Moebius Models 1/32 Viper Mk II**final photo update**

More work, with photos. Got Gunze Mr. Surfacer super fine light grey put on today, buffed out with 0000 steel wool and resprayed. Notice the nice modular construction of the aft nacelle group and how it grafts to the forward fuselage. I cut the wing's J hooks off so I can install them when all all painted seperately. Also I fitted the upper engine so that it  can paint it seperately and slide in afterwards. 

The decals came in today and they comprise a number of markings and ancillairly markings. Pretty good thermaform type decals. Color is nice and muted on all. for those who wish to light this kit, the way it is designed will allow for the routing of wiring and such. 

Division 6 if you can pass along to your freind workign on the mech's, I finally got a look at the figures and they are off to a great start. I really like the crouching mechanic!  

The uniforms seem to be fairly typical Terran base unfiroms. The Colonial knuckledraggers had some oddball stuff on thiers like the big rings at the bottom of the legs forward of the leg seams. Curtain rings are the thing I used for mine and they are athe right size, big and noticable. I see what looks like the black strap added to the left forward leg and it looks like the vest has been added, big YAY on that! Cant tell if the monster cuffs are there or not...hes gonna need to send me several samples to paint to check for accuracy :)  Painting that yellow stripe is going to be fun.....not.....

Coming along nicely.

The guy with the figures is a garage kit vendor known as Mad Dog. mainly sells 1/6 scale figures.

I'm not sure if he is the one sculpting the figures or if they are a commission project like most of his stuff.

Back in the early days of the show I did research on several of the costumes for the ASAP and some BSG/Hero forum, after just over a year of it I got bored with the whole thing and sold off  most of my materials, just kept the patches and gun.

You probably know Dan Kim from the forums, he's a buddy of mine from when he was with Hi-Impact.

Eric...

I know Dan from the Scifi hero boards. he has been very helpful, and apparently has a lot on his ha nds and keeps it running. I have heard of MadDog in connection with 1/6 items. if the figs dont become a commercial venture, it will be easy enough to make figs out of Navy crew. 

all priming is done including pilot figure and I am about to lay in a green liner on it to define the creases and be able to photograph it better. 

Pilot is DONE!  Im happy with it.

Ragnar Anchorage is invaluable for screen shots and hi res behind the scenes.

here is one that really helped with the buckles and layout. Normally you dont see the pilots under daylight condistions in open air with no optical filtering. Love Lee's Erikson flip phone. I used to have that model. 

http://www.galacticastation.com/Gallery/off%20camera/bgs346.htm

http://www.galacticastation.com/Gallery/hi%20res/Cast/mag/1/JB%20(1).htm

and today's efforts. It's funny how the digital camera shows all defects in worksmanship. Looks "better" in person, and in smaller scale!  All colors costum mixed acrylics from a variety of sources and even pastels on top of the shoulder pads.  The decals come in undersize. I will probably use the aftermarket JT Graphics decals. 

I pulled out my Mk2 and while tinkering with it noticed that there are some divots on the sides of the upper engine cowling (sink marks) the sink areas on the upper turkey feathers that seem to be on everyones will be a real bugger to deal with.

I am chopping up the cockpit to rework the seat. and rounding over the top edges of the vertical strips on the side detail slots on the main fuselage.

Don't forget to remove the company name off the bottom.

E

Finally someone painted the pilot right.

You should have told me you needed pix of the pilot suit, I have tons of them including some I took of Starbucks that was on display at SDCC a few years ago.

Don't forget the yellow stripe on the gloves.

The O2 window on the left sleeve lights up green when full and progresses to red.

A great shot of it changing is in the miniseries when Apollo first arrives on the Galactica.

E...

yep, that was one of he first things I did.

the sink marks are shallow  on the turkey feathers so for this build I am leaving them. Been painting all day, got the primary white and off white on the Viper. messed up the left engine and had to pull that off and repspray so I worked on the pilot for the rest of the day.  I cheated the seams where the engine cowlings meet the upper nacelle with rod stock.  wiith the pilot done its time to make some dinner, and get back to painting the Viper. 

Just noticed your missing the gunmetal silver bands at the cuffs and ankles, but you did  get the watch, that's a plus.

Gosh, that giant clothespin stuck to his butt has gotta hurt, lol.  Nice paint job on the pilot.

thanks

yeah its missing a couple of things yet, the cuffs and the snaps on the shoulderpads. 

Got a good shot of the yellow stripe? I can only see the division line, but that should be where the yellow strips is, right?

I need to add more color to the indicator, it doesnt show up well.

In all the pilot isnt bad, the helmet needs more defnittion, but it was certainly more interesting to paint than typical subjects.

Tonight I am adding all the red, spent last night masking it off to paint.  Havent been overjoyed with the kit decals, but they finally set with Walthers SolvaSet!

I lopped the head of my pilot to hollow out the helmet, it's seems a bit narrow and may need to be widened out some, it's also missing the cheek lights.

Glove pix

Note that they painted the textured rubber with a matching metallic green (kinda worn off in the bottom pic)

Eric...

Thanks for the glove shots! I thought that is what I was seeing and used some of the paint mix on the tips of the gloves. These look like the same brand as the knuckledragger gloves on the palm butnot the back. NOT good for anyhing hot, whatsoever as I found out quite by accident!

Update- got the red added. MM enaml British Crimson. Decals go on tonight and the base acrylic will get picked up this afternoon. Final wear, final paint, guns,  and cockpit final touches tomorrow.

The gloves are made by Ironclad.

I'm in the process of fixing the inside of the top intake on mine, removed the blank wall flange and sloped the back end, now I need to assemble the 2 pieces and fill in the walls to properly go inwards than find or make the fan that sits in there.

I'm using screen caps from Razor when Husker gets the top of his ship hit with a collision with the Cylon Raider.

Do the decals you got have the phoenix that is backed in white?

It was an over site by Moebius models that their separate decals aren't white backed so they don't show up very well over a dark painted surface, they also don't have separate thrusters for the engine tops.

Decals were applied last night, and they look GREAT! My total time was 3 hours. 

you are correct, there is no white underlay for the Moebius decals. However I did not use the kit decals, I went with the JT Graphics decals.  Correct again that the engine top RCS thrusters are missing. Im hitting the road for a convention tomorrow so between work and packing costumes I dont have time to fix that oversight.

I also found a mistake on the numbering of the JT decals. JT tried to copy the numbering of the kit decals for thier replacement (Smooth!) but the RESCUE arrows are left right specific and the numbers are wrong. Ok, niggling minutea....im looking for a RESCUE arrow more than a number. 

One of the Pheonix's from  JT-G does not appear detailed, it is a solid yellow mass with no delineations on the feathers. Put that one to the bottom.

The kit decals appear thick and glossy. They are glossy but fairly thin. JT-G decals are coated with a continued, flat film of Dullcoat. Cut each apart.  Have a puddle of water where you want them and work them into place. Diluted SolvaSet was my solution of choice on this one.  Only had to pop one bubble, considering the amount of clear areas on these decals that is pretty damn good. 

On the pressure indicator on the left sleeve check out this gallery, Boomer during the Caprica attack. She doesnt want us hotlinking and we certainly dont want to abuse hving these so just follow your nose....

http://disparue.org/gallery/2/bsg/miniseries/   look in gallery 1891-1895.  clear as day. or night.

off to clearcoat and tonight, finish!

Promo pix from the Mini Series have really good shots and Apollos landing scene.

later on they would change the light source ot put in a actual air guage like "You can't go home again" with Starbuck on the planet with the Cylon Raider that she ends up gutting.

I think I am going to try making my own decals since I have the paper already, just need the font, probably just use the supplied phoenix's.

I am thinking of drilling out all the thruster openings and inserting brass tubing, Probably back fill them with Magic Sculpt first..

Thanks for the photos , that is going to help a lot of others on their builds. I have not seen those photos, were they in the SciFi hero  forums? i spent my time there in the deck gang threads.

Ill do the same on my next, adding tubing, looks better. Its a bear to figure out but you can angle the tubing and that gives a different sense of depth, or even get fancy and bend it.

The guage is what I remember. Car decals often have guages like this, but on that small of scale i would just use a plastic punch and paint/tech marker pen. I used to make 1/32 fire extenguishers and always added the guage since it was so prominant. Less so with the pilot in the cockpit here.

I would really love an aftermarket pilot with separate arms, perhaps in a two hands on the stick pose, fighting it for control like chuck yeager in "the right stuff" with the NF104.  Obvious damage on the wing (shot off, perhaps? ) and engine damage would make the illusion far more convincing than a relaxed pilot with a hand on the knee.

Actually those pix are from Promo stills and a few screen caps that I posted over on the ASAP forum research threads back in the day, some time before the SciFi Heros forum,

I was supposed to be a mod on that forum (SFH) but since the only way I could see the show was on DVD all the threads where spoilers so I stopped going over there.

I do have a TOS uniform, still need to finish the leg board and find a helmet.

It's funny every time I wear it at Cons I run into Richard Hatch.

I was in his promo trailer for about 2 seconds, sadly all my closeups where cut and I'm just in the background in one scene, but I am in 3 scenes on the first episode of I.M.P.s and play 3PO in return of Pink Five in the Endor scenes.

You may be able to bend the tubing, perhaps annealing it first than slowly bending it over something, I was just thinking of plugging the back ends.

A possible pilot would be nice, as it is the arm to the joystick should be more out stretched and not so close to the body.

I managed to hollow out the helmet and found a head in my spares box that fits fairly well, still needs a lot of work though, I even removed the wiring on the top to replace once the helmet gets smoothed out some.

Depending on how well the builds on the 2 I have already go I may get a few more and do battle damaged fighters.

I just managed to get the left arm off in fairly good shape.

I drilled tiny holes along the seam between the arm and body to weaken the area than used and exacto blade to cut through the rest.

Great work so far.  Excellent job on the flight suit color, its nice to see another person got it right..

I would really like to see how you do the O2 sensor and the hollowed out helmet.  I would like to do something like that but it is a bit beyond my current skill level.  

I'm also a detail nazi on the pilot and flight suit.  If you have any questions on detail on the suits let me know I have two (one screen used and one custom) of them.

Here is my build up thread:  Started my Pair of Vipers

For hollowing out the helmet, after removing the helmet from the body I started with an exacto cutting from the front and removed the visor leaving a thin band at the top like the real ones, drilled in some from the bottom to open up the face area then carefully removed the chin piece , cut and filed the curve in that then back to the main helmet I drilled some more with a larger bit, then a rounded dremel bit to hollow the rest of the helmet.

It's interesting, I have 2 kits and the pilot I am working on has over exaggeratedly sharp detail where the second one is softer and more natural looking (probably due it use of the molds)

Be really careful working on the pilot the resin isn't the best and will break easily.

If you leave the left arm where it is you could drill in through the leg into the arm and run fiber optics into the O2 window if doing the lighted version or place a gauge in there from behind if doing the later version.

In the Resurrection Ship Pt 2 where Apollo is floating in space they placed the gauge above the O2 window and put a flap over it. (see the season 2 pix, bottom right on the pictures I posted above)

What paint did you use for the flight suit, it looks really good?

Thanks Guys. Honestly, one of the most FUN builds I have done in a LONG time. High pressure to get it finished and hit the road to ConDuLac, but the end result was worth it. I arrived and set the model table up with the S.W.A.M.P IPMS club and had the Viper siting on its display plinth across the aisle from Lucianna.  She (escorted by a Colonial Fleet freind of mine) checked it out and then he brought her to me (!) and she was rather impressed! I was manning the 501st table in my Imperial Crewman unform and she was interested in my TIE helmet on teh table. she hefted it and commented that it was MUCH lighter than the show helmets.  Half an hour later I get changed into my deck gang.  Lets just say that every penny and hour of work I put into my knuckledragger was totally worth it when I walked up to her--the expression on her face was priceless.   She very carefully signed the nameplate (no scribller, her!) and then the standard promo photo.  When we were done with the photos she started checking out the tools in my tool belt. I have the same tools in my bag as seen in the raptor tool kit that was auctioned off. I just threw them in my toolbag before leaving the house. Its mostly common aircrafrt tools and a couple of GAK items that I pieced together.  Working at an airport has its advantages!  Once I get the photos off the other camera I can post them.

to answer the questions about paint:  suit basecoated in Reaper Master Series Green Liner, then a coat of thinned Citadel Brazen Gold. Then I mixed the two until...when samples dried...the ratios looked correct. Too much green kills the gold, too much gold doesnt look right. A thin glaze of Green liner brought the shadows back out. After the pics i added the gunmetal to the wrist and fixed the left glove, and added the yellow stripes. PIcked out the reworked Erikkson cellphone in the right thigh pocket, clamshell handle and buckless. Zippers were not noticeable, but there. The shoulder pads started out flat brown, then got worked over with tan and grey mixed, trimmed back with black, and finally pasteled with Tamiya Weathering Soot, Rust and snow mixed. I almost forgot to add the snaps but a Zig pen did that. Tamiya Flat Aluminum basecoated the helmet, then Citadel Mithril Silver and Brazen Gold on the helmet and the "glass" portion is four layers blue starting at Citadel Foundation Blue and working to Andreas Color Ice blue and four coats of Future over that. Armadillo scales were painted with a differnt mix of the original suit color, but you cant really see them.  The canopy is crystal clear and I added a wax job from The Final Touch model wax , inside and out.  Im building a case for this one!

Wow you got into Richards promo? Ive seen the trailer a couple of times now.  My freind John has a TOS uniform as well, he snagged a helmet kit, leg board (built and working ) and C.O.R.A. helmet from a collector who was getting out of BSG collecting and thinning his entire herd.  the helmet kit was a challenge in and of itself, but it looks great built and lit up. He has a knack for finding SIDI full bore boots and resotring them. We always seem to run into Richard as well.  Google 'ConDuLac' - Images and the pic he and I took last year come up. Odd & funny!  Ahh..memories...my original costume...ive upgraded twice since then LOL.  We also have two Cylons within a few hours. One is north of me about 3 hours and the other lives down the street. 

Well it sounds like you had a great time, congratulations.

It's nice when the actors are approachable and friendly, I was hanging out chatting with Yvonne Craig (Original Batgirl) at Wondercon about 5 years ago, very nice lady.

The first time I was on set for the shoot with Richard I spent part of the day hanging out in the green room with Phil Brown (Uncle Owen SW ANH)

If your friend comes across any SIDI Full Bores in a size 8 let me know, the ones I have are like a 6.5 and are really tight and while I wear a 7.5 I'd prefer something a little loose.

I have a lead on a helmet but it's not on my need list at the moment.

I buddy of mine was working on a Cylon gut I don't think he ever finished it.

Do you post over on RPF?

Ill let John (hes Blackstar Squadron, may go under Nohj Trebor, his Rebel Legion name) know. He wants me to get a pair and do Jolly. Then we would have two toasters and three warriors.I am on the RPF but dont post there, I have only like 4 posts  nd you need 20 to do much there, and its like if you arent bringing anything new and spectacular, dont bother.  I got a nastygram from a mod not to try to bump up my post count by replying to posts!! kind of kills the point, you know?

On to the build, just got the pics in about an hour ago. Im very happy witth the way the Viper came out and the way it displays. So much for Garretts 12Mp camera, it pixellates at full screen size. Most of the weathering cannot be seen in these pics, but some of it can in the shot of her signing the plate.

All in all, a very successful build!! Fixing and repainting the earcups on my helmet is next! :)

Nice display and costume, the sig on the plate below is a great addition.

I'm or at least was Rogue 9 in the Endor base but haven't posted or done anything in years, got fed up with the bozo's on RL and their stupid rules of what was acceptable and what was not, not that it mattered to me since my costumes where better and more complete than just about all of them at the time.

Same with the 501st, I was one of the original first 20 members and a Snow Trooper to boot.

Built a Storm Trooper for Troops 2 (I.M.P.s) that was later converted to a Sand Trooper, have parts for a TIE around here somewhere.

I stopped costuming for the most part after Ep3

You could have posted your build up in the modeling section on RPF there have been a few and yours is much better than most of them I've seen, You could still post a full build up thread with final pix.

There is also the costume section you can post in.

Nice job on this one.Is it the same scale as the old Viper kits?

Same scale, both 1/32.

Im still skimming the screencaps over at Ragnar Anchorage. that site is MASSIVE!

If you get past looking at all the pretty pics in the gallery of images, and take a look at the individual episodes, they ahve thier own screencaps. 

This is not only a cool cap, but illustrative of the RCS vector thrusters and how they should appear.  I just put another Viper on order last night (none in town !! grrrr!) so that will be one of the first things to do.

http://www.galacticastation.com/Screencaps/s3/301/hires/bscap325.htm

and another clear shot that shows the level of wear and tear that I have invfliced on Kat's viper, from Exodus Pt. 1.   http://galacticastation.com/Screencaps/s3/302/highres/vlcsnap-2120566.htm

and a fantastic up close suit shot from Maelstrom

http://galacticastation.com/Gallery/hi%20res/Season3/316/316%20(5).htm

Nice catch on the thruster pic.

The site is large, sadly some of the screen caps are small and grainy.

If you haven't already, make sure to go through the caps on the Emma Jane site, the images are larger.

Also on the SyFy site there is a walk though of the ship and if you can find your way to the hanger you can sit inside the vipers and look around at everything.