Vipers - Unboxing

Time to start a new project (double build of the Colonial Viper mark II and VII), which of course always starts with opening the boxes and having a look. The Vipers of choice are Moebius's 1/32 mark VII and Revell's 1/32 mark II. Both companies sell the same model, so there's really no need to prefer one over the other, except based on what's readily available in your area.

The mark II has 55 parts, the mark VII has 51. Each has a 1-piece clear canopy and a 2-piece clear display base (which I won't be using).

The back of the mark VII's box has a nice shot of the hangar bay. It's intended to help display your Viper, although I think it's a bit too small for really practical purposes. It does give a nice detailed shot if you wish to scratch-build it as part of a diorama.

The decals for the Mark II consist mostly of the red stripe. I considered not using these, as I did on the Chinook, but adding the emblems afterwards on a painted red stripe would be a major hassle, so I'm going to use them anyway. The number of decals for the Mark VII is a little disappointing, especially in the cockpit.

Moebius instructions are in color, but could do with a bit more detail. Revell instructions are very recognizable as such and easy to follow. It's interesting to compare both companies' building instructions in cases where something isn't 100% clear.
Also interesting is the difference in colour callouts. Revell suggests their own colour range of course, where Moebius favours Testors. 2 different suggestions might make it easier to find a match in your own preferred brand (mine being Vallejo).

Colonial Viper - Brief introduction

The Viper is a single-seat fighter, suitable for zero-g and atmospheric combat. Like modern day jet fighters on a aircraft carrier, the vipers are carried aboard a "Battlestar", the main battleships of the Colonial Fleet. A battlestar can carry around 160 Vipers, not counting shuttles and Raptors. The Galactica carried only 40 at the beginning of the series, due to being decommissioned as a museum.

If I just lost you at zero-g, Battlestar or Colonial Fleet, you might as well stop reading, because you're either completely oblivious towards science-fiction or only 3 years old (in which case you wouldn't be reading this, I guess).

I'm not going to recap what can easily be found on dedicated Wikipedia-pages, but there have been several versions of the Viper.

Viper, mark I
Used in the original series Battlestar Galactica, which ran from 1978 to 1980.
Model kits exists in 1/32 and 1/48.

Viper, Mark II
An upgraded version, used throughout the remake of the series starting 2003.
Model kits exists in 1/32 (Moebius, Revell) and 1/72.

Viper, Mark III, IV and V.
Description about these versions can be found here and there, but they appear to be fan-based, not "official" to the series.

Viper, Mark VII
The latest, most modern incarnation of the viper, shown at the beginning of the new series. Unfortunately, most of these where instantly destroyed or at least crippled at the launch of the Cylon attack. A backdoor vulnerability had been planted in advance by a Cylon cooperative in all navigation software, disabling the entire defense grid and all modern Vipers. Only the old Mark II (still carried aboard the soon to be decommissioned battlestar Galactica) had outdated software systems and were unaffected, making it possible to resist enough to make a hasty retreat.
Model kits exists in 1/32 (Moebius, Revell) and 1/72.

I'll be building the Mark II and VII in 1/32 from Moebius. (Technically, the Mark II is from Revell, but it's the same kit). Construction should start in a few days.

Colonial Viper Mk II - Long live Dutch toy stores!

While on vacation in The Netherlands, I was pleasantly surprised to see some toy stores still carry a nice complement of modelling stuff, albeit mostly limited to Revell kits and paint.

When I was a kid, you could find at least SOME models in most toy stores or general stores with at least a toy department (Blokker, Christiaensen, even supermarkets like Colruyt!). I knew of only ONE specialty store that only had model trains, plastic kits and RC cars.

Right now - at least in Belgium - model kits and supplies are only found in specific hobby stores, the number of which is unfortunately dwindling fast and only large chains seem to survive (and the odd little shop blessed with a big fixed clientele, I guess). Webshops are the way of the future, or maybe just the only way to survive without the fixed cost of an expensive storefront in a city center.

Luckily, a visit to Sluis in Holland showed me that my childhood favourite occupation - browsing a toy store and picking up one after another model - is still a possibility. No webshop can give me that same feeling, browsing through the boxes, picking one up, turning it over, ... Ah, that cardboard smell!

I quickly found the kit I wasn't even looking for. I usually just pick up one after another until some outside force makes the decision for me. I already have the Moebius Battlestar Galactica and the Viper Mark VII, both bought online together to reduce shipping costs. I regretted afterwards not including the Mark II, but here it was, and now I have it.

Now, you may say "That's not the Moebius kit, it says Revell!". You would be right up to a point. If my information is correct (and I do believe it is), the Revell kits of this particular line (BSG) are the same kits from Moebius. Revell just got the manufacturing and distribution rights for Europe. The plastic is identical : same sprues, same parts.

The difference lies in the instructions and decal sheet. I don't know why Revell bothered to completely redo the instructions in their own style, but having now seen the Moebius instructions, I might understand why they considered them not up to their standard.

The decal sheet is very similar, but NOT identical. Revell has their own printing company, but this shouldn't pose a problem, as I don't recall ever having difficulties with Revell's decals.

A considerable advantage for this kit is having 2 completely independent instruction sheets, where one might be clearer than the other in some aspects of the build. Another is to have Revell's colour callout and Moebius's Testors matches. I use neither brand, but this might make it easier to find the right match.

So, with this kit added to the stash and the Chinook nearing completion, I can announce the next project on the bench : a side-by-side build of the Colonial Vipers, mark II and VII.

Masking & painting - Repeat until done

I decided early in the build not to use the provided decals for the black and red stripes, because I do not trust these big decals to sit well and conform to the needed curves. Also, some of the red was not provided in decal-form, meaning I would be painting some part of it anyway. It is nearly impossible to find the same shade of red in paint as on the decal, so I decided to paint all of it. It would be a good lesson in masking.

After masking for the red zone, I airbrushed matte varnish against the edge of the tape. This is just a little trick to prevent paint from bleeding underneath the tape. You basically fill all the spots that WOULD bleed with transparent varnish. This doesn't work 100% all the time, but reduces the amount of cleanup a lot.

I needed 11 layers of the red paint, before the difference between the underlying grey and green were no longer discernible. In retrospect, I should have started with a light grey layer, so the red would be covering well with fewer layers. To the last layer, I added 50% of gloss varnish, in hopes of achieving a smoother finish. I did the same with the black.

After removing the tape, a few faults can be spotted, that will need to be touched up, but the result is good.
I still make the mistake of spraying too much paint sometimes. It's ever an exercise in patience to spray thin layers and wait until adding the next one. The urge to pull back on the trigger and spray away is hard to resist sometimes. Especially against the edge of the tape, this is dangerous and only results in more cleanup, if only I could resist wanting to go too fast.

Next up :

• anti-glare in front of the cockpit
• painting the bottom black, then varnish the whole model
• stretching sprue for the forward antenna's
• adding antennas on the side and finding some thread to rig them with
• adding the wheels so it can finally stand upright without me constantly breaking off the searchlight
• decals
• (slight) weathering?

Post-shading and blending everything

Airbrushing sessions are going rather well these days and seem to be following each other in rapid succession. Maybe it's the weather, maybe I'm counting the days until we go on vacation (4 more days). Best not to dwell on it, in case we jinx it.

I wanted to do some post-shading, because last time, the green layer went on a little too heavy. With a slightly lightened version of the green, last time's smaller nozzle and some extra thinner to keep it all flowing, I slowly attacked the centers of all (well, most) panels. I soon realized it wasn't light enough, so I added some white. Still not enough, added some more, but the paint started flowing more slowly.
Long story short, by the time the thicker paint had left the nozzle and the easy-flowing mix was spraying again, it was TOO LIGHT and I had to add more green. Grmbl-mbl ... I messed up a few of the panels, but all in all the result is adequate and it was a good lesson in patience for next time.

Next up : blending it all together. The green is too sharp against the grey, so I decided to give another try at misting it all over with a very fine coat of grey. Remembering a tip one of you guys gave in a comment to an earlier (failed) attempt, I used 10 parts thinner to 1 part paint. It sprayed nicely but the result was negligible. 5 parts thinner to 1 part paint and we were slowly building opacity.

Everybody always has the same to say about this technique : "If you think it needs one more pass, STOP!" I can agree wholeheartedly, having just taken it 1 or 2 passes too far. I have no idea how further varnishing and (subtle) weathering will influence the colours.

Oh, and I broke off one of the forward antennae. Easy fix, no biggie.
Below is the before and after. Next step : masking for the red and black area's.

Second colour is down

Masking is done with silly putty, because it easily conforms to the contour of the kit, can be shaped anyway you want and is incredibly easy to remove afterwards. The gaps in between are filled with masking tape. I prefer to use regular painter's tape where possible, because it's a lot cheaper per meter than the Tamiya tape.
Then again, the Tamiya tape is THE best tape for straight lines. Regular tape doesn't burnish down as well and paint is more prone to bleeding under the edge.

After the problems last time painting the panel centers (I'm sure you noticed the huge overspray), I decided to give the smaller nozzles on my Aztek another try. I have been experimenting with them in the past, with mediocre to bad results. They're not intended for acrylics - according to the manual - but how else will I do some finer work?
Past experiments always ended with a non-spraying nozzle, requiring several minutes each time to get it going again. I'm not known for my patience, so those experiments were quickly halted. Many months later, I may try again, as was the case yesterday.
To prevent clogging I thinned the paint really well (even though Vallejo is supposed to be usable unthinned) and gave it a go. It was actually too thin to cover the panel centers up close, because the paint was spidering away, but from a longer distance, it worked remarkable well and kept on spraying for the entire session. A victory in one field, but it does mean there's no recognizable shading in the green area.

I'll try to fix it with some post-shading (i.e. going over the panel centers in a slightly lighter version of the paint) and follow up with a very thin coat of the grey misted all over to blend it all together. This is a widely used method to remove contrast between camouflage colours, but something I haven't been able to pull off yet. I'm feeling confident though, so wish me luck ...

Chinook - Time for paint

It took  a long time, but the Chinook-project has reached the painting stage. After getting the canopy in place, I added all the fiddly bits, like antennae, searchlight and stuff I know neither function nor name of.

Some decisions:

• I left out parts 32 at the tail because I couldn't find it on any reference photo's and they just looked wrong. 
• I omitted part 23 because it was badly molded and would just look like an ugly lump at the back of the tail.
• I attached parts 31/38 upside down (also missing on reference photo's), because I'm stupid or blind. The instructions were clear, but I must have had a short circuit in my brain.

Anyway, the only thing left to do was mask up the windows, because after all that work I spent on the interior, I did not want to ruin it with black primer flying through the windows onto my seats.

I settled on cutting pieces of plastic (roughly octogonal) until they fit in the openings and attached them with Maskol (Humbrol's liquid masking stuff), easily removed when painting is done (at least, that's the intention).

Out came the trusty black Vallejo primer for a nice coat of "Don't I look awesome and fierce!?"

I decided to do some panel shading, just because I hadn't really done it before. I always follow the reasoning behind it - breaking up monochrome plastic, accentuating panel lines - but had yet to really try it out. Inspired by several articles/posts/blogs and pushed over the brink by a recent post of Doog's, I tried filling in the panels first, then going over it with a diluted version of the same colour.

I dare say the result so far is looking okay, but we'll know more when the other colours have been added to the model. The colour nuances are actually a lot more visible with the naked eye, not quite getting captured on camera. We'll see how this evolves...

Cockpit repair and some further fiddling

Last time, we ended on a very sour note, with a cockpit looking like this :

A 2mm gap because the canopy is stuck against the control panel

The reason was that I assembled the middle part of the fuselage too far forward and the control panel inside turned out to prevent the canopy from closing.

So, the control panel needed some "adjusting". I have a motor-tool just for this occasion. I ground away about 2mm over the entire width of it, and then the canopy closed easily. I wouldn't say it fit perfectly, as the overall fit of the kit seems to be rather wanting, but it's a hell of a lot better than before.

If you do not own a motor-tool, I can highly recommend one, but if you don't want to spend that kind of money, I recommend metal files, not just sand paper or sanding sticks. You're more likely to ruin a perfectly fine (and surprisingly expensive) sanding stick before you manage to remove enough plastic, especially if it's the harder kind of plastic. I once bought a set of 10 metal files for something like €9 altogether. If used only on plastic, these files will probably outlive me before they show any sign of wear and tear.

Normally, I attach clear parts with MicroScale Kristal Klear, which dries translucent and is ideal for these parts, but it's gluing quality is less and probably inadequate for this big piece. So I used white glue instead (plain old "wood glue"). It dries white, but can be easily handled for several minutes after applying so you can remove any excess with a wet cloth or q-tip.

Tip: avoid the regular cement for clear parts, as well as CA glue, as this last one tends to "fog up" the inside of your canopies.

Lastly, because I didn't like the total lack of detail on the inside of the kit, I decided to add some ribs to "busy it up". It's not accurate by far, but gives a better impression than just bare plastic. Or maybe that's just my opinion.

 

Chinook - Closing up

For the left side of the Chinook's interior I had settled on 2 crates and a row of stretchers to carry patients. The trusty "third hand" helps hold the pieces together until the glue has set. I'm not going to bother providing straps and seatbelts.
I must say this Evergreen styrene is a joy to handle and glue. The Tamiya cement I use glues it together in seconds. That may be because the pieces are so small, I dunno.

A few days and some painting later, this last piece is ready to be installed.

I took time to take some pictures of the finished interior, because - once closed - I doubt you'll see much of it, unless I can get some really good light through the little windows.

And now it's time to close the hull up. Out come the trusty clamps and a day of patience.

The seam is big and will require work, but seems manageable (Keep reading, it get's worse)

I didn't go too sparingly on the glue. When you press the parts firmly together, some of the molten plastic will ooze out. Resis the temptation to remove it while still wet. When sanding the seams afterwards, this extra plastic should have filled all the little gaps. This way, you don't need putty anymore.

The last piece goes on the bottom. Getting the alignment right required some - or in some places a LOT of - extra strips of styrene to make it sit flush.

Here's where the overall fit proves worst (so far), so it will need a lot of filling and sanding and even more ... to get it all smooth.

And the worst part : when trying to fit the canopy, something seems off. That's not merely a gap, you can fit and arm or a leg through it (in scale).

I suspect the middle part (the floor sandwiched in between the two hull halves) sits too far forward. This is because there aren't any locator pins or tabs to get positive positioning of the parts. Now the control panel is preventing the canopy to close. Normally, if this were a simple hull not closing, you'd snip off some of the interior bulkheads until it fits, but this specific part sits behind a clear window and will remain visible.
This will require major surgery to get right. We'll addres that next time.

Chinook - Adding seats and gluing fingers together

The hull consists of three pieces : the bottom, left and right. There's actually a fourth piece - the outside bottom - but I wouldn't call it's fit even remotely acceptable. Filling and sanding will be needed, but that's a problem for later.
There are no locator pins, holes or even small tabs, so it's a bit guessing how it goes together. Overall fit on the parts seems not to have been a big concern in this kit, but I'll do my best.

To make sure the fit remains as good as possible, I glued the right side to the bottom and clamped it all up with the left side as well, but without any glue to it. I left it for a day, to be 100% sure. Then I removed the left half and added the seats inside. The result is to my liking.The height of my scratch-build seats was spot-on and the top bar fit perfectly in the designated groove.

 

So, with the right side done, I had to decide to mirror the other half or to do something else and I decided to go for a row of bunk stretchers, to transport patients. On the far end, I wanted to add some stacked crates, just for the hell of it.

The styrene sheets I have are REALLY thin (.005" - or 0.13mm if you believe the metric system is the future), rendering them absolutely useless for creating anything box shaped.
I decided to use an old credit card. Of course, this kind of plastic cannot be welded together with plastic cement, so we resort to good old CA glue. I had forgotten how I hate working with this, and in no time, my fingers were firmly stuck together.
Some pulling, cutting (yes, I cut my fingers apart - carefully!) and a surprisingly wide range of strong language later, I figured I needed several extra hands, only to realize shortly after that I HAVE an extra pair of hands, which I bought for my attempts at soldering stuff together (which I should really get around to doing anytime soon, but I digress).

So, without any more problems, I created two boxes and glued them together. Some extra styrene strips finished the load and it's ready for painting. To be continued ...