I’ve never lit a model before.

The concern about getting the electronics wired up correctly have always put me off before, but it’s a natural progression and from the examples I’ve seen adds a completely different dimension to a finished model. So, with this in mind, I want to do a simple lighting set up for the UFO in the Mond ’48 diorama.

I picked up a cheap and nasty-looking illuminated mobile from a local discount warehouse and set about extracting the LEDs from the horrible dragonfly things that they were stuck into. I managed to lose one of the five lights, but it left me with enough to be getting on with. I then snapped the mobile’s holder and freed all the cables and the battery pack.

I then cut out the bottom hatch of the UFO kit – I plan to use a vertical tube here to represent an airlock – which should hopefully hide the cabling in the finished diorama. The LEDs were then stuck into a cheap plastic cup to hold them in place and the kit dry-fitted to see what it might look like.

I have to say I was impressed – now to black and silver the inside of the kit and start to detail it.