Another question for Trekkies

Star Wars and Star Trek models run the gamut from fairly inexpensive to high dollar. But you get what you pay for. While the lesser costing ones may be easy to build and many come pre painted, their detail is usually thick and accuracy far less than the high end ones.

For future reference there SG, if you have a question that relates to one of my topics, by all meens ask away! I have no problem with it. the answer you get may even be news to me!

As for the ships, I am in the same boat as you, I have never atempted a ship from star trek before. from what I have seen the prices arent that different than that of the gundam MG kits. the more bad @$$ the kit the more it costs. correct me if I am wrong.

Ill agree with you there.  I've seen some that are way out of my price range.  My neighbor was building one and I got to see it a bit and I think the level is just above me.  He blew up a design to mask off the hull pattern and sprayed it nice.  And I see these guys putting in LEDs and I wish I could do that but I wouldn't even know where to begin.  They all look really cool though.  Star Trek models seem like they could be really plain, but in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing they come out looking amazing. 

I my self am going for the excelsior class because I think it looks amazing, even without paint. That and if it weren't for the fact that Scotty sabotaged the transwarp, she may very well have been the fastest ship in the fleet at the time she was going through the testing phases.

as for how much the damn thing is gona cost, I am problebly looking at $20 or more, worth every cent. and I know what you are saying with the LEDs and the fiber optics, wow, just wow. way above my expirience level, but I am not afraid to try.

A good place to start might be the 1/1000 scale kits from Polar Lights, they are snap together kits, but htey go together nicely and you can do as much or as little as you would like to them.  You can find the prices for the kits running a variety of prices depending on where you shop.  I think the suggested list price on the kits is about $14.95.

 Here is a review I did of the NX-01, the pictures have been removed due to maintenance on the site but you can see the pictures at the second link.  I choose to light mine up so you can see how I did that as well.  I've done them a couple of times and earn awards for them so I'm pretty proud of them...  enjoy!

http://forums.scalehobby.com/viewthread.php?tid=4627&page=1#pid41834

http://gallery.scalehobby.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album45

http://gallery.scalehobby.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album108

Thanks for the tip.  I'll check them out.  Can these kits be painted with Tamiyas?  I mean I know they can be but do people do it?  And what kind of colors do you use.  I saw on your walkthrough that use MM Metalizers.  What colors would be correct from Tamiya?

Just going off the top of my head, I think I started off with a Steel color and then masked everything off and did the rest in a Stainless Steel.  I will be at the hobby store this weekend so I'll take a look at what Tamiya has and make some recommendations.

OK So I've been looking at all the pictures in Nemvias page for his build of the enterprise (I'm assuming it's not the 13.95 one though) and another question came to mind.  What are the decals like that these models come with?  Because the stickers from Gundam models are crap.  Are they actually useful and what are they?  I mean like what are the decals for?  And does the 1/1000 sclae come with the template for that pain in the *** hull pattern?  Did I say one question?  OOps.

Stickers!?  We don't need any stinking Stickers.  I think only the TOS Enterprise comes with stickes, both the 1/1000 ($13.95) and 1/350 ($49.95) have good decals in them.  If you look at my first picture, the one with the black background, that kit is out of the box, minus the LED's I added.  The other one with the ISS Enterprise decals are after market decals from PNT.

As for the Aztec paint pattern, that was achieved in both cases with Aztec Dummy Templates availble at a few web-sites.  The templates do not come with the kit but they are available for both scales.

Since most of your questions have been answered above, I'll just address your question about Tamiya paints.  As far as i can tell, the acrylics should work just fine, but you may have to mix colors to match what you want.

I'm also trying to insert a pic of my Columbia that I did for practice/color test.  Hope it turns out, but if not I'll include it in something later.  I went with a lighter base color because it seemed to use a lighter combination on the show. 

D'oh!  Sorry 'bout that.  Looks like I'll actually have to read some instructions on putting pics up.

OK, take 2 on my PL Columbia....

 

I really like the contrast for the hull pattern.  It looks good.  Thanks for sharing.

SG,  sent you an email re: AMT Star Trek VI USS Enterprise kit.