by Aviel Tochterman

The moment I looked at my newly acquired Alien model, just after opening the box for the first time, it was clear to me I wasn't going to build it as is. HORRIBLE posture, bad dry-fit part connectivity! Simply terrible!

So I decided to convert it to Dan Simmons' Shrike from his 'Hyperion' quadrology, and recreate the raft scene depicted on the cover of 'Endymion', where Raul, Aenea and the android Bettik are sailing downstream on a raft they built, when suddenly, the Shrike joins them. The Shrike is of unknown origin. It is described as an organic machine, covered from head to toe with endless amount of blades and sharp edges, all wrapped in a stasis shield. It usually appears out of nowhere whenever it feels like it, moves faster-than-time, and kills or impales people on his multiple body-blades for no known reason. Oh, and it has 4 arms so it can engage multiple enemies at the same time.

All the Alien's fine details were plastered (since the huge quantities needed to be filled, I did not use model putty but furniture plaster paste which is easier to handle and cheaper in these quantities) and sanded away. A second set of arms (the inner ones) was carved of foamed polyurethane.

The right palm had to be rebuilt, for it is in fact the left palm (AMT were lazy, and just duplicated it). The Alien's head was sawed and reassembled to resemble the description of a high-elongated head. The body-blades (too little of them in comparison to the descriptions, I know) were cut off a styrene sheet. Blade count: chest-sword; forehead; 3 back blades (arranged in a Klingon emblem style); inner hands' back elbows; outer hands back elbow & top wrist; ankles' dual-blade; and of course, hands and feet claws…

Raul, Aenea and Bettik are originally 3 action figures, sawed and repositioned.

The Shrike, depicted as covered with a mirror-like reflective stasis field, was spray painted with nickel finish spray can (cost a small fortune, but is worth it). The eyes were painted bright red and outlined black.

The other three were hand painted with enamel paints. According to the books, Androids are blue to distinguish them from humans. I've made one false detail knowingly - Bettik loses his arm after this scene, but I've decided it'll look cooler with his hand off.

The river was done with a 40/28/5 cm polystyrene block, covered with crushed paper and painted with acrylics. The raft was made of pieces of polystyrene, plastered and painted different colors to look like tree trunks, all tied together with rough wrapping string.

Image: Building the shrike

Image: Inspiration

Image: Top view

Image: Pointy

Image: Backside

Image: Side view of the scene