Cygnus |
| By Allen B. Ury |
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The brainchild of Dr. Hans Reinhardt (played by Maximilian Schell), the "Cygnus" was a massive, mile-long interstellar exploration vessel with a crew of several hundred. Looking like a flying "Crystal Palace," the design had a decidedly Victorian flavor, this intended to reflect the Capt. Nemo-like sensibilities of its creator. Oddly, in the movie, the "Cygnus" is supposed to be an old, obsolete spacecraft whereas the "Palomino" -- the tiny circular craft visible nestled in the model's bow docking port -- is supposed to be the "state-of-the-art" starship. This is tantamount to suggesting that a Soviet Vostok capsule is technologically superior to the Starship Enterprise. Released shortly after the December 1979 premiere of "The Black Hole," (the Walt Disney Studio's first PG-13 film!), MPC's "Cygnus" is a huge, impressive, highly detailed model that requires great patience on the part of its builder/painter. Although released only once, it was produced in such quantities that it is still fairly common in the collector's market. |
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I built this model back in 1980. The main body was done with Testor's Flat Black spray enamel. The "glass" sections were then all done by hand, first with a gloss yellow layer, then with flat black detailing. As I recall, the detailing took me about a month to complete. There are fine lines in the clear "dome" sections, but I left them alone. There was no way I could have finished these by hand. If I was doing the kit today, I'd probably print ultra-fine black lines on a custom decal sheet and lay them in that way. But this was long before home computers, let alone custom decal printing. Image: Bow on Image: The stern Image: The Palomino docked |
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