Cosmic - Highrise Condominium

[disturbman]

HS posted reservations for two highrise condominium buildings.

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10807533
https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10807531

I'm tempted but the price tag and the size are slightly overwhelming. Has anybody ever bought a kit from them, or has any experience with Cosmic? These types of buildings are rare enough as models to be interesting.

[cteno4]

I’ve never bought a cosmic building due to the look of lack of details, but the pictures of the earlier release of these looked the best they have put forward.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10180238

 

cheers

 

jeff

[disturbman]

Thanks, I hadn't rewound time far back enough. Yeah, I'm not thrilled by the look of it either, looks rather cheap and lacking in details. It tried to do an online search but couldn't find much.

[James-SNMB]

I looked around too, and couldn't find anyone that actually built one, or any photos of a completed kit anywhere. Quinntopia had a blog post where he bought one and looked at the parts inside the box, but I don't think he ended up putting it together. Some other posts (here?) I read mentioned that the cosmic kits fit together well, like a jigsaw. 

 

I am also tempted. I'm pretty much tempted by any buildings tall and n scale, but I have too many unstarted projects in hand, plus a bundle of scratch building concepts in my head. For the same price I would rather pick something from CMR to build.

 

But I'll keep an eye on it, and who knows...

[cteno4]

The cosmic do seem a bit simplistic on the details. I’ve never felt like they were enticing to me given the price, this one was the only one I ever looked twice at in the first release. But if quintopia turned his nose up at it that’s a big tell!
 

The good thing about this style of building and many high rises is if you can come up with a good plan/method for a floor it’s just replicating it and stacking them and maybe  having a core elevator structure you can use for wiring if you want to eventually light it. Stacking floors is nice as it’s easy to detail floors and light then and just keep building up like the full scale ones do! Just need a small lip under each floor to light seal the floor below at the top of the walls. This is where having a lasercutter would make life very easy!

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

I have a few of the Cosmic kits including the older version of this one that Jeff mentioned above, but have yet to complete one.

 

They are all laser cut acrylic. I have dry fit some of the pieces and they are very accurately made and seem to go together well. Acrylic laser cuts with smooth clean edges.

 

You really need to use a cement for acrylic to get strong joints. This is a little bit of deterrent to me because those cements/solvents are somewhat nasty and finicky to use.

 

The high rise buildings that I have are more like a tube without dividers between each floor/level. That makes them easy to light in a simple way, but harder to light in a more realistic way (some floors or windows dark, some lit).

 

The other thing that has put me off a little bit is that the acrylic is mirror smooth. This is fine if the surface you are modeling is that smooth, but it looks wrong for concrete for example. I have given some thought to how to give the surfaces some texture - sanding for example. That adds some effort to building these too - at least for me.

Edited August 19, 2021 by maihama eki

[cteno4]

yes many looked just like building shape but no floors or details. This one with the balconies looked very different approach.
 

Yeah clean bonding acrylic is tricky if it’s not to be painted over, really is an art. Clean smooth edges are a must and glad to hear it’s got them. I use to marvel at this old German acrylic artisan we use to use for our plex case work for exhibits. How he applied just enough solvent in the seam so it bonded completely but no excess, just some masking tape here and there to hold things in some clamp jigs he would erect. No lasercutting it was all table saw, then block sanding, then at times some careful flame polishing in a jig so it didn’t round the edges. It was just stunning. He had been doing it for decades.
 

might look at wrapping the building at each floor with a strip of concrete looking art paper to put concrete where you want it.

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

I opened the circa 2012 kit for the first time in a long while.

 

It is overall: 22 stories, ~40 cm high (60 m at 1:150 scale). The body of the building is ~7.5 x 7.5 cm with the terraces extending beyond that. The height will make it a very impressive addition to any layout.

 

It consists primarily of white acrylic pieces with some clear acrylic pieces for the windows.

 

Here are all the pieces. The 4 primary wall sections are on the right. The primary window sections are left of them in a stack. The terrace pieces are in bags on the far left. The base, roof, and miscellaneous pieces are at the top.

 

 

I loosely assembled the 4 primary wall sections. They fit together exceptionally well. I used 3 rubber bands to hold them together. They would almost stick together by themselves, but not quite. They go together very squarely.

 

 

I think it is well designed and made. Is it worth Y13,300? I don't know... There aren't a lot of competing high rise kits. I think that is why I bought it originally.

 

Hopefully I will have the time to put this together in the not too far future. It has been sitting on my shelf for 9 years now. Time flies.

 

I have one of the Cosmic parking towers https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10171472 . It is much simpler. I will do it first for practice before I attempt the condo. Here is a photo of it almost entirely assembled - also in my kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by maihama eki

[maihama eki]

I just read the HS description of the new version of the highrise condo. It seems like they may have updated it a bit - at least in terms of decorations and maybe using more colors of acrylic.

[cteno4]

Nice to see the kit! Thanks!

 

making this tempting with added details.

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

On 8/19/2021 at 1:06 AM, disturbman said:

HS posted reservations for two highrise condominium buildings.

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10807533
https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10807531

I'm tempted but the price tag and the size are slightly overwhelming. Has anybody ever bought a kit from them, or has any experience with Cosmic? These types of buildings are rare enough as models to be interesting.

 

HS has better photos of the new kits up now showing the new colored acrylic pieces.

[cteno4]

So I pulled the trigger when it came back in stock and just arrived. Looks very nice. The core is all lasercut acrylic for support and then its wrapped in lasercut cardstock that has some laser etched details around windows and doors. Floors are done as decks that are built around the core. Not cheap, but nicely done. Only downside other than cost is the instructions are almost non existent. They make an ikea instruction look like a book and a sankei look like an encyclopedia. Luckily it’s really basic on core assembly and decks are all identical, still these really could have used another page of basic diagrams for the price of the structure. Other odd laser cut kits I’ve got from small producers have much more extensive instructions. I’ll snap some picts tomorrow. Going to be needing a few more tall buildings to mix in past Tomix high rise. Few of the katos can be ganged up as well to help have a gradation.

cheers,

 

jeff