Revell Colonial Viper
(http://www.revell.com/)

Instructions and Reference Pictures are available

Finished 11-05-08 The model if finally finished. I have really enjoyed building it and I have a learned a lot of new things. This is the first model that I ever used an Air Brush on, and I spayed the stripes instead of decals. First time I have used setting solutions. First time I used salt chipping. I made some mistakes I know (Stripes on the engines) but I think for my first airbrushed model it looks pretty good. I would recommended getting this model if you like Battlestar Galatica. It was pretty simple to put together and looks good once finished. Now if I have to talk myself out of getting another one so I can light it.

I like hobby Lobby they recently started carrying sci-fi models again, and they happen to have 40-50% coupons all the time. To my good fortune they had the new Battle Star Galactica 30th Anniversary Kits. I have always wanted some BSG kits but they were never local when I had the money. This was before the internet. Before the rerelease they were pretty expensive and hard to come by. So I gladly picked up the Viper Kit.
This will also be the first kit I have painted with and Air Brush. So there will be some learning curves involved.

Open Box Review
I have never seen the original kit so I can’t comment on what is new with this one. But I know the cockpit, Pilot and the clear parts are new this kit. There was no flash on the pieces and did not see it pits or pen holes. I would call it a well designed kit. The only thing wrong in my opinion is there is no landing gear, it would be nice to have the option added to it for the new release. It does come witha little stand to place it on. There are some aftermarket kit parts that you can get to give it landing gear. The box as lot of good reference pictures on it. They are a bit dark for my taste(Paint Wise). This kit would be a good starter kit for lighting. I have never done any lighting, but this one looks like it would be simple to do. There is just the scanner in the cockpit and the engines. I might pick another one up at some point and light it.

Spure Shots
These pictures were taken by someone else, I was to excited and started working on the right right away and forgot to take pictures.

Planning.
Pretty much there was no planning involved. I was excited to get it so I started working on it as soon as I got it. That was a mistake, I wish I had not of jumped the gun I would have liked to tried lighting it, I think you would just need a few LEDs and maybe a bit of fiber optic for cockpit lights. But again I have never tried lighting a kit, so what do I know. I have decided to base coat it in Testor’s Gull Gray. The box art has it being darker than what I want. I remember the show with vipers being almost all white, but I have found out that was due to harsh lighting on the set for filming. I will stick with what I remember from the TV show as a kid. I might try and paint the strips on the viper as well. I did an OK (at best) job on my Republic Star Destroyer, so I might try it on this one. Panel lining might be an issue, since this kit based off of the older one, they used to use raised panel lines to show the sheets of metal used to build the “real” one. If I don’t shade it in some way, the model will look flat, but if I dry brush it, it might not look right was well. Advice has been given to me to scribe the lines in and then sand down the raised ones. I am think I will darken the lines and paint over them, this will let the person notice it but will not stand out and look cartoonish. I think I will give this way a shot. Worse case I strip it and repaint it.

Work In progress Shots

6-18-08 These are First night of bulding I jsut assemebled the bulk of the model the first ngiht. I tinted the Canpoy with Future and Black Inc. I Think tinted cockpits in space look better. I painted the cockpit and pilot before assembling. There would be no way to paint them if I assembled the nose cone first.

6-20-08 The Nose cone had a bit of a seam in it so I putted the seam, let it dry then sanded it down. I accdently saned down a but of one of the rasied panel lines,but I think I can work around it. The bottom right picture is after then sanding.

6-25-08 Here I masked the cockpit with a masking fluid. I have never tried it before so I hope it works. The Model has been primted white, and set aside to dry.

6-30-08 I have Base Coated the viper in Model Masters Flat Gull Grey, on the exposed engin parts I painted it with Vallejo Neutral Grey. Igot over excited and painted the side panels between the engines. I will have to go back and repaint them (or parts of them) back to the base color. I painted the inside of the engines a flat back as well as the insides of the intake as well. I just set the nose cone inside the engine to get an idea of what it looked like.

7-02-08 I have hit a problem. Panel lining, it will not look good.  I am going to try and dry brush the bits to make them stand out, but then the raised panel lines will not look right.  I am not trying to have anime style panels but a not that noticeable panel line, like on the box art.  I am thinking the MAX technique might work but I am not sure.

7-7-08 OK the MAX Technique worked but the model still doesn’t look like I want it to. Its still a bt flat. The bits don’t seem to stand out as much as I wanted them to. Panel lines are still a bit goofy looking but that is due to inability to airbrush/brush a straight line. I should have tape them off or something. I will now need to go and re-darken the engines, and Touch up the dark stops. I might wash the bits again in a darker paint to make them stand out. Painted the base as well, the Future went on to thick and pooled on the bottom. I will sand it down a fix that. After that on to the great debate, use the decals or paint them on.

9-7-08 It has been a while since I have had the change work on my model. I did not have a lot of time so I just went back and reblacked the engine and mechinal parts since they had a lot of over spray on them. Also I took shots of the bottom of the viper. This is where I start painting to use it a test. as you can see I am glad I started there. Next I plan to add detail to the exposed engine parts and then glue the cockpit on. After that I will gloss coat and decal it. Then the fun stuff weathering.

10-1-2008 I have decided to do the large decals with paint. I was worried the large decals would be hard to place or rip. But if I tried to paint them and it worked they would look better and if I messed up I could touch them up. If they look real bad I can still try the decals. I may have gone overboard on the tape but I thought it would be better to over tape than miss something and have red be misted over it. I am thinking about using salt to chip the paint, but I haven’t decided yet. I need to hurry up and decided though.

10-03-08 I have decided to try the salt chipping. Worse case I have to repaint the stripes. I thought I remembered how to do it but I made a mistake. I mix the water and salt so when I put the salt on the model it made rings, but should still looked chipped. The proper way is to put a bit of water on the spot and then sprinkle salt on the water drop moved the salt around to get the best look. I decided to use Vallejo 910 Orange Red for the strip. It looked pretty close and I thought the scarlet red was to red for the look I wanted. I have sprayed the strips and I am going to let them dry while I sleep tonight. I will take pictures of the chipping even if I decided to redo them.

10-4-08 The mask worked quite well. I like the look and color of the stripes, and the salt chipping worked well for look I am going for. I think going with painting the stripes is a lot better than using decals. I had a few bleeds most are not bad at all but on the bottom of the nose cone where I started the paint was way to thin so it bleed under the tape a lot. I will mask the orange and reapply the base coat; I also need to lighten up behind the cockpit. I will then mask for the dark stripes for the engine and nose cone tip. Then detail the engines and do some weathering. It should be pretty easy. I am starting to worry about the cockpit liquid mask, it has been on there a while and I am it might stick. I don’t have a lot of experience with liquid masks. The model is really starting to come together. I like it a lot.

10-08-08 I decided to paint the nose cone tip and the gray stripes on the Engine intakes. The masking was pretty easy I used Faskolor 6mm tape for the delicate. Plus it seals better than standard 3m blue tape. Once the faskolor was in place then I put down the blue tape. It is more rigided a harder to get a fine line, so the 6mm tape left me more playing room. I the sprayed the touch up paint (Model Master Flat Gull Gray 4765) on the bottom to clear up the bleeding. I then mixed up the Vallejo 869 Basalt Grey to spray the nose tip and the stripes on the engine intake. Now I can spray at a lower PSI there is not near as much over spray.
The Faskolor worked great and it did not bleed at all. But I guess I was tired when I did the striping the are not all the same size. I think I will leave it as is though. The look alright if you look at it from the side which is how I will displaying it. The touch up worked quite well. The Liquid mask came off ok, I still need to clean it up, I got tired and quite. I was just glad that it did not stick and I was able to remove it. Next I will do the Engine details and the decal it, so I can start the weathering.

10-20-08 First thing I did was touch up some over spray. It went pretty well. Then I decided to finish up some detailing so I could clear coat to put on decals. Most of the reference pictures and model pictures on the net had the exposed engines looking about the same color as the rest of the ship. I have never liked it. So I blacked mine out and dry brushed it with Vallejo 869 Basalt Grey to show off some if the innards. I also dry brushed the Engine nozzles to show some depth. Then to spice up the engines a bit I used Vallejo 999 Copper to brighten up the major pipes. I will dirty them up latter to remove some of the brightness. I also used some Vallejo 800 Gunmetal Blue to dry brush the guns, bits on the nose cone and a few pipes in the back. Those parts seems like they would get hot a blue over time. Plus it looks cool. Next I will gloss coat it and place a few of the decals.

10-22-08 I added all the decals I wanted. I did leave of one the “thing” on the front. I could not figure out what is was supposed to be and thought it would look odd on the model. I use the name Sheba, no so much that I liked the character but I liked the name. It just sounds cool. I used Gunze Sangyo Mr. Mark Setter and Mr. Mark Softer, to set and seal the Decals. It was the first time I have ever used either product. I cut my decal off and place in my water, I then put the Setter on the model, and slid the decal on top of it. I floated the decal in place and used the tip of a paper towel to such the water/setter away. Once done I went back and put the Mr. Mark Softer over all the decals. I then painted the thrusters with Vallejo 938 Transparent Azul. Transparent paint is a bit tough to work with but it achieved the look I was going for. I am going to let this all dry over night, and clear coat it to protect the decals. Then to fun stuff weathering. Yea!!.

10-30-08 I have decaled and sealed the viper with Krylon Matte clear. I let the clear coat dry for two days, I figure one was enough but I have been busy and not been able to work on the model. I broke out the pastels and went to town. I only had black pastels so I just went to for the grim look. The rest of them are earth tones and I didn’t think would look right because I envision space dirt as more black and white not browns and reds. I need to buy the grey tone pastel set. The odd thing about the pictures is that it came out lighter (less dirty) then it looks in person. That is why some of the pictures have a flash and some do not. I chose the pictures that show the most dirt. I thought about using the pastels with a water mix, but I decided to stick to my usual method. I ground the pastels in to dust with sand paper and then used a brush to make the streaks, and brush to feather it out. In some areas I used my fingers to smooth dust and spread it out. This actually looked nice on the raised panel lines. You can see it mostly on the nose cone. It would deposit the dust next to the raised line and my finger would brush off the top of the line. Hopefully tonight I will dust a clear coat on it and glue in the thrusters. If the pastels still look good I will call it done, if not I will add a bit to it and then call it done. Then take some pictures if it mounted and move on the next in the queue.
Pre-weathered
Weathered using Pastel Chaulks

11-05-08 My wife suggested that I darken the area between the engines. I thought about and she was right. That area would be just as dirty, if not more so than the wings. I think It improved the look. I also super glued the thruster plates in. They look OK. Maybe I ought to have left them clear. I did a final Clear coat of Krylon Matte to seal the new pastel Chalk.

Contact me at josborn@happinessismandatory.com