Serenity: 1/288 Firefly

Firefly was one of the best, and tragically short lived science fiction shows ever made. Serenity, a Firefly class transport, is the main ship of the series and while she may never win a beauty contest, is non-the-less one of the coolest ships ever.  Serenity also had a cameo in the new Battlestar Galactica series

This is my build up the the 1/288 Stargazer kit.  It's mostly resin but does include some thin wire and styrene for pipes and some sheet styrene for the solar panels. At a first glance this model is very good, at seems very accurate to the CG model used on the show.

What you get:

 I had a few issues with my casting of this kit, nothing serious and should all be very easy to fix. There are a few air bubbles on the main engine part:

 And some thick resin pour stubs:

 Here it looks like maybe the mold is going out, on both sides there is resin that will need to be drilled out for the wings to fit:

 One of the cool features on this kit, removable shuttles:

 They don't quite fit flush, but a little sanding work should fix that nicely:

 These are parts for the landing gear and wing details. I don't like how these were cast as one "part". I will have to sand them down to remove the excess thickness, and then cut them out of the resin chunk they were cast in.

I found a website with some amazing renders of Serenity. Painting this used, beat-up ship is going to be a real challenge. At this point I'm not really sure where I'm going to start, but my airbrush is going to get a workout.

1/72 XJ X-Wing: Finished

Here is the last of the WIP pics of the XJ. You can see the scratch built cannons, resin cast parts for the lower cannons, and all the added styrene detail bits.

Finished pics:

View of all three Proton Torpedo launchers:

XJ class next to "Red 5" X-Wing

Expanded universe fighters:

1/72 Snowspeeder: Finished

 Finally got around to finished my 1/72 scale RetroKit Snowspeeder.  Not much to say really, fantastic kit. It's got a lot of great detail, just a giant pain to get cleaned up and ready to put together. I used the standard Rouge Squadron paint job from the Battle of Hoth, and added clear plastic to the canopy for windows.  Enjoy!

Just a quick comparison shot with the old Fantastic Plastic kit. Both are said to be 1/72 scale, but I think the RetroKit Snowspeeder is closer.

1/72 XJ X-Wing

The XJ X-Wing was a fighter introduced in the book "Vector Prime".  The idea behind it was that the New Republic fighters loved the old X-Wing fighter, but at 30 + years of service it could no longer perform against newer fighters.  The "XJ" was an upgraded version of the venerable fighter, that kept many of the same design aesthetics, but with updated tech.  

I'm building my XJ for a group build over at Keeper of the Force.  There has never been an official picture of the XJ class, but the books offer a vague description that includes a third proton torpedo launcher, and upgraded engines and intakes. I am basing my build of a 1/48 model built by Alfred Wong. This build is starting with a 1/72 Fine Molds X-Wing, some 1/72 F 16 intakes, the Cosmos Models upgrade set and some plain sheet styrene.

Cosmos Upgrade set:

I had to sand the kit sides flat for the new intakes:

 Cut the wing boxes off and replaces with styrene:

  

Notched the intakes and detailed:

 

The Cosmos droid strip replacement, I added the R2 unit from the FM kit:

 

 New proton torpedo launchers:

 

 

New Profile:

 

 

Still need to detail the wings, finish the other side and work something for the new engines. More to come.

1/72 Snowspeeder

I had a little time to kill before my next group build over at Keeper of the Force fourms, so I thought I'd knock out a quick build.  One of the very first resin kits I did was the old Fantastic Plastic kit. It was a learning experience to be sure, and I have never truly been happy with it.  A more recent release of the Snowspeeder is the Retro SF kit.  This kit is also in 1/72 scale, but has greater detail and to my eye seems much more accurate to the filming model used in Empire Strikes Back. 

I do like this kit, however I would not recommend it to someone just starting with resin kits. There was a fair amount of flash to clean up and the pour stubs were massive and a pain to get rid off.  Also, there are a lot of very thin, fragile parts to deal with as well.  I do like that it gives you the option to match the two different versions of the filming models, the red stripe and the grey stripe with the exposed panel.  Here is my progress so far, I'm waiting on my base coat to dry so I can mask off the red stripes and then this little kit will be done just in time.

What you get:

 Lots of sanding needed:

 And more sanding needed:

All cleaned up:

Optional exposed panel:

Comparison to my old FP kit: