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.

VIPER MK VII

Another model photo feature!

Today's kit of choice is the Moebius models Mark VII Viper from the new Battlestar Galactica series.

 I built this kit about a year ago and it went together like a dream! One of my favorite craft from the New Series (which isn't saying much because I quite frankly love all of them!)

The real challenge with most of the Moebius Battlestar kits is in the detailing and finishing, as they practically fall together out of the box.

 I decided to mark this one up as Apollo's MK VII since I made my MK II into Starbucks bird. Thus the appropriate nomenclature was chosen from the excellent decal sheet which gives plenty of options for pilots.

The hull color is kind of tricky with this bird. It is somewhere between gray, silver and blue. I think I struck a nice balance by mixing Tamiya Light Blue with a dash of silver and some white. This was sprayed over the pre shaded hull. The next tricky part is in the weathering.

 As seen in the series, the MK VII typically has a chipped and blasted exterior as though the paint has worn off the high surfaces all over the ship. I first went in and deepened the panel lines with a was of black run throughout and I also made sure to spread it out of the panel lines a bit in areas. I then attacked each panel with a brush loaded with silver. Moving in random chipping patterns around the panel edges and in some high spots where wear would likely occur. Once this was dry I then used a fine steel wool to knock back the brushed on acrylics. This flattened them out a bit and brought the chipping effect down to scale.

Once the silver chipping was done another light wash of black tied all the weathering together.

 

The engine cluster was a special case. First a steely color was mixed and airbrushed over the black pre-shaded nozzles. Then they were drybrushed with lighter silver. After all this was dry, I airbushed in light layers Clear yellow, red and blue. This built up filters of color which helps to make the metal look heat treated and worn without just looking dirty, sort of the same effect you see on Mufflers and exhaust pipes.. A light wash of a rusty brown was applied to again top the weathering and tie it all together. 

After all the special weathering was done with paint, I attacked a few areas to make blast marks/contacts. In specific one series of blast marks runs over the ship as though it was strafed from port-fore to starboard aft. These hits are given directional streaks of soot running from their initial silver contact points. It is better not to over do these kinds of things as you want the ship to still look flyable.

The maneuvering thrusters and gun emplacements were also deepened with black paint and given some directional streaking with charcoal powder and a q-tip. This was all finally sealed with clear satin paint before the decals were applied and the model was placed onto it's stand.

All in all a beautiful ship to add to the shelf, and lots of fun to put together!

Artist Profile: Eric Gonzalez

Eric Gonzalez Artist Portrait

When an old friend from high school contacted me about putting a video together for his portfolio and asked if I would like to be involved, I didn't hesitate to say yes!

He produced a terrific short subject look at some of my creative process and ideas behind my artwork. He's also  working on some other short features, and he does fantastic work with still photography! He's come a long way from directing me filming T-Square fights in the halls of Miami Lakes tech!!!

Thanks Gerry, looks great!

Check out his site!
LOOK INTO THE LIGHTROOM

Fire Your Turbos! It's Viper time!

Of course no Colonial fleet is complete without the turbo charged, built to last, Viper! Another kit from Moebius models this sucker also practically fell together out of the box. Went on a merry hunt for the new Battlestar kits at the Orlando Megacon and this was the only one that turned up. Lucky find n a bottom shelf. When I got it back to the hotel room to check it out, wow I was surprised!

When I first cracked everything open I was actually surprised at how similar it was in parts breakdown to the old Revellogram kit. But that is where the similarities end! Molding quality is top notch and detail is precise and abundant, the thing practically snaps together! Moebius has really gone the extra mile to ensure that THESE are the kits people will be hunting for and building for the next 15-20 years when working on Battlestar subjects.

While not as ingrained into my psyche as the Galactica, I have also held a great love for the classic design of the Viper. It's got the charm and lines of the X-Wing and the raw power and weight of a Saturn V. Really just a brilliantly simple design. And I've also completely loved the later redesigns in the NuBSG (Mk II and Mk VII), they took that sleek power and refined and cleaned it up while also adding in an unmistakable real world design ethic.

 The Viper was built with all the bells and whistles!  The paint job falls somewhere in between studio scale nasty (The studio models looked like they flew through a coal mine) and full size prop pristine. The ship was fully painted in Model Masters and Tamiya Acrylics.

 New dome base allows me to position her in flight poses.

HIT YOUR TURBO! Lights on! When switched on the six LED lights from a cheap flashlight brighten up the room and make this baby look like she's hunting down Raiders! 

I was especially proud of the Paint chipping techniques I used all over the red stripes. There's only one decal on this entire model and it's inside the cockpit!

After spritzing with water, salt is applied to the model which is then painted over and brushed off revealing beautiful weathered stripes. Worked like a dream!

I wasn't thrilled with the pilots face so out came the Dremel! I ground out the face and hollowed out the helmet, then used a 1/35 scale military figure to perform a head transplant. Much better!

Here you can see the display screen lit up by a single LED. It is covered by the kit included decal for the screen.

I tried to give the guns and the end of the engine nozzles a bit different color/weathering to imply the super heating from repeated laser fire/turbo boosts.

Full on view of the rear end! I left the entire back panel removable to service the batteries and lights. Slides right off!

 The starboard aft landing gear cover is removable in order to access the push button switch which controls the lights. I do have to touch up two areas of missing stripe on the underside port/starboard. 

Here goes two generations of Viper. All in all I am super happy with my collection of Vipers from Moebius, they have really outdone themselves by producing tremendous kits from stellar television series. Soon I'll spotlight the modern Vipers I've built, as well as spotlights on the lighting of Galactica, and the modern Battlestar's Galactica and Pegasus. 

  

Fleeing from the Cylon Tyranny...

...The last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a ragtag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest...

Well here it is! I waited a long time for this build to come along. The classic Battlestar Galactica! 

The design of this ship holds a powerful nostalgia for me. I remember in the very early days of my internet exploration finding out about culttvman's website. For me it was a revelation, growing up in Hialeah Florida there were few people that I knew of other than my father and I who were even vaguely interested in science fiction let alone building models of spacecraft.

If there were any people my age doing it they certainly weren't living on my block!

To find that there was some kind of community out there and that they were active and doing new and interesting things provided a powerful boost of self esteem. Then I stumbled upon Starship Modeler, the IDIC page, Phil Broad's website of beautiful behind the scenes photos. To see the things that people were building and working on opened up whole new avenues for which I am eternally grateful. Most importantly it also opened the doors to new worlds of science fiction that I had never been exposed to. That's where the Galactica entered my life.

Of course I had seen Star Wars and Star Trek but when  I stumbled onto the Galactica my mind was blown. I hadn't even seen the series, but this ship was unbelievable! The Vipers, the Raiders, the shuttle. Everything mystified me. But the Galactica remained just about the coolest thing I had ever seen. When I got to high school I began attempts to scratchbuild Galactica with less than stellar results (though it still looked better than the monogram kit, which I could not afford) This early scratchbuild still survives although it has been thrashed bashed and unfinished for ten years now. I just don't have the heart to mothball it.

My old Galactica.

 Vastly unfinished.

 My first foray into major scratchbuilding.

I cant begin to fathom building one of these at 72 inches long with all those original donor kits...

Finally my big Galactica fix was satiated in 2004 when NuBSG arrived. For the record I love and adore NuBSG. It is my second favorite television show of all time only by virtue of Star Trek: TOS having captured my imagination at a much younger age. I thought it was a great series and still do, and it did something else, it brought Galactica back into the mainstream! Without it, I highly doubt Moebius models would have released their fantastic classic Galactica kits. So without derailing the post too much for the NuBSG detractors I present my Classic Galactica build!

Moebius has consistently surprised me with their fantastic kits, high on detail, easy to construct and just plain fun to build. The Galactica was no different.

 They really left nothing out! Oh I'm sure anyone can nitpick things, but compared to the days of old (science fiction modeling) this kit is light years beyond my wildest dreams! 

 Adding in the Paragrafix detail set only refined and perfected an already PERFECT kit. This thing is truly a work of art.

 The ship practically falls together out of the box.

Being part of a detail obsessive modeling community I couldnt help but just tweak some things here and there to make this kit really shine! Some small fiddly bits of detail were added here and there to help the ship really pop.

 Recessed areas over the main engines were drilled and hollowed out, to give a greater sense of depth. 

The biggest change I made to the kit was to scratchbuild the eyebrows over the equipment bays on the head. Again, just to give a bit more depth and to more accurately reflect the filming miniatures original parts. 

You may notice that underneath the ship is something a little more than a standard brass tube for mounting. That's right it's a coaxial connector!

BECAUSE THIS BABY LIGHTS UP!!!

LOTS MORE TO COME IN PART TWO!!!

Lighting the Galactica!

...For a shining planet, known as Earth!

Is that the Six Million Dollar Man's boss?

Yes it is! It's Oscar Goldman! Head of OSI. He was sculpted in the same fashion as the first two heads. Beginning with a core of aluminum foil and working outward with translucent Sculpey. I feel better and better about each heads likeness. What sets Oscar off is his handmade glasses.

 Raw Sculpt (Pre-ears/Hair)

They are soldered together from .020 guage Copper wire and set him off perfectly. I do have to make on final paint pass over him to just tweak his skin tone and hair, and I need to fabircate the lenses for his glasses, but I think this one is a winner!