Building the Viper Mk II model, update.

Howdy folks. It's been a spell since I had time to blog so I thought I drop a little update on the model building. Here are some photos of the almost complete Viper Mk. II that I've been working on in my spare time.

I decided to paint the red stripes instead of using the decals. After 3 coats of gloss white, masking, and then 2 coats of red, the ship was ready to be assembled.


Here it is all pieced together. Everything fit well and looked sharp! Time for decals!


Some of the decals were a serious pain to apply. The one bellow the cockpit was tough for some reason. It was the only one that ripped on me.


After some effort I had all the decals on. Then it was time for the fun part, weathering! I started with a charcoal pencil. I haven't got much further then that yet. I just started adding streaks and blast marks. I plan on doing some ink washes soon as well as scrapes and dings. I'm dying to finish this project.




I took all these photos with my cell phone.
Hope you enjoy.

Building the BSG Viper Mk II. A return to model building.

I finally realized a small goal I've been attempting to accomplish for many years. I bought a plastic model kit and I'm now in the midst of actually completing it, instead of buying a model kit and then letting it sit on a shelf for years, which is what I've done in the past. I've had a stack of them in my basement for years just waiting for the "right time" for me to start them. For a while in the 90's, I would just buy cool model kits when ever I would see them on clearance with the idea that I would get around to building them someday when I wasn't so busy with music and life settled down some. Theresa would always tease me about the little pile of model kits collecting dust in the basement. Then a few years ago, I got crazy and bought the Fine Molds Millennium Falcon model from Japan. It cost a nice chunk of change and I figured I better build the darn thing sooner then later. But at 900 or so pieces, it's kind of overwhelming. So I figured I would start with something a little less challenging for my return to model building. But instead of building one of the older kits I already own, something else caught my eye.

For my 37th birthday I went out and bought the new Moebius Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk II model kit at the Vault of Midnight.




I love both new and old BSG and I really dig the designs of the space ships featured on the show. So when I saw the Viper model I knew it would nag at the back of my mind until I bought one. I first saw the kit over at Starshipmodeler.com where they did a nice pre-release review of the model. After checking that out, I figured I could build that without to much trouble. So I went out and picked one up. Theresa was super supportive. For a birthday gift she offered to buy me the supplies I would need to get started. After a fun trip to Riders hobby shop I had the paints and brushes. All I needed was the free time to begin. Some how I've managed to find some. It didn't take long before I was on my way. Here are some of the results so far.












I've spent a lot of time on the cockpit area. It needs to be complete before I start gluing the main body together and doing the gloss white coats on that. So far it's been a very satisfying experience. I'm looking forward to finishing this kit and moving on to my stack of old kits that await! Up next after I finish the viper, I'll finish my old Millennium Falcon Cut away model that I started way back in 1998!