machines are supposed to be copper in color. But in the few moments when I sprayed the flat black on the outside before it dried flat, it was glossy. If you want to see something that looks absolutely pure evil – a shiny black Martian War Machine is it!
The sound kit is from Sonic FX. The speaker is mounted inside the War Machine at the rear facing downward. Very small holes were drilled in the bottom to create a speaker grille. Although the driver board for the LED’s is mounted inside the machine, the sound board is in the box base. The speaker wires, power, and switch wires for the lights pass down the Plastruct tube to the base.
The globe is hand painted. The cross-shaped pin on top of the base arm was cut off and the platform sanded smooth. A hole was drilled the size of the tube in it and in the top of the globe. The mounting hole in the bottom piece of the War Machine was drilled out to allow the wires to pass through. The Machine rests on and is attached to the platform of the base arm. The hole in the box is drilled to the inside diameter of the Plastruct tube. This allows the tube to rest on the top of the box and help support the weight of the model and the wires to pass into the box. The box is a project box from Radio Shack. The sound board and the batteries for both the lights and sound are mounted inside. I replaced the button batteries on the sound package with a three AAA battery holder for longer battery life.
The camera is a resin kit from Larson Creations. The brass wire was bent to the desired shape, a small hole drilled in the camera, attached and painted. The lenses are hand painted. When I painted the outside of the Machine copper, I masked over the opening in the hull for the camera. This left it flat black to simulate it being open for the camera. A mounting hole was drilled for the wire.
The aliens are from Haunted Pen Studios and hand painted. I just thought they would look good on my model even if the final version of the Martian seen in the movie didn’t have legs. The original version did have legs but was too big for the set. They were added a few weeks after the model was completed.
The toggle switch activates the lights which go through a sequence, shut off momentarily then start over. The button starts the sound which must be pushed again to restart it. When the LED’s come on, they burn steadily for a few seconds then the light in the cobra head starts to pulsate. When it dims to start it’s sequence, push the button to sync the sound to the lights. The cobra head and the heat ray sound get faster together building up to a heat ray blast followed by the wingtip weapons firing, and explosions. The sound ends just before the lights shut off.
Philip E. Hamrick
