Jerry Pavano
Manchester, Connecticut
Frustrated with your current project? Set it aside and enjoy building the Dr. Zarkov rocket ship and the Ming bomber from the 1936 Flash Gordon serial.
Fantastic Plastics has issued these in kit form. The resin models are 1/72 scale and approximately 11” in length and are fairly easy to build. Some parts required sanding and filler and I found that Vallejo’s plastic putty, Squadron’s grey putty and wet 500 grit sandpaper to work just fine.
The Zarkov ship was procured from the 1930’s movie Just Imagine while the Ming bomber — slimmer with the cool exhausts — was constructed for the series. I found the most challenging was painting as the red and yellow colors from the movie and comics seemed a little cartoonish for my taste. Ransacking my paint cabinet I decided on Model Masters sterling metallic silver for the Zarkov ship trimming the rocket ring with Testors metallic gold and using automotive universal chrome for the cannon.
I wanted the Ming bomber a little more menacing so I picked Tamiya’s bare metal silver using their gun metal for the nose and cannon. The rocket exhausts were sprayed copper with a gun metal spray overlay. Finished and mounted they look pretty impressive on my bookshelf.
And now back to my current project, a Disney 7-foot Nautilus — only 4000 rivets to go!