Just purchased a good size Star Trek TOS Phaser II keychain on Ebay.  It lights up and makes classic Phaser noise and will be easier to use to create a scaled physical version of the Type II+R Phaser rifle design than one of my 1:1 scale Phasers.  Work at multiple jobs has kept me from having much time for my art and projects other than day dreaming and sketching what I'm going to build if I get the chance but I've got 6 nights free coming my way soon and that should be enough to squeeze out a few more quick projects.

I'd rate it about a B- ... with a little bit more work I might upgrade it to B+ but then I'm hard on myself.  Just  when I think that I've reached some type of epoch I climb even higher, look back and ask myself "what was I thinking to consider that good?"  I guess the more time passes between a project, the harsher I grade it in retrospect.

Anyway, here's the matchbox raygun as promised.  I actually did get it finished by my personal deadline but my laptop was packed up and I was just too lazy / tired to fool with getting it out, firing it up and doing any kind of photo uploading.

More designs to come ... soon.

I've had to work a lot lately, extra shifts to pick up the slack during a time when one of my coworkers was out with colon cancer (speedy recovery!) and we were short handed.  The good news is that we just hired two more people so my schedule is not only back to the amount of time that it used to be but it's back to, well, being on schedule ... so I can plan my time for other projects.  Yeah, I'm overworked but I rather be overworked than unemployed.  I'd rather go without sleep and rest than a paycheck so I don't complain ...

I've almost finished my Starfleet Federation Ajax class Heavy Destroyer model, it's a scratchbuilld using a J.J. Abrams electronic toy NCC-1701 Enterprise (purchased at a local second-hand retail outlet for fifty cents, no lie).  I chopped it up on my scroll saw, added some parts and made it into a rather nice addition to the alternate reality that JJ Abrams handed us Trekies a few years ago.  While I liked the movie, I'm not too gung-ho about the spaceship designs or the fact that the Enterprise is so big now (or the fact that some of its engineering decks seem to have been shot inside a beer brewery and look nothing like the inside of a starship).  Match that with JJ Abrams going spastic with lens-flare and you've got a movie that's kind of hard to watch.  I'm looking somewhat forward to seeing the sequel this summer and I was hoping that it would have 400% less lens-flare than the first movie but alas, looking at the trailer I think I'm going to have to take some seriously dark sunglasses to the movie when I go just to be able to enjoy it.

Work on the Model 2138, my matchbox raygun project, is almost complete and I'll post it here soon.  Follow that with the "Zeus" matchbox raygun project coming shortly on the heels of the first and I've got my next few days mapped out for finishing projects.  Once I do a few of these matchbox rayguns I'll probably move up from making 1/6 scale weapons to 1/4 or 1/2 scale and finally maybe some 1/1 scale.

Some may also be for sale so if you like you might be able to have.

A new year is coming and I'm trying to get an early start on changing my life to where I can devote more time to my hobbies.