Well, I was feeling pretty tired after pushing out my Battlestar Columbia back in October. I sent her off to a lucky artist friend of mine who goes by the name Orko_One. I was feeling a bit jeolous that he was getting such a cool gift. I wanted one of my own. So, I went hunting for another. Hunting was good that day. Not only did I find another kit but it was free. That's right. Free. Amazon has this offer where any new Amazon credit card customer gets a gift card worth X amount of dollars that can be applied as a credit to your very first purchase. So, gift card paid for the model and credit card is still collecting dust waiting to be cancled at some later date.
Now, I couldn't just build the same model the same way twice. So, I decided to change a few things based on my expereince with Orko's Battlestar. For starters I used much more of the photo etch kit I purchased from Starship Modeler. Second, since I had such a hard time with light bleed on the first model I wanted to reposition the lights to make it easier to seal up some of those gaps. And finally, I wanted to give the model a more gritty feel without going to the ultra crazy detailing that I've seen other model builders invoke. So, I did not do battle damage, or hollow out the armor plates, or add full body decals after painting and weathering the whole model, or drench the model with shoe polish. I did a bunch of other stupid things that worked very well in some places and look moderatly ok in others.
The model is not done yet however I did want to show off my work in progress photos before presenting the final model. Please keep in mind that this model is just one part of a larger project that I will be spending 2012 working on.
First off is a shot of all the parts washed and most parts cut from the spru.
After washing the molding compounds off of all the parts I test fit a few pieces and drilled holes for my wires and fiber optics. The last photo is the middle section of the allegator head with windows drilled out. I have way too many holes however that all gets fixed later in the build. These holes are also much smaller and more numerous than Orko's ship.
I paint most of the parts that contain lighting with cheap cheap cheap acrylic paint from AC Moore. We are talking about the 4 for a $1 brands. For some reason it does a decent job of blocking light in thick enough coats.
Now, this is where things start to get interesting. On my first build I put the landing bay garage lights in the landing bay arms facing down. You can see the results here: /forums/p/141851/1501010.aspx#1501010
I wanted to see if I could make the lighting more difuse so decided to mount the lights in the bay itself. The silver caps are meant to cover the lights. They are covered with aluminum foil tape to block light and to reflect the light down into the garages.
A lamp post with nut and lock washer.
And the epoxy holding it all in place on the inside of the hull.
The first image is another place where I made a change. I planned on having the whole LED in the landing bay instead of mounted in the landing bay arm like in Orko's. I also found that if I cut the "T" shaped peg piece off of the pieces cap not only did the LED and Resister fit wonderfully but the arm actually sealed better to the body of the landing bay. Win Win!
The second photo is an example of what not to do if you purchase the photo etch kit. The metal pieces are suppose to be the rib supports for the landing bay. I guess they look impressive for some builds. Personally, I don't think they added much. Then again they don't take too much away from the build either. If you plan on adding lights then do cut the rib detail into small pieces. Do, add reflective metal tape to the tops and bottoms, and do glue them into the landing bay. However, don't glue them to the roof of the landing bay. Why? Because, when you put both halves together you get a 1-2 mm gap between the landing bay floor and the support structure. So, I had to go back and fix this before final assembly.
And that's it for tonight. If there is enough interest in seeing the other work in progress photos along with my comentary then I'll post more. The steps above took a grand total of a week worth of evenings to complete. Things that didn't show were pre-priming with automotive plastic conditioner and then priming. Note, never use plastic conditioner on clear parts. There was also a lot of test fiting and planning that took place. Building this model is really a piece of cake. Once you add lighting into the mix it becomes an entirely different beast. Things that were simple become very complicated and time consuming very quickly.
- Warmuncher