Klingon Battle Cruiser - colours.

Okay, what colour do i do this thing?
Its from the original series, so guess must be the Mid-Grey that it appears to be on the show.
But this new tooling has the intricate panel detail that wasn't on the original, but was on all the Klingon craft in the films and subsequent series that followed.
So i've taken my cues from them - and especially Star Trek Into Darkness - and have it as a down and dirty, beat up craft, with no order or cleanliness about it.
So, first up a basecoat of Tamiya JA Grey, which is a lovely grey/green affair:



And next is a step towards dirtying it: many washes of Raw Umber/Black and tons of drybrushing with the basecoat:

Steampunk Walker - bit more

Not been much in the way of development on the Steampunk Walker.
That's because i'm still looking around for the upper gun affair, made difficult by not knowing quite what i'm looking for.
I know: it'll be a sort of barrel affir, with a stubby gun barrel coming out of it, fixed so the whole thing has to turn to change where its firing at, a couple of chimneys to the rear, and a ladder hanging down at the vack.
But there's been a wee bitt of progress with the command ball that'll be slung underneath. I've backed the rear of it with Plasticard and started to add kitbits to pad it out. And i've attached an arm which coonects the ball to the body - the eagle-eyed will spot it as an engine from the old MPC X-Wing kit.

Klingon Battle Cruiser - assembled

Okay, that was simple but good fun.
Straight away i had to choose what to do with the windows. There's a whole bunch of clear plastic one's to put into the "head" here, but i really didn't fancy masking each one up individually before painting, i wasn't going to paint the kit before building, and i wasn't going to paint each black once i had painted.
So, as they're SO small i decided to leave them out completly - i'll have nice black windows without having to do any painting.
The dome affair up top isn't glued on yet as they have a couple of clear light to go in, so i've Blu Tac'd it together until after painting.
This really is a retooled model - i vaguely recall making this and i know the rear of the neck here didn't have the six pieces to it that this one has.



You can also see i've painted some clear pieces with Clear Green - they're for the engine nacelle areas and i figured i would use these as they light should shine from one side to the other.
Before glueing in though, i had to paint the area the go into in black:



And here we have it all built. At the rear here there's two clear areas that should be red so, again, i've just Blu Tac'd the upper area there until after painting:

Klingon Battle Cruiser

For anyone in the UK, T K Maxx have the flashy version Battlestar Galactica Viper and the Klingon Battle Cruiser from the Original Series for only 12 quid each.
Had to get me the Klingon Cruiser as:
(A) I loved the design as a nipper,
(B) It was one of the earliest SF craft kits i made, back in about '78 i guess.
So, open the box and there it is. Except, i think its been retooled - there's a tond of detail that i don't remember from first time out, the detail is lovely and crisp, and there's panels etched onto the hull - something that sure wasn't on the original. Guessing they're trying to emualte and tie into the version seen in The Motion Picture?
Anyway, this is what you get - parts, instruction sheet, decals and a Klingon trading card. Printed in German. Guessing that's why its marked down.
Anyway, looking foraward to building it and i promise it doesn't end up like my last one - to have the command module cut off and an Eagle beak from Space 1999 stuck in its place.
Yes, really.

T.I.E Bomber - all done

So here we are with the T.I.E Bomber all done.
Repainting it has been an odd experience as i'm not used to putting colours on something SO large - what would take a few seconds on what i'm used to takes much longer here. And its pretty darn heavy and difficult to handle and get the angles right for painting.
But its done now and i'm pretty pleased with it. I've had to use a bit of artistic licence due to the scarcity of of actual studio model shots, not only down to the redetailing, but to any colours other than the blue/grey and black. So i've just limited it to the odd mettalic here and there to break things up a bit

Jabba's Door Droid - finishing the "eye"

So, here we go with the white area inside the "eye".
Looking at pics of the original, it looks like they started with another hemisphere, cut right back and glued onto the clear one. Then the "teeth" of it are strips of another hemisphere glued over that - you can quite clearly see the stepping of them in some shots.
I don't have the financies to attempt such a thing so, instead chose to draw the entire thing onto masking tape i'd covered the clear hemisphere with, draw on the pattern, cut it with my scalpel, remove the areas that won't be clear, spray in White Primer, remove tape and lightly draw the stepping on with a soft pencil.
So this is it, plonked inside the outer "eye".

Dirty things

Been having a bit of a dirty today.
There's our Son's Tusken Raider headpiece, which i'm slowly getting to roughly the colour they are in A New Hope (or, "Star Wars" if you're a certain age). The colour of them is kind of odd - a sort of dirty khaki affair, totally different to the tans of the other robes. So i'm slowly staining the bandages with Khaki, and a khaki/brown mix, and straight black, keeping the mixes very watered down and dappling them on to keep them nice and random.
Also, got his bandoliers yesterday along with some for our Youngest's Jawa outfit, and i've got to do something about them. The belts are good, being very decent quality leather, but the pouches are a vinyl imitation of the British 1903 bandoliers used, and i think i'm going to have trouble getting any paint to stick on them.