Lost Boys' Star

 Boy, seems I'm constantly playing catch-up lately. Earliest images of the Star kit I took come from February...  :P

In case you don't know, Star is  is Michael's love interest and a member of David's gang, though she is only half-vampire, having resisted her thirst for human blood. She helps Michael, Sam and the Frog Brothers to battle the gang, seeing it as a way out of her and Laddie's nightmarish existence. After the head vampire Max is killed, Star becomes fully human again and apparently enters a relationship with Michael.  s love interest and a member of David's gang, though she is only half-vampire, having resisted her thirst for human blood. She helps Michael, Sam and the Frog brothers to battle the gang, seeing it as a way out of her and Laddie's nightmarish existence. After the head vampire Max is killed, Star becomes fully human again and apparently enters a relationship with Michael.  She is played by actress Jami Gertz.

 I kind of forget the scale I had the 3D file printed, but I think it's 1/10 or 1/12th.  The printing was done by a friend over at Gillusions, from a file by Diklich Arts.  

The kit came in 6 parts including two heads, body, two arms, two feet and a base-

Getting it together was no problem, tho - my fault - I did line up one of the arms crooked. 

The next was getting the info for the painting, and while looking at the example paint job, she was wearing a white shirt, and a pink/magenta long skirt. However looking at a screen grab of the skirt I was in for an interesting time. The designs was "interesting", not to mention the multi-color shawl she was wearing and that's featured in the kit. 

 

There's a lot of designs there, not to mention that waist belt she has. Plus looking at the screen grab, she has about 20 bracelets on, and I see a lot of different colors. I'm going to have to get my number 0 brush out along with my opti-visors...

I started with a simple flesh tone, brunette hair, and a belt with a lot of purple in it.  And the skirt base coat - 

 

 

Now to start the designs on the skirt - 

 

 

And that's where I'm, leaving it for now. I was seeing those square plinths with the high backs. So I was thinking of using one of those for star. I found a screen grab of the abandoned hotel lair the vampires use, and that may be my background. But that's next time. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

Victory 357 Hawk Ekranoplan Finale

 Continuing on, what seems weird to be is that the diagram didn't call for the window installation to come before I closed up the fuselage - like you'd usually see. OK, I'll play along. Since the interior is gone I sprayed some thinned Smoke color to tint the windows. 

 Next was to put on the tail wing/fin assembly, and then it was time for paint. After a coat of black primer, I tried a mottling pattern as seen on a video from a You Tuber. 

 The box art offered two  options - bare metal and a blue color. The fuselage was no where clean enough for bare metal so blue it was. After that the decals went on without problems, and some weathering. 

 Next it was time to install the windows, and just when things were going so well I got the smack in the face when the windows didn't fit. Did they need more sanding? were they really meant to go in earlier? I don't know. I tried to sand down the front window to know avail. I just ended up breaking it.

The next thing to try was taking some of the clear packaging plastic and make a wind shield out of that. Trial fittings showed it could be done, but a shim of sheet styrene was need to close the gap. Once the glue was all set up the plastic needed to be trimmed in some places. I also decided the windows needed to be shinier, so clear UV resin was applied over the windows and set with the light. 

 I saw somewhere that the plane was skimming across the water, and decided I'd make a little base to look like that. But with the blizzard that hit us and all the shoveling, I still haven't made it to Hobby Lobby for a box to use as a base. Til then it's sitting on a black cube. Thanks for looking. 

 

Victory 357 Hawk Ekranoplan

 I pulled this vehicle out of my stash as I was in the mood for something unusual. On site mentions it as the future that should have been. Another created a backstory for it: 

 In early 1929, Thomas T. Brown published an article in prestigious Science and Invention magazine. Article’s title was simple: How I Control Gravitation. However, the topic was anything but simple. Brown proved that using electrogravitics he could control gravity. 

 After few years the sector spun-off and become Gravity control propulsion research center. Soon large-scale tests proved that indeed gravity could be controlled. One of the experiment showed that a solid block of graphite with a mass of 500 kg doesn’t weigh the normal 4903 N but only 3236 N. Only 66% of original weight. 

Next phase was of course moving this new technology out of the laboratory in and into the field. Sparing no time a special vehicle, Victory 357 (Победа 357), was developed. It was basically an ekranoplan using three small jet engines for horizontal propulsion and an enormous 15,500 HP Kuznetsov NK-12 generator for powering electrogravitics elements. Generator provided enough electricity to reduce the weight of the vehicle from 160,000 N (16,315 kg) to 85.000 N (8.667 kg) making it a reasonably nimble ekranoplan with limited flying capabilities. 

The kit was made by AMP Models and is in 1:72 scale of detailed gray plastic. Having a quick look at the instructions gave me the first minus score to the kit - there's was just a few exploded views of where the parts basically go. I don't like that. 

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The first step, as is with most plane models is the cockpit. This is where I noticed another problem. The sprues are lettered but the parts are numbered on the instructions, but not on the sprues. No problem with some of the larger parts, but there's quite a few smaller parts that look similar. Oh boy! 

Edit: while there are no part numbers on the sprues, they do include a diagram of all the sprues and the corresponding numbers. -  

 This kit has a complete interior. There's the floor, the front and rear firewalls, a center control. There's two seats made made me smile in that they reminded me of chairs from a 1960's kitchen  :P There is also a very nice instrumentation panel. The details of the panel were a PE piece and I must admit it is the best looking panel I've ever seen. What I noticed pretty quickly was that pin "A" fitting into slot "B" is at a minimum. Most parts are just butt joined together. This leads to sometimes what happens is the part slides in the wet glue before it sets up.  Afterward I noticed the instrument panel was a little cockeyed. Dang! :(  Behind the pilot seats were two benches along each side. But being a nice interior I tried to give it the best paint job I could. 

 The next set was putting the interior into the body of the plane. This is where I noticed that all the careful painting was for nothing, when I noticed the size of the windows. 

When I went to close in the fuselage I came upon a BIG error. I don't know whether it's the kit or theme, but I couldn't get the two fuselage parts to meet. I tried several different ways for them to join but to no avail. I even started filing down the floor and firewalls... No good. 

 With the blood pressure rising, I ended up pulling the interior out. Not like you could really see in anyway. With the interior gone the fuselage went together with no effort. 

 The front grill was 2 pieces and was installed with little effort. I spent a bunch of time hopefully getting the seams to disappear. But with this sessions time running short I was threw on the pontoons and called it. check back for the finale. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

Romulan Chowder Class Finale

 In the mish-mash of January besides the Slave 2, I also worked on a number of other models - partially. But I did manage the finish the Romulan ship.

 The ship got a coat of green paint, and then I attempted to indicate the nacelles running my adding white to the vents and then a flou blue.  I wouldn't exactly call it a success, but not a failure either. It looks OK. 

The failure came when I tried to apply the big eagle decal to the back of the ship. The decal was either too old or I don't know what happened for after soaking, the decal just wouldn't come off the paper. In trying to get it off I ruined the image. So my only alternative left, with Ugh Models out of business, was to free hand image. so that's my first real attempt at anything more than simple free handing. Thanks for looking.  

 

 

Boba Fett's Slave 2

 January is a tough month. O always finish up my final kit for the previous year a few weeks ahead of the new year, and then it always takes a little bit to get me going again. 

This year I fiddled with a few things but got only 1 kit accomplished.  If was an early 3D print of Boba Fett's Slave 2 ship.  It came in just one piece - from Shapeways - I think, and had the distinctive grow lines on it. 

 

I had heard announcements that Shapeways was going under with the proliferation of home 3D printers. But while looking for dates for this post I discovered that they are in fact, still around.  

Slave 2,  was used by Fett about 10 ABY. It's first indirect mention was in the book Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.  From a site:

Slave II was a MandalMotors Pursuer-class enforcement ship, a patrol craft, which was popular with the Mandalorian police units since it was tough and good at dealing with pirates, as well as having the cargo space for the usual police needs. Once Fett bought the ship, he immediately went about modifying it so it would hold all the "nasty surprises" that victims of his other ship experienced.  

 The model itself was just 1 part, and looks to be approx. 1/350 scale. Looking at the original was a gray or off white color.so in the end this was a simple kit to finished. A gave it a little wash to bring out details and I was done. Thanks for looking.

 

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.