Rag Tag Fleet WIP's - Physical Models

[Griffworks]

Great googly moogly! Been a looooong time since this thread saw the light of day, neh? Well, I'm dredging it back up due to a semi-related thread and question over at SFM:UK's On The Bench forums

As promised in my Colonial Defender thread there, here's a brief update on my RTF, as it currently exists. Well, mostly. There are almost a dozen still literally sitting on the bench right now having some sort of work done on them. Mostly painting.

My RTF currently consists of ships from a variety of genre's, to include, but no limited to: Alien (Nostromo & a resin cast refinery, as well as the Derelict), Aliens (Sulaco), S:AAB Saratoga), Star Trek (TOS 1701, Bay-Bee! - as well as a couple of others, such as the Merchantman, Karemma ship and one other), Star Wars (mostly Expanded Universe ships that started out life as MicroMachines, but there's a resin Blockade Runner and Odyssey Slipways dreadnought), Thunderbirds, Blake's 7 Liberator, Event Horizon, Babylon5 and several others. And, of course, several actual BSG ships from the TV Shows, as well as a couple of my own original kitbashed designs.

http://members.aol.com/griffyards/RTF_Sept08-01.jpg
The battlestar featured in this shot is the Timeslip Creations kit. I've only done some minor modifications to it at this point, mostly just cleaning up, rebuilding some minor detail and adding a bit over half a dozen additional detail bits.


http://members.aol.com/griffyards/RTF_Sept08-02.jpg
The Colonial Movers featured in this second shot is from MiniModelMadness. It's a bit too larger, but when I purchased it there wasn't another kit on the market. The Timeslip Creations CM model is much better than the MMM kit, having more accurate and tons better detailing. The Prison Barge featured in this pic, tho, is the absolutely beautiful TC kit and I highly recommend it if you can find one now - they've recently gone OOP, sadly. The Celestra-looking ship is one I purchased from Armoury Toys & Hobbies of Canada.


http://members.aol.com/griffyards/RTF_Sept08-03.jpg
This pic features the ARVEY Model Products Mineral Ship and "Flattop" (sometimes called the Salvage Ship) and the Timeslip Creations Rising Star. Several MicroMachines make their appearance here. I plan to take the Nebulon-B medical frigate from the end of "Empire Strikes Back", cleaning it up a bit, putting it back together and then painting it.


http://members.aol.com/griffyards/RTF_Sept08-04.jpg
Here we have Event Horizon, U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (an old Starline 2200 gaming miniature that's pretty darned close to-scale! Needs to be painted, tho), "Space: Above and Beyond's" Saratoga, USS Sulcao from "Aliens" (another MicroMachine) and a few others. You can't really see it, but the Timeslip Creations Gemini Freighter is in there, too.

http://members.aol.com/griffyards/RTF_Sept08-05.jpg
Last pic here shows the second "Merchant Man" from the movie ST:III, the Odyssey Slipways Imperial dreadnought (the one w/the dish antenna's on top and bottom), Liberator from "Blake's 7", the primered Timeslip Creations Mineral Ship and the several kitbashes. The last one on the far left of this image is another version of a botanical cruiser/agro-ship that I've sort of stalled on.

Several other ships I've not got on the shelf is the Timeslip Creations Colonial Movers, a second Rising Star (to be re-named as another ship in my RTF), a pair of Odyssey Slipways "Corellian Gunships" (which are just over half an inch long!), Nostromo (a MicroMachine) & refinery that I purchased from MiniModelMadness some years ago on eBay and several others, most of which were purchased from Ravenstar Studios.

Please bear in mind that, with the exception of the ARVEY Model Products Mineral ship, none of those models are 100% finished. Several are close and there are actually two others that only need a dullcote and they're done. However, most are still very much WIP's - which seems to be something like 95% of all the models on my shelves!

I've also got several kitbashes that are either in the planning stages are very early construction stages. I end up having all these extra side projects going because I"m waiting for paint to dry, putty to cure or there's always the Oooh! Shiney! issue that I'm sure several of us deal with. At least, I hope I'm not the only poor bastiche who gets beset by that affliction on a fairly regular basis....

Hope you enjoy.

[Griffworks]

Small update. I've actually finished a few ships - and prior to the end of 2009! - but haven't really been updating like I should. Especially since Wife and I got those danged iPhone's. Cursed things!



Anyhow, here's what I've got:









Taken about three months ago. Bulk of these ships are TNS specific, tho a few are "interchangeable". Nothing much to really talk about here, beyond you can see a few "sight-gag ships" in my RTF. Namely the Liberator from Blake's 7, the U.S.S. Independence from "Space: Above & Beyond", Star Wars Rebel Transport (MicroMachine, which won't be in the final RTF), the Merchant Man from ST:III, , Thunderbird 2, the Aria Shuttle (I think?) from Space:1999, some other S:1999 shuttle (directly underneath Galactica), the Derelict from Alien, U.S.S. Sulaco from Aliens, a Starblazers ship (serving as a Tanker) and TOS U.S.S. Enterprise (mine'll be U.S.S. Defiant, tho).









Also taken about three months ago. Bulk of these ships are TOS specific. A few sight-gag's in here, as well.









Taken on 23 December. Left to right: Agroship 08 (scratchbash using MiniModelMadness parts for the Valley Forge kit), , two Foundry Ships (from ARVEY Model Products), below is one of the Star Trek MicroMachines that I thought might make a kewel luxury yacht, below the Ringship Zephyr is the Tantive IV Blockade Runner (AMP) and to the right is the AMP Nebulon-B Frigate. Zephyr has a little over 25% of the black window masks I received as a test fit from Aztec Dummy.



The Agroship is obviously lacking it's AgroPods. Theyr'e in-work, along w/window masks for the Zephyr's habitat ring. I did the same thing as w/the habitat ring, in that I painted the "floor" some earth tones and greens, included some painted-on streams and am gluing in the railroad foiliage. The engines on the main hull are resin castings taken from a scratchbuild of a 1/2500 scale X-304 (Daedelus) that he made several years back and brought w/him to WonderFest '07. He had made a bunch of castings of the master parts and had a large bag w/those pieces/parts that he laid out on a table in our suite - I grabbed up four total, I think it was. I know it's an odd design, but I thought it looked better and made more sense to my personal design aesthetics than the original Valley Forge design.



The luxury yacht that's a Trek MicroMachine is one of the ships from DS9, I think is where we first saw it. I primered it, then hit it w/a Tamiya spraybomb that's a metallic blue. Detail painting is by hand w/acrylic Tamiya Flat Red, XF-7 and Tamiya's flat black.



The two AMP Foundry Ships are pretty much self-explanatory. Only modifications I made are to add some engines to the underside of the main hull, as the kit comes w/no engines otherwise. Details are painted - rather crappily! - by hand, but the main base coat is different colors from my Tamiya stash. I forget what the lighter colored hull is, but the darker is Tamiya USAAF Neutral Gray, AS-7. The metallics used are a variety of Testors, straight from the bottle.



The two AMP Star Wars ships are in 1/4222 scale - pretty darned close to The Lords of Kobol Scale (thanks, April!). They're both one-piece kits. The Nebulon-B is a pretty nice little kit, but I can't get a slight twist out of the main spine, as well as it's started to droop a bit. Details all painted by hand after using Tamiya US Navy Insignia White, AS-20 as a base, then giving them a two-toned wash of flat black followed by a medium grey. I used a pin-vise drill to make two holes on the port side and added the antenna's, one of which is a piece of tubular shaped resin I had thrown in my spares bin and the other is a clothing needle from my bin.



As of right now, Zephyr has almost 75% of those darned windows covered w/the painting masks. It's drivin' me nuts having to sit there and put them in, as they always want to wiggle out of their little niche. Getting them centered correctly - and then trimming them a bit, as they're all just every-so-slightly too large - is time consuming. I think the end results will be more than worth it, tho!





Also taken on 23 December. Left to right: Agroship 08 (scratchbash using MMM parts for the Valley Forge kit), two Foundry Ships (from ARVEY Model Products), below the Zephyr is one of the Star Trek MicroMachines that I thought might make a kewel luxury yacht, next is the AMP Nebulon-B Frigate and below that is the Tantive IV Blockade Runner (AMP). Zephyr has a little over 25% of the black window masks I received as a test fit from Aztec Dummy.

As always, comments and criticisms welcome.

.

[Darrell Lawrence]

Is there a new home for the images in this thread?

[Apolloisall]

Crazy cool stuff!!!!