VIPER MKII

 One of the greatest redesigns in history the Viper MKII. Gorgeous and functional this workhorse of the colonial fleet is a straight up killer!

 My MK II is done up in Starbucks markings. (The tail numbering is 7242 Nebula Constellation, the bird William Husker Adama flew in the first colonial war.)

One of the striking features of the Vipers, new and old, is their Orange and Red striping. Rather than fumble my way through decaling the ship and having cracked lifting decals I painted the striping on as I did with my classic Viper. This involved a not terrible amount of masking (try painting the aztec paneling pattern on a Refit Enteprise!)

The engine access ports were enhanced with some light piping inserted using small guage copper wires. The areas were then masked off and painted in metallic grays and deepened with washes and some metallic drybrushing.

The cockpit was fabulous right out of the box, I added some wires over the headrest to bring it a little closer to "as seen on screen". It was also painted throughout to match pictures from the big Battlestar prop auction of the shooting cockpit.

The pilot was a challenge in itself, Not wanting to lose any detail of the fine resin cast figure, I painted the metallic green flightsuit in fine, smooth, very light coats. I tested numerous colors out on spare plastic and figures before I settled on the colors for the flightsuit and vest. The suits were then given an overall drybrushing of silver and gold to give them an iridescent look that maintained their small scale.

Finally deatils were picked out in various colors and patches were applied before thefigure was given an overall wash of dark brown and black to deepen the recesses.

 Some More detail of the Cockpit interior.

Weatheirng on the MK II was kept light, you want the ship to look flyable, not dilapidated. Rather than blast marks the ship was given an overall look of wear that is more akin to wear and tear from maintenance than battle. Light dusting of sooty black color and charcoal dust, and lots of tiny paint chipping on high surfaces and panel edges. The red stripes were also chipped away and scuffed with some steel wool to apply wear and tear.

 Like on the MK VII the thruster were drilled out and deepened with black paint and given directional streaking with charcoal dust before being sealed with clear satin. The panel lines and mechanical areas were then washed with black to deepen the recesses.