A look back at 2025

 Taking a look back and the models I've built, it's hardly my best year, but I'm pretty happy with it. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

The Mandalorian Razor Crest

 The Razor Crest from Bandai is a 1/144 scale kit with the highest detail I've seen in such a small(!) kit. From the site: 

The Razor Crest is the trusty transport and living quarters of the mysterious bounty hunter known as The Mandalorian.

Bandai have created a 1/144 scale plastic model kit of this already classic Star Wars ship. So if you are a fan of the show, have some glue, paint and an urge to build a model of Mando's spaceship, this Bandai kit may be what you are looking for.

These Bandai kits are small but have a good level of detail along with Bandai's build quality.

 This is a hard kit to talk about as it was built quite a while ago but then just sat there. I remember the engineering to be terrific and quite usual for Bandai.

 When I got back to the kit, it was ready for a primer coat, and then since I'll be applying a metallic - a gloss black coat. 

When that was dry, it got a coat of VMC silver. I let that dry overnight, and the next day I started weathering. It's pretty normal for Star wars not to be too concerned about continuity. So scuffs and mud you see in one scene doesn't mean they are still there in the next. So preserving the silver for a ship that got it's beatings I left the dirt to a minimum. 

 

 Next was the yellow-orange markings. There were decals for it, but sitting so long I have no idea where the box or decals went. So it was to give it a shot and just freehand it. From memory I knew it had two slanted lined, but there was other things next to/behind the doors.  Once again looking it up 100 different examples done 100 different ways. So I did my best. 

So the base would have a little something I found an image of his crest - a Mudhorn, printed that out and with matte medium stuck it to the base. With that I was calling another lil kit finished. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

The Gozanti Cruiser

No one can accuse me of timely building of my models. This little kit, from JPG Models,  was pulled from way deep in the stash. But it's now time to build. From the site: 

The Gozanti Cruiser, also known as the Gozanti-class armed transport or Gozanti-class shuttle, was a class of armored starships used by various factions. The Gozanti-class cruiser was a starship that could act as a freighter and cruiser. It could be modified to accommodate a twin laser turret in a dorsal mount and a heavy laser cannon on its ventral side. The Gozanti also had a loading elevator on the bottom near the nose and docking ports to the side near the cockpit section.[10] The ships had a hyper-drive and three engines.

This model is in 1/350th scale and has fairly clean resin casting.  It comes in 8 parts, and 3 (radar dishes) that look to be styrene. 

 It didn't take too long to clean up the mold lines and the remnants for the pour stubs. Building is straight forward and the main parts went together in less than an hour. Not included in the kit, but added was the wooden block and the clear styrene rod that will be the base. 

 Looking at the images searched for most were just a plain gray or dull metallic exterior. A few others had it looking like the red and white from the Clone Wars era. The image on the packaging is that plus a lot of weathering, which is the way I went. The block I just made flat black and I was done.  As I sort of expected was the little radar domes were all to easy to knock off, and 2 of them were lost to the carpet monster. I'll come up with a replacement. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

UGH! Romulan Chowder - class Cruiser

 Another kit from deep in the stash. This one is from Ugh Models which produced quality , not seen every day sci-fi vehicles from the Star Trek and other genres. Sadly they are no longer around. First signs of them were in 2013 and they seemed to be gone by 2118. If anyone has more specific info LMY

Anyway the kit is the 1000 scale Romulan Chowder - class Cruiser.  from the Star Fleet Museum site:

 

As UESN forces began their advance into Romulan territory in late 2158, the Romulans gradually abandoned any realistic hopes of resuming offensive action or achieving their war aim of conquering Vulcan. Instead, defense of Romulan space and Romulan worlds became paramount. For this reason, ship production began to shift from Cabbage-class cruisers to the purely defensive Chowder-class cruiser. Also known as "squids" or "Veronus" by UESN Intelligence, Chowder cruisers replaced the large hemispherical hull of Cabbage with a gently tapered cylindrical hull 30 m in diameter. A small wing atop the hull was tipped with two spindles that may have been auxiliary directional warp nacelles for increased maneuverability at warp speeds. A smaller version of the standard Romulan fusion power plant appeared to be used, but slightly slimmer warp nacelles were capable of propelling Chowder to a maximum observed speed of wf 3.2. Armament included a plasma cannon and six missile launchers.

 

 What drew my attention to it was the "Not A Saucer Shape, Not Seen Every Day" nature of the ship. The kit came in 5 parts, with a base and some decals.

 Clean up was quick and in no time to construction was complete. I added a wooden disc to beef up the base. 

 The base was painted black and I'm deciding what green to use. Images show if from a Deep Green to an almost gray Sage Green. But that's for next time. Thanks for looking. 

 

McDevitt Werewolf

 When I originally ordered this kit I either didn't pay attention or somehow missed it, but this thing is huge! Having a deep look into Troy McDevitt's offerings it turns out that it is 1/3rd scale. 

 In the same search I found that it was sculpted in 2013 - aah  - nothing like getting to things promptly.

First things first, I found a wolf image that I liked and that I think I could copy. Then it got it's primer coat of black 

 

The other colors were added. All that's left if finishing the mouth and the eyes. 

 

  

Made creepy yellow eyes, and weathered up his teeth, and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

Alpha Omega Doomsday Missile

 This latest kit is an offering from Fantastic Plastic. It is the Alpha & Omega Doomsday Missile seen at the end of the 1970 film Beneath the Planet of the Apes. 

In the first "Planet of the Apes" sequel, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (1970), the stranded human astronauts find a community of mutant humans living in the ruined subway system of the former New York City. Their ancestors having survived the nuclear apocalypse that destroyed the surface world, they reverently worship one of the last remaining artifacts of that bygone time -- a "Doomsday Bomb" bearing the ominous "Alpha-Omega" symbol.

 

The kit is 12 parts in 1:24th scale. It looks much taller than it's 12" height. It is all 3D printed with all the attachment points cleaned off, but I gave it a light sanding anyway. 

 It's not often that you get a garage kit. Leave all the parts in the box, shake it and it builds itself. This IS one of those kits. 

According to FP, it's a simple mock-ICBM (albeit it scaled down for filming purposes) with added fuselage texture and a pair of fins, the missile also has a weird hook on its upper body, its only function that of an easy point where the invading ape army can latch their ropes and bring the doomsday weapon crashing to the ground.  Looking at the missile and the hook, there's no way it would last 10 minutes before I accidentally break it off, so into the parts box it went. 

 And in one day the model was done. Next I started looking at the painting. The instructions says it's a golden color. But looking at the screen grabs of the movie (image above), it looked more to me like a silver or chrome with some orange tarnish on it. Since it's my model that's the way I'm going. I got out my trusted Rustoleum Chrome paint and gave it a shot. Looks great. 

 I left it for a few days for the chrome to cure, and then hit with with a thinned sepia wash. That did little to nothing, So I decided to give in a little and added a mist coat of a gold from Vallejo. Adding a little more at the bottom I was happy with the result. while I was letting this last paint coat cure, I had to address the decals. FP uses an excellent printer, but being so thin, it needs a coat of Microscale's Decal Film. While the decal film is drying, I decided it's a good time to take break and think about the base.  The kit comes with a small 4in. diameter 3D printed base, but I was thinking more of something like the set in the film.  check back for that soon. 

 

 

 

The Mothman

 In a rather surprise move IMHO a manufacturer has come up with a cryptid scale model.  Earlier this year, Pegasus Models has released the Mothman.

It was the year 1966 when a strange creature surfaced in the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. This creature was described as being at least 7 feet tall, with a humanoid body and a wingspan at least 10 feet in length. Its distinguishing feature? Two red glowing eyes that terrified anyone who saw them. For the next year, this strange moth-like creature continued to terrorize the residents of Point Pleasant. Thus, the legend of the Mothman was born.

Though many people are divided on the nature of the Mothman, it has been noted that the creature has never harmed a human being during its encounters. This has caused many believers to think that the Mothman means no harm, but instead tries to warn people of impending danger with its presence. This was later evidenced further with the collapse of the Silver Bridge, as many witnesses claimed to see the Mothman on the bridge just before it fell.

The kit is in1/8th scale and comes in a number of gray plastic sprues. 

 

Hehe, typical of a short production (?). Attachment points on one side, nothing on the other...

 

Easy attaching the parts after removing the sprue remnants.

 

While the parts are drying I turned my attention to the base. Got carried away, and almost completed it... ended up doing a two tone for the lettering, and Spaz Stix super gloss for the water.

Had the idea for painting the wing elements as a sort of metallic color. added silver has the base. 

The eyewitness descriptions have the monster a dark (black) color and that was my intention. We'll see... 

The first layer is V's Gunmetal blue which is a metallic, and I couldn't located by lil collection of Scale 75 metallic colors, so I just added V's Transparent Red to the wing 'eyes.'

 

Sticking with my ideas of having the creature black U thought a blue for the highlights could convey an idea of you're seeing this guy at night. But that didn't work IMHO. 

 

 

There's too much of a difference between the blue creature and the basically brown base. I could have redone the base to make it look darker (bluer), but I wasn't about to restart the whole thing over. The easiest thing would be to paint over the body with black and then highlight in a brown to tie both parts together - which is what I did, and with that I was done. Thanks for looking.