[Lex]

Thank you Mike and Joe, The painting is a digital one. I'm not trained in art... and my dream to be an illustrator right now remains a dream.

I use PE instead of laser at this scale mostly due to the resolution. Laser parts have a resolution of around 0.3mm, cutting below this resolution is possible but requires fine tuning the cutting path. To put it another way, one needs a laser cutter by their side to iterate the design. Meanwhile PE effortlessly achieve a 0.1mm resolution without special assistance, and this resolution is necessary at 1:400 scale. Details on laser parts are just too 'thick' for this purpose. A number of my friends tried laser parts for JSC and other models at this scale, but none was satisfied with the result.

Another reason is strength, paper details this thin lacks the strength for handling, and I am not taking chances here. Even brass PE can be too soft, the shop owner told me that the PE handrail poles were switched to stainless steel after complaints that the brass version bends too easily.

Price-wise, laser is normally charged per piece, but PE is better suited for large volume production. The piece of A6-sized custom PE was charged about 150CNY (~30USD?) for initial photosensitive mask and then 24CNY (~5USD) per copy. Totally manageable. If the model do get published, then the PE accessory would be shipped with the model.

For the off-topic items,

I visited Chongqing deep in central China, on the banks on the Yangtze river and surrounded by mountains. It is a gateway to the Sichuan (Szechuan) basin, but even with high speed railway it takes about half a day from coastal cities, so I flew my way in. This port city served was the wartime capital of the Rep. of China after the fall of Nanking, and Japanese bombers regularly visited the skies over the city during the war. Down below on the ground, ROC secret police and the underground CCP resistance fought out countless stories of espionage, betrayals, heroism and sacrifices.

Now, Chongqing is modern but maintains its own character. Life here proceeds at a leisurely pace and the city regularly tops lifestyle satisfaction pools in China. The renowned spicy Sichuan cuisine in this region is more of a necessity to fend of the hot and humid climate. The roads and monorail system winding through high hills and across rivers makes a very cyberpunk cityscape. In all, very worth the time to visit.