Lunar Approach

Here are some images of Dragon Model's 1/72 scale Apollo 11"Lunar Approach" North American CSM "Columbia" + Grumman LM "Eagle".

From Wikipedia"
The Command Module was the control center for the Apollo spacecraft and living quarters for the three crewmen. It contained the pressurized main crew cabin, crew couches, control and instrument panel, optical and electronic guidance systems, communications systems, environmental control system, batteries, heat shield, reaction control system, forward docking hatch, side hatch, five windows and the parachute recovery system. It was the only part of the Apollo/Saturn launch vehicle that returned to Earth intact.

The Service Module was a portion of the spacecraft that was unpressurized and contained fuel cells, batteries, a high gain antenna, radiators, water, hydrogen, oxygen, a reaction control system and propellant to enter and leave lunar orbit, and service propulsion systems. On Apollo 15, 16 and 17 it also carried a scientific instrument package, mapping camera and a small sub-satellite to study the moon.

A major portion of the service module was taken up by propellant and the main rocket engine. Capable of multiple restarts, this engine placed the Apollo spacecraft into and out of lunar orbit, and was used for mid-course corrections between the earth and the moon.

The Service Module remained attached to the Command Module throughout the mission. It was jettisoned just prior to reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.

The Lunar Module was the portion of the Apollo spacecraft that landed on the moon and returned to lunar orbit and was the first true "spaceship" since it was designed to fly solely in the vacuum of space. It was divided into two major parts, the Descent Module and the Ascent Module. It supplied life support systems for two astronauts for a total of four to five days. The spacecraft was designed and manufactured by the Grumman Aircraft Company led by Tom Kelly.

The Descent Stage contained the landing gear, landing radar antenna, descent rocket engine, and fuel to land on the moon. It also had several cargo compartments used to carry among other things, the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages ALSEP, the Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET) (a hand-pulled equipment cart used on Apollo 14), the Lunar Rover (moon car - Apollo 15, 16 and 17), surface television camera, surface tools and lunar sample collection boxes.

The Ascent Stage contained the crew cabin, instrument panels, overhead hatch/docking port, forward hatch, optical and electronic guidance systems, reaction control system, radar and communications antennas, ascent rocket engine and fuel to return to lunar orbit and rendezvous with the Apollo Command and Service Modules.

Alien Tripod

Here are some images of Pegasus Hobbies 1/144 scale Alien Tripod from the 2005 movie "War of the Worlds" Based off the HG Wells novel.
This kit gives you the option of building this model in the laser arms configuration or the collecting cages and tentacles option (pictured).
The one thing one should be aware of is that this kit is made of ABS plastic so your standard model glue won't be as strong. I would recommend CA glue.
However this is one beautiful and cool model kit.

From Wikipedia"

War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction film adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is one of three film adaptations of War of the Worlds released that year, alongside The Asylum's version and Pendragon Pictures' version. It stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker estranged from his children and living separately from them. As his ex-wife drops their children off for him to look after for a few days, Earth is invaded by aliens (loosely based on H. G. Wells' Martians) driving Tripods and the earth's armies are defeated, and Ray tries to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife.

War of the Worlds marks Spielberg and Cruise's second collaboration, after the 2002 film Minority Report. The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations at Connecticut, Staten Island, California, Virginia, and New Jersey. The film was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi. The film was released in United States on 29 June and in United Kingdom on 1 July. The film generally received positive reviews, and attained a 73 percent "fresh" rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 240 reviews. War of the Worlds was also a box office success, and was 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically, with $234 million in North America, and worldwide, with $591 million overall.

Industrial Light & Magic was the main special effects company for the movie. While Spielberg had used computers to help visualize sequences in pre-production before, Spielberg said, "This is the first film I really tackled using the computer to animate all the storyboards." He decided to employ the technique extensively after a visit to his friend George Lucas. In order to keep the realism, the usage of computer-generated imagery shots and bluescreen was limited, with most of the digital effects being blended with miniature and live-action footage. The design of the Tripods was described by Spielberg as "graceful," with artist Doug Chiang replicating aquatic lifeforms. The visual effects crew tried to blend organic and mechanical elements in the Tripods depiction, and made extensive studies for the movements of the vehicle to be believable, considering the "contradiction" of having a large tank-like head being carried by thin and flexible legs. Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman considered depicting the scale of the Tripod as challenging, considering "Steven wanted to make sure that these creatures were 150 feet tall". The aliens themselves had designs based on jellyfish, with movements inspired by red-eyed tree frogs. Spielberg did not want any blood or gore during the Heat-Ray deaths; in the words of Helma, "this was going to be a horror movie for kids". So the effects crew came up with the vaporization of the bodies, and considering it could not be fully digital due to both the complexity of the effect and the schedule, live-action dust was used alongside the CGI ray assimilation and particles.

Dave Porter's Seaview

Here are some images of Dave Porter's Seaview. This was based on the old Aurora kit. Dave added some interior details and a couple of leds to light it. Dave made a base with the use of some real coral.

Out Of The Silent Planet Composite

Here is my composite image of my 1/72 scale scratch build Weston Spacecraft from C.S. Lewis's novel "Out Of The Silent Planet" coming in for a landing on Malacandra (Mars)

Images of the model can be seen here.

From Wikipedia"

The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.

The books in the trilogy are:

• Out of the Silent Planet (1938), set mostly on Mars. In this book Elwin Ransom voyages to Mars and discovers that Earth is exiled from the rest of the solar system due to its fallen nature and is known as "the silent planet".
• Perelandra (1943), set mostly on Venus. Also known as Voyage to Venus. Here Dr Ransom journeys to an unspoiled Venus in which the first humanoids have just emerged.
• That Hideous Strength (1945), set on Earth. A scientific think tank called the N.I.C.E. is secretly in touch with demonic entities who plan to ravage and lay waste to planet Earth.
  

In 1946, the publishing house Avon (now an imprint of HarperCollins) published a version of That Hideous Strength specially abridged by C.S. Lewis entitled The Tortured Planet.

Out Of The Silent Planet

"Weston! Weston!" he gasped. "What is it? It's not the moon, not that size. It can't be, can it?" "No replied Weston, "it's the Earth." - From Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis.

Here are some images of my scratch built 1/72 scale Weston Spacecraft from the C.S. Lewis novel "Out of the Silent Planet". Based off the 1965 edition book cover by Bernard Symancyk. with some slight alterations of my own.

From Wikipedia"

Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra (also published as Voyage to Venus) and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The Dark Tower. The trilogy was inspired and influenced by David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus (1920).

According to biographer A. N. Wilson, Lewis wrote the novel after a conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien in which both men lamented the state of contemporary fiction. They agreed that Lewis would write a space-travel story, and Tolkien would write a time-travel one. Tolkien's story only exists as a fragment, published in The Lost Road and other writings (1987) edited by his son Christopher.

Here is a fantastic video of an opening title movie credit roll created by David Scherbarth for a non existent movie "Out of the Silent Planet".
Though no movie has been made (Yet). It does give one hope. Enjoy.

out of the silent planet from David Scherbarth on Vimeo.

Atomic Cannon

Here are some images of Renwal/Monogram/Revell 1/32 scale M65 Atomic Cannon.
This is the rerelease of the original 1957 kit from Renwal. The original kit I'm led to understand can fetch up to $1000. This one though, about $60.

From Wikipedia"
The M65 Atomic Cannon, often called Atomic Annie, was a towed artillery piece built by the United States and capable of firing a nuclear device. It was developed in the early 1950s, at the beginning of the Cold War, and fielded by 1953 in Europe and Korea.

Picatinny Arsenal was tasked to create a nuclear capable artillery piece in 1949. Robert Schwartz, the engineer who created the preliminary designs, essentially scaled up the 240mm shell (then the maximum in the arsenal) and used the German K5 railroad gun as a point of departure for the carriage. (The name "Atomic Annie" likely derives from the nickname "Anzio Annie" given to a German K5 gun which was employed against the American landings in Italy.) The design was approved by the Pentagon, largely through the intervention of chief of the Ballistics Section of the Ordnance Department’s Research and Development Division, Samuel Feltman, and a three-year developmental effort was begun. The project proceeded quickly enough to produce a demonstration model to participate in Dwight Eisenhower's inaugural parade in January of 1953.

The cannon was transported by two specially designed tractors, both capable of independent steering in the manner of some extra-long fire engines. Each of the tractors was rated at 375 hp, and the somewhat awkward combination could achieve speeds of 35 miles an hour and negotiate right turns on 28 ft wide, paved or packed roads. The artillery piece could be unlimbered in 15 minutes and then returned to traveling configuration in 15 minutes more.

On May 25, 1953 at 8:30am local time, the Atomic Cannon was tested at Nevada Test Site (specifically Frenchman Flat) as part of the Upshot-Knothole series of nuclear tests. The test--codenamed Grable--was attended by then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Arthur W. Radford and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson; it resulted in the successful detonation of a 15 kt shell (warhead W9) at a range of 7 miles. This was the first and only nuclear shell to be fired from a cannon.

Subsequent to the successful test, there were at least 20 of the cannons manufactured at Watervliet and Watertown Arsenals, at a cost of $800,000 each. They were deployed overseas to Europe and Korea, often continuously shifted around to avoid being detected and targeted by opposing forces. Due to the size of the apparatus, their limited range, the development of nuclear shells compatible with existing artillery pieces (the W48 for the 155mm and the W33 for the 203mm), and the development of rocket and missile based nuclear artillery, the M65 was effectively obsolete soon after it was deployed. However, it remained a prestige weapon and was not retired until 1963.

UFO

Here are some images of Aurora/Monogram's 1/72 scale UFO from the television series "The Invaders"

From Wikipedia"

The Invaders, a Quinn Martin Production (season one was produced in association with the ABC Television Network - or as it was listed in the end credits, "The American Broadcasting Company Television Network"), is an ABC science fiction television program created by Larry Cohen that ran in the United States for two seasons, from January 10, 1967 to March 26, 1968. Dominic Frontiere, who had provided scores for Twelve O'Clock High and The Outer Limits, provided scores for The Invaders as well.

Roy Thinnes starred as architect David Vincent, who accidentally learns of the secret alien invasion already underway and thereafter travels from place to place, trying to foil the aliens' plots and warn a skeptical populace of the danger. As the series progresses, Vincent is able to convince a small number of people to help him fight the aliens, most significantly millionaire industrialist Edgar Scoville (Kent Smith) who became a semi-regular character as of December 1967.

Neither the Invaders nor their planet were ever named. Their human appearance was a disguise; they were never shown in their true form except in one episode, "Genesis", in which an ill alien researcher loses his human form and is briefly seen immersed in a tank of electrified, salinated water. Unless they receive periodic treatments in what Vincent called "regeneration chambers", which consume a great deal of electrical power, they revert to their alien form. One scene in the series showed an alien beginning to revert, filmed in soft focus and with pulsating red light.

They had certain characteristics by which they could be detected, such as the absence of a pulse and the inability to bleed. Nearly all were emotionless and had "mutated" little fingers which could not move and were bent at an unnatural angle, although there were "deluxe models" who could manipulate this finger. There were also a number of mutant aliens, who experienced emotions similar to those of humans, and who even opposed the alien takeover. The existence of the Invaders could not be documented by killing one and examining the body: When they died (at least while in human form), their bodies would glow red and disintegrate — along with their clothes, any items they were carrying at the time and anything they touched when dying— leaving little more than traces of black ash. On several occasions, a dying alien would grab or otherwise make deliberate contact with a piece of their technology to prevent it from falling into the hands of humans.

The type of spaceship by which the Invaders reach the Earth is a flying saucer of a design derivative of that shown in the contestable early-1950s photographs of self-proclaimed UFO "contactee" George Adamski, but instead of having three spheres on the underside, the Invaders' craft has five shallower protrusions. It was a principle of the production crew to not show them with set and prop designs and control panels that were utterly alien from the conventional human ones (such as H.R. Giger would later present in Alien).

They use a small, handheld, disc-shaped weapon with five glowing white lights applied to the back of the victim's head or neck to induce a seemingly-natural death, which is usually diagnosed as a cerebral hemorrhage. They also employ powerful weapons to disintegrate witnesses, vehicles and - in one episode - a sick member of their own race whose infection's side effects was causing dangerous notoriety. Also in their arsenal is a small device consisting of two spinning transparent crystals joined at their corners which forces human beings to do the aliens' bidding.

Area S4 UFO

Here are some images of Testors 1/48 scale Area S4 UFO. From the Instruction sheet" The Testor Corporation seeks to neither confirm nor deny the existence of UFOs. While study of the subject is of interest, verification of claims requires overwhelming physical proof. As of this date such proof does not exist in Testor files. Designer John Andrews has devoted much of his life to the investigation of UFOs. This instruction manual is based on his research. What follows is the story in his words. BACKGROUND: UFO sightings were common during World War II. Called Foo Fighters, balls of light joined groups of airplanes, flew with them, then broke off and disappeared. They were harmless but could not be explained. After the war objects continued to be seen in the skies throughout the world. Discs were likened to pieces of pottery - dinner plates and cup saucers. The term Flying Saucer was soon in common use. Then a new identifier, Unidentified Flying Objects - UFOs - emerged. Objects were caught on film and videotape as well as being seen on radar. Governments created study groups and issued reports. The reports often attempted to explain away the objects as natural phenomena while adding the phrase, "...UFOs appear to not be a threat to our national security..." Many sightings were never explained. Efforts were made to laugh sightings away and to make people who reported UFOs appear as buffoons. A few were. The tactic did not work with many intelligent and experienced individuals who stood firm in telling what they saw. In July of 1947 a UFO allegedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. It was said small bodies were recovered along with parts of the damaged craft. On July 8th the United States Army Air Corps announced it had recovered a flying saucer. The next day Air Corps Headquarters hastily retracted their own story. Individuals involved with the incident ,have maintained it did happen and over the years additional people have come forward, some on their death bed, to tell of their involvement and to acknowledge the truth of the initial story. The case is now, in 1994, under investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office. Unlike the United States government, the Belgian Air Force, coming to grips with a wave of sightings in 1990, did admit to UFOs over their territory. Belgian F-16 pilots had visual and radar contact with the UFOs but when they attempted to close on the craft the UFOs sped off. Unidentified Flying Objects appeared, at least to one government, very real. 50 years of UFO reports have been looked at - sometimes with awe; many times with laughter. Military pilots and airline pilots; radar technicians and scientists; and leaders of great nations have seen UFOs and have shown interest in the subject. A few nations have admitted to spending large sums of money investi- gating the topic. Technologies on Earth have rapidly evolved. We have sent craft from Earth to the outer limit of our own solar system. And now we can see well beyond that limit. Is there intelligent life out there? Perhaps the answer was given us in 1947 with the above cited Roswell crash. We should be asking another question: Have there been other. crashes? If you talk with physicist Bob Lazar the answer appears to be a loud, Yes!! Lazar worked in the nuclear lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Later he worked on a flying craft he claims was not made on this planet. He worked on it at a place known to some as S 4. S 4 is separated from the Area 51 flight test facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, by the Papoose Range of mountains. The site is said to be built into the western slopes of the mountains, east of and adjacent to Papoose Dry Lake. It is very remote. Congressmen attempting to visit the area are told they can't go because the area is radioactive. So indeed they are told... Lazar said 9 UFOs were housed at S 4 and he worked on one of them in the time period of 1988-89. He saw it operate. He saw metal in one section of the craft turn a clear blue colour and strange writing scrolled on its interior surface. He saw the ship rise and hover over the desert floor. It was silent with only a slight wobble in flight. He saw posters on lab walls that humorously said, "They're here!" The craft Lazar claimed he worked on - he called it the Sport Model - is modelled here. Done in 1/48th scale it has a 13 inch diameter while the actual craft is 52 feet in diameter. Lazar said power comes from an anti-matter nuclear reactor in near perfect thermodynamic balance. The propulsion force is gravity, created, amplified, and vector directed aboard the craft. He added -that time, as we know it, is altered and, when at full power, light is distorted around the vehicle. Bob Lazar cooperated fully with this researcher. He provided me with his W-2 tax statement. Using the Freedom of Information Act, I contacted the Internal Revenue Service, Naval Investigative Service Command and a prominent nuclear physicist Lazar said assisted in his getting the research position at S 4. Correspondence, back and forth, took well over.a year, then stopped but without answers to my questions regarding Lazar's work. I finally asked all 3 groups to tell me if Bob Lazar was a liar. Not one person in a position to truly know ever suggested Bob Lazar was not telling the truth. The mail stopped coming and I was stonewalled in my quest. for the truth. It is possible this kit is the world's first authentic plastic scale model of a flying craft designed and built on a planet of a star system outside our own Solar system. Enjoy your kit and watch the skies. We live in interesting times...... John Andrews

Alpha Moonbase

Here are some images of MPC/AMT/ERTL 1/3200 scale Alpha Moonbase from the television series Space 1999.
The base of this model is scratch built and designed to be hung on a wall.

From Wikipedia"

Located in the Moon crater Plato and constructed out of quarried rock and ores, Moonbase Alpha is four kilometres in diameter and extends up to one kilometre in areas below the lunar surface. The complex extends outward from the central Main Mission tower in a series of concentrically-arranged curved structures connected by travel-tube transit tunnels. (The look is more than reminiscent of Clavius Base in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.) Apart from the central tower, the surface buildings are two to three storeys in height.

Originally, the base was designed to serve as both Earth's primary space research and exploration centre and a monitoring station co-ordinating the nuclear waste disposal areas on the Moon's far side. Construction began on 3 February 1983, but was briefly halted during the 1987 world war. Construction commenced afterwards under the auspices of the new World Space Commission. Though operational and occupied for years, final completion of the Alpha construction project occurred in 1997.

Moonbase Alpha is totally self-sustaining. Power is generated by four nuclear reactors and the accumulation of solar energy. Earth-normal artificial gravity is generated by eight towers surrounding the complex. Water is obtained from ice deposits under the lunar surface, recycled and purified. Nutritional requirements are met by a variety of familiar-appearing foodstuffs produced biochemically on Alpha This diet was supplemented by frozen-food products imported from Earth before all contact with home was severed in September 1999. (At the time of "Breakaway", about eighty percent of food and water products were produced chemically on Moonbase.)

The international pooling of technical skill and resources after the War of 1987 resulted in the advanced construction of Moonbase Alpha. The operations and living areas are both functional and spacious (unlike early space capsules and Earth-orbiting stations). Main Mission, the control centre of the installation, is a massive, multi-leveled room. Opening into Main Mission from behind large sliding doors is the Command Office, which includes a large conference and conversation area. Corridors run eight feet wide throughout the base and the pipes and wiring trunks that festooned the walls of previous ocean-going military vessels and spacecraft are concealed behind four-foot-by-eight-foot modular panels.

All Alpha personnel have their own suite of rooms in the Residence Section with sitting room, sleeping alcove and private bathroom. Suites with a separate, larger bedroom are available to married staff members. Personnel also have the option to live with a roommate if desired. The Recreation Section boasts a gymnasium, private work-out rooms, a solarium with adjacent sauna and swimming pool, bowling alley, performing-arts theatre and separate cinema and a reference library with both real books and electronic equivalents. Recreation lounges and restaurants are scattered throughout the complex.

Several buildings are given over to research in a number of scientific fields including astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology and astrophysics. Others are devoted to the Technical and Maintenance Sections and are responsible for the repair and upkeep of Moonbase and its many complex systems. The Eagle transporters and other ancillary craft are maintained and stored in an underground hangar complex.

In contrast, Year Two revealed that an underground complex had been constructed and expanded upon between the two series and that the majority of Alpha's command, operations and living centres had been relocated there.^[17] The vulnerable Main Mission had been abandoned in favour of the safer underground Command Centre, a smaller control room with many of the same features of Main Mission. The Medical Section once occupied an entire building on the Moon's surface and included several large wards, trauma, casualty and diagnostic units, intensive care wards and operating theatres. Underground, it was reduced to a few rooms, the main Medical Centre acting as a combination patient ward, examination room and surgery all in one. Living quarters were now one small room which did not even appear to have a private bath.

Other facilities revealed in Series Two were a complement of offensive laser batteries which had been installed around the Moonbase complex (starting in "The Metamorph"). These large weapons were stored underground and raised to the surface when deployed. They had a range of at least forty-three thousand kilometres and were controlled from the Weapons Section, a small, bunker-like room. In "The Exiles", the Golos cylinders were taken for examination in an 'underground research area', a laboratory facility constructed inside a lunar mountain on the rim of the crater containing Moonbase. This secure area, designed for the performance of potentially hazardous experiments, was connected to Alpha only by travel-tube and boasted its own Eagle landing pad.

Cam Barker's Panther F

Here is an image of Dragon models 1/35 Panther F built by Regina Modeller Cam Barker. The Panther F was a late war version up gunned with the 88mm L-71. The same main gun used on the King Tiger. Only a few of these were built before the end of the war and they had some very interesting experimental paint schemes.

Flying Saucer

Here are some images Lindberg models 1/48 scale "Flying Saucer".
From Fantastic Plastic"

The Lindberg "Flying Saucer" holds a place in history as being the world's first injection-molded science-fiction model. Re-released repeatedly during the 1950s and 1960s, it again hit the shelves in the 1970s in a "glow-in-the-dark" version, in the 1990s as one of the Golden Age science fiction kits resurrected by Glencoe Models, and finally in 2011 by Atlantis Models, which specialized in flying saucer subjects.

The model was also released by Lindberg in the mid-1950s as part of its "Spaceships of the Future" and "Past, Present and Future" collector's sets.

This classic alien "flying saucer" comes straight from the Golden Age of Little Green Men. A basic convex disc with a bubble-dome cockpit within which the big-headed Martian pilot is visible, the craft also featured twin jet/rocket engines on its "tail," additional engines on its "rotating" rim, and a pair of "zap guns" for shooting down pesky Air Force fighter planes. A timeless relic of Eisenhower Era mythology and paranoia, the Lindberg "Flying Saucer" captures in plastic the hopes, fears and innocence of Pre-Sputnik America.

From Atlantis.com" Scale models have been used for the real thing since the earliest days of film making. So it's rather appropriate that the first plastic space model was, in all likelihood, the first such kit to be used in a movie. In 1956 film maker Ed Wood used a few Lindberg flying saucer kits in his "Plan 9 From Outer Space" minus their jet engines and suspended on wires. The Lindberg models were mistakenly thought to be spinning Chevy wheel covers, a myth perpetuated by Tim Burton in his biopic of Ed Wood.

Crashed BK 117

Here are some images of Revell's 1/32 scale MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 Helicopter crash landed along a river bank.
From Wikipedia" The MBB/Kawasaki BK117 is a twin-engined medium utility–transport helicopter. It was a joint development between Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) of Germany and Kawasaki of Japan. MBB was later purchased by Daimler-Benz and eventually became a part of Eurocopter. The BK117 is popular for passenger and VIP-transport, seating from seven up to 10 people. It is also used for aerial crane and sling work, law enforcement, and military transport, and is exceptional as an air ambulance and search and rescue platform. Its successor was developed from the BK117 C-1 version. It is produced as the EC 145.

Do you think we can restore her?

Here are some images of a small diorama of a Model A Ford abandoned, rusted out and half buried in the sand. I used Monograms 1/24 scale Model A for this one.

To apply the rust I used ground up chalk pastels into powder applied by dabbing my brush into some alcohol hand cleaner then into the chalk powder and onto the surface. Nice 'n'crusty.