Carrack and Imperial Escort Carrier

 Working on two new commission projects, the Carrack class cruiser and the Imperial Escort Carrier. These are both resin cast kits from Utar Ships and in 1/4222 scale.

Up first, the Carrier. The level of detail on both this and Carrack are impressive. This is a hollow cast kit just begging for some extra attention, and has plenty of room for lighting if you want to.  

 The engine bells are solid cast, but nothing a little work with the dremel can't fix

 The main hanger bay is also solid cast. You have the option of painting it black, drilling it open, or you can detail it with some styrene to simulate a closed bay door.

 Going for the open look. I drilled out the resin plug and am in the process of adding a small interior and a rig to hang some TIEs in flight coming out of the bay. Not much of a carrier if it isn't carrying anything.

 The other kit that I have in progress is the Carrack class crusier. Not much to this kit, but again detail is impressive and the fit is perfect.

 The Carrack has a small rack on the bottom that allow this ship to carry a TIE fighter. I have scratched one in 4222 scale, which is to say it is tiny. In total I will be making three little TIEs for this project.  They measure 1mm in length by 2mm tall. It's pretty simple construction, a 1/700 gun barrel for the cockpit, with two thin styrene panels glued on. Not much room for detail, but at this scale you wouldn't be able to see it anyway.

Finished: Acclamator and Dreadnaught

Finally put the decals and final weather touches on the commissioned Acclamator and Dreadnaught.  I'm really happy with the way these turned out, and more than a little sad that I have to put them in the mail instead of on my shelf!  

First up, the Acclamator class Star Destroyer. I kept the paint job close to the model seen in "Attack of the Clones", and added the requested Imperial Cogs.

I was much more free with the paint job on the Dreadnaught,as it has never been featured on screen. 

A quick compassion to  Acclamator I made a few years back.

A shot of my 1/4222 fleet to get a sense of the scale of these ships.

Next up on the bench, another commission job. I'll be working up more 1/4222 scale goodness, the Imperial Carrier and a Carrack Class cruiser.

First Commission Job

I've put work on my build of Serenity on hold for a while.  I recently started work on my first commission job. I've always just built for myself, so it's an interesting challenge. My client is building a fleet of 1/4222 scale ships, and has sent me two subjects in that scale to work on.  The first is the Star Wars Action Fleet Acclamator.  I have already converted this toy for my own collection, but this time I'm really going to go all out on the detailing.

This toy is very reasonably detailed for a toy and just happens to be in the right scale, but it needs a little help.  It has massive landing gear that hangs on the bottom, and the back two don't retract. Step one, remove them with the Dremel and cover with styrene.

New Styrene covers:

 I also needed to cut off the front screw hold, and cover up the front landing gear as well:

 I added two small guns to the bottom to cover up the holes for the plastic ties the help the toy to the packaging, I also sanded off the "made in China" and LFL copyright writing.

 I am adding small styrene strip over the armor panels on the top to add some detail, this is a slow task and a pain, but it looks great in the end.

 Detailed up the troop doors:

 A before and after shot of the side trenches, adding lots of detail here as well:

 More plastic bits! I'm also going to add more wire and detail to the engines.

The second kit I'm working on is the 1/4222 .jpg Drednaught. It's a small but great little kit. I didn't like the detail on the radar dishes, so I made my own.

This kit is hollow cast, which is very nice if you add lights to your kits.

 A comparison of the kit radar dishes and my new ones.

Finished build the Dreadnaught really quick, just need to get some paint on it now!

I still have a good bit of work to go, but this is shaping up to be a fun project.  More to come!

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: