Superdetailed B5 Starfury in progress

Very nice build-up and lighting job.  I always loved the  Starfury's.  I htink it was the first space fighter I saw flown in space the way fighter should be.

Scott

More is done now!

I finished the cockpit and pilot.  There's white fiber optic lights as instruments on the cockpit walls and a nifty orange glow from an overhead lighting panel. 

http://mysite.verizon.net/johndavidcook/id3.html

You cant see it in the pics but I even ran one fiber optic strand into the instrument panel IN FRONT of the pilot to light that too.

Very nice! Even if I had the know how (which I don't) I certainly don't have the patience to pull something like this off. Color me envious!

 Looking forward to seeing more.

The 'Fury is the Revell-Monogram kit that was out a few years ago.  You can still find a few on eBay and over at FederationModels.com. 

 Its also 1:72 scale so its in scale with lots of other items out there too, like all the StarWars stuff from Fine Molds and all the "common" 1:72 aircraft, tank, etc kits out there.

Thanks for the info!  A while back I tried to find out if there was a Starfury kit available anywhere - I suppose it wasn't a very thorough search, but I'd love to get my hands on one.  B5 was a very enjoyable show, even though circumstances forced the final season to be a bit sub-par at times.

I don't mean to start a survey or anything, but my favorite episode was "A View From the Gallery" - the one that followed the two repairmen through the course of their day's work.  It was very different and enjoyable.

A question about your coloring scheme - I haven't seen any episodes of B5 since its first run ended and don't have the DVDs (yet) - what did you base your colors on?  Is that how they appeared on the show, or is yours based on a specific one?  I simply can't remember any details of their appearance - I was more interested in the action when watching the show.

The kit comes with pretty good painting instructions and there's tons of painting references on the web.  Do an image google for Starfury and see what I mean.

 You can also look for the Special Edition kit which contains a MUCH more detailed instruction booklet, more decals and a nifty pin for your lapel.  I think they only made 1000 of those, you might still find one on eBay or a model reselling site.  You cant have mine I'm afraid.  ;-)

You'll also find the kit comes with Wing Art decals for several of the main characters of the show, Sheridan's Tiger, Ivonova's Russian Eagle/Star, Garibaldi's, Delta-7 and Sinclairs are all there.  If you want to get fancy, visit StarshipModeler.biz and look for starfury decal sets.  There LOTS of wing art there and since it fits a 1:72 'fury pretty good, its pretty good for lots of WWII bombers and fighters as well. 

Your Starfury looks very cool.

I had the fortune of picking up two, one is the first release and the second is the "Special Editon, with certificate and Starfury pin, only 10,000 were released.

I am building one right now and I took also removed the raised panel lines. Although I am going to re-paint them on later using post-it notes to mask.

One item about the kit that bugs me is the canopy, it's obnoxiously thick. I seem to recall a issue of FSM where they thinned the canopy from the inside, which would be ok for a oblong P-51 type canopy but the Starfury is rectangle with angles in side... I thought of vacu-forming a new one. I also thought of cutting out the clear and replacing it with thin acetate or blister packaging.

So, are you using yours as is, out-of-the-box? Do you have a different plan?

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks!

I'm not doing anything special with the canopy, just out-of-box for that part.  I'll post some more pics once I get decals on.  Right now I'm doing the weathering and battle scars which have come out nice.  I tried a new trick to simulate a near miss.  First I pained some metalizing aluminum down and put some dots of thick salt solution near the center and let it dry.  Then I hit it with some flat black from the airbrush, covering all the aluminum and salt for a "scorch".  Now wash away the salt and you get chipped, scorched paint with exposed metal underneath.  Looks good.

 How did you go about scribing the lines?  I used some lettering tape as a guide to hold the line and lots of time with the back side of a #10 Xacto blade.

Seems there was some pretty strong interest in lighting up 'Furys so I turned it into a product.  Pardon my shameless plug but now you too can light up a B5 Starfury just like I did.  Visit http://www.starshipmodeler.biz and use the same set of blue, orange and white LEDs that I used to light my 'Fury.  Comes with 8 Blue, 1 Orange, 1 White LEDs, plenty of hookup wire, power plugs, etc, etc.

Detailed Full Color instructions included.

Thanks!

-John C.