AMT 1/350 Klingon Bird of Prey

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, stardate 92426.57.

Taking a break from helicopter models, whilst I await funds for some materials for decal printing (paper and fixative) among other stuff I need to buy for most of the kits I have in progress or in my "stash". Decided to get on with a kit I've always wanted to build (one of many), bought recently, and have all the paints for (I don't foresee needing to buy anything extra) -

Most people, from what I've seen whilst trawling the interwebz for references, light their Star Trek models with LED kits and this kit comes with a couple of clear parts to allow for this. However I won't be doing so, because I'll be hanging this from my ceiling, thus it'd have to be battery powered, and I don't think that would be possible as there's not a lot of room inside the model, and I won't be able to reach the model without using a set of steps.

Qapla'!

Edited October 28, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, stardate 92427.75

All the major sub assemblies are now assembled, this has been a quick build. Some mould lines need to be removed, especially around the disruptor weapon barrels and I need to sand the seams and fill a couple of gaps. I've decided to magnetise the wing "baffles" (I'm sure there's a proper term for them but all references to those parts I've seen call them baffles?!) so that I can have a choice of wing position, either attack or cruise mode.

Edited October 28, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Blastvader]

Looking good. I built one of AMT's Birds of Prey nearly 20 years ago and have been fancying a proper crack at one again...now I'm not eight anymore

[Raven Morpheus]

Thanks. I think I might have made a slight error in assembly though...

Originally I planned on painting the windows so that some look as though they're lit, by painting them a offwhite/yellow colour, and so that some look as though they're not lit by painting those ones black.

However I took a look today and the windows are quite shallow, thus they need scribing/cutting out, and some on the side aren't moulded correctly. Now, what I should have done is done the work on them before sealing up the two halves of the body. That way I could make them deeper, probably go all the way through, and back them up with thin styrene sheet to give me a background to paint onto.

So now I don't know whether to have a go and do the re-scribing on them and hope the interior isn't visible when I'm done (but obviously none of the windows will look as though they're lit), or leave them as is and just paint them, try to get the malformed ones correct, and mask over them all to avoid them getting obscured by the rest of the painting.

I'm thinking the latter might be the best route to take. I'm just glad I'm not doing a Federation starship like the Enterprise D, because that's got a ton of windows to deal with!

That and I ran out of the magnets I'm using on the wings so I've got to wait for some to come from ebay, but they should be here by the time I want to do more to this at the weekend.

[infofrog]

Looks like a fun build

Rick

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, stardate 92440.96.

Progressing well. Pretty much ready to paint. Although I'm a little concerned about some of the seams as I think they might still be visible when painted, I will have to see how it all looks with a grey undercoat.

In the pics above you can see where I've added styrene strip around the edge of the wing "baffles" to lessen the 2mm gap made by adding magnets. Unfortunately there's still a slight gap but that's something I'll have to live with.

Here you can see where I've filled the gaping hole that the wing "baffles" leave when attached, this is how the kit is, if I had glued either set of the baffles I'd still have to fill the gap, but again there's still a slight gap due to the addition of magnets to hold the wings in place. You can also see in this pic where I've added a bit of "hull plating" to cover the rectangular hole which the stand fits into, because I'll be hanging this from my ceiling I don't need to use the stand so don't need the hole -

Here you can see where I've filled the hole where the top half of the weapons assembly is hollow on the kit, in hindsight I probably should have filled the hollow before assembly and made it smooth and level. This has been done on both wings. -

Still need to do a little work on the back end as there's a gaping hole in the fuselage behind where the clear part for the engine will go, this was made by design so people can light the engine with a bulb, but I won't be doing so and I'm not sure if it'll be visible through the clear part of the engine (shouldn't be as I'll be using opaque paints to paint it). So I'll have to put a piece of styrene over the hole I think.

For the moment however I'm leaving that hole open as it's handy for holding the model.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[infofrog]

looking good .

Rick

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, supplemental, stardate 92441.99.

Got the first layers of paint down this afternoon. Need another layer of black on the wing "baffles" but I'll come to those when I concentrate on painting them.

I'm a little put off by the Vallejo Model Air Pale Green, but apparently according to the conversion chart I used it's the exact match for the colour Round 2 (the company that currently has the licences to produce AMT/ERTL kits) suggest for their most recent release of this model. Personally I think it's a bit too bright. Hopefully the other green coloured panels, a layer of Future, some Citadel Agrax Earthshade in the panel recesses and in other spots, and then a final coat of Vallejo Matt varnish will dull the pale green down a bit.

Everything got a coat of Vallejo Model Air 050 Light Grey as undercoat...

...and then my airbrush packed up on me. So I proceeded to strip it down completely, soaked in some Fairy Power Spray for about 20 minutes, rinsed it off, pushed the needle through half a dozen times, and reassembled it. Seems there was some build up inside somewhere because after a few flushes of UMP Airbrush Cleaner it worked fine again. I've never deep cleaned it since I got it anyway, it's only a £10 cheapo from China!

You can't see it yet as I've not taken a photo of it but I painted the "feathers" on the underside of the wings brown to begin with as red goes over brown better in my experience. Then I painted the "feathers" on the underside of the wings Vallejo Model Air Italian (Ferrari) Red. Then I coated each individual "feather" panel with Vallejo Liquid Mask before applying the green to the wings.

I'm now waiting for the green to harden on the wings before removing the masking, but I think I should have found another way to mask them as I did get some overspill of the liquid mask into the gaps where it's supposed to be green and I'm sure that rubbing the mask off is not going to go well. Hopefully I won't end up having to retouch too much of the paint.

There's plenty of masking sets out there for the aztec pattern on Federation ships such as the Enterprise, but no masking sets for the Klingon kits, that I could find in this scale!!

I also painted all the windows black, and then filled them with liquid mask. Not sure how that's going to turn out either but I think it was the only way I could stop them getting filled in by other layers of paint.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Norman]

It is looking good...keep posting

Cheers

[jetboy]

hi,like the green colour..

don

[infofrog]

looks good

Rick

[Will Vale]

I like the green too, I think it'll dull down a bit with weathering, but it's nice to have a bright place to start from.

There was a good build of this in one of the magazines - TMMI? - this year or last which might be worth hunting down for extra inspiration?

Cheers,

Will

[Tomjw]

I built this years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Keep up the good work.

Tom.

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, stardate 92443.67

Here's a couple of pics showing the "feathers" on the underside. I'm not particularly happy with it as it looks like there's a lot of touching up to do. I could call it weathering but I think the patches have too hard a outline to call it weathering and they'd be pretty huge chips if I were to call them chipping...

Not sure if the green patches are just very stubborn dried on Vallejo liquid mask or where the mask didn't cover (I sprayed green over red so the panels should be all red) but last night it looked like I covered each panel properly. Don't really know how to proceed other than to either re-paint by hand (and probably sacrifice quality in the process), or redo completely by airbrush (starting with another brown undercoat) and re-mask using liquid mask again. One problem with the liquid mask is that it dries on my brush whilst I'm applying it, and it's already ruined a brush.

Other than that I can only think of a couple of other options, make my own masks somehow from masking tape (or I've heard of frisket paper?) or fill the recesses instead of masking the panels and paint the red on and then remove the masking liquid, but I think that might be as problematic as what I've already tried. If I had thought about it I would have put the pieces that make up the underside of the wing with the pattern on it onto my flatbed scanner and scanned them in, then I could print the pattern out and probably use it as a mask. Bit late now unless I remove the ends of the wings, and I don't think that's possible.

I'm starting to like the green though, it looked too bright because either there was no natural light over my work area last night, just a set of 3 7w 6400k economy "daylight" bulbs, or because it wasn't dry enough. Either way it seems to have darkened down over night and looks better this morning.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, supplemental, stardate 92444.67

Had a go at the re-doing one of the wings this afternoon. I masked off the "feathers", resprayed it brown for the undercoat (over the red/green that was already present) then resprayed red over the top again and then painted in the gaps with green by hand instead of masking off or using an airbrush.

it took some time (about an hour or two), and it doesn't have have 100% crisp straight edges on the panels, but it turned out better than anything else I could have tried I think (and it looks worse in the photos that it actually looks to the naked eye).

I also did the alternate green (green zinc chromate) panels on the top side of the same wing. I did the panels by airbrush first, the tidied up by hand and then airbrushed over a couple of the panels again to "blend" it all in -

There's actually a couple of shades of green zinc chromate on the panels because for some reason the pale green base coat I had been using to cover up parts of the rest of the wing just wouldn't get out of my airbrush and kept being mixed in with the green zinc chromate, I should have cleaned it out better between colours I think...

I also got some "puddling" by the looks of it on the panel on the end of the wing but I can address that with a fine sanding and respray. Hadn't noticed it until I looked at the photo above.

Need to get some more masking tape now though, I ran out of Tamiya tape this afternoon, luckily I ordered some the other day...

Edited November 3, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[infofrog]

The red looks 100 % better

Rick

[jetboy]

hi,might be a stoopid question but i thought,they were Romulan bird of prey,s and the Klingon was a battle cruiser....yours confuuuused

blackpool

[oileanach]

Did someone ask for a /b/eard?

There are many Klingon ships in the cannon, some of which are battle cruisers, some of which are referred to generically as birds of prey. Some birds of prey are battle cruisers, too:

However, it's not quite that simple. Cannon has it that the Klingon B'rel class scout is a virtual clone of the Romulan S11. Larger Klingon vessels bearing a strong visual similarity to the K-22 B'rel were based on the S11 and it's larger stable mate, the V-30 'Winged Defender', using information traded or stolen during the period of the third technological exchange treaty.

And just to muddy the waters some more, the Romulans replied by building a cruiser sized clone of the Klingon vessel, the V-24, for all sorts of border conflict shenanigans.

That's cannon. Reality is that the models were handy, look good and were recycled through numerous film and TV iterations, with furious Trekkers b*tching and whining loudly in the background!

[jetboy]

sorry for intertwining on your thread,btw...but thanks for the quite informative answer, lol

cheers

don

[Tomjw]

I have to say that your paint work looks excellent. Didn't know that there were so many different Klingon ships either.

Cheers,

Tom.

[Raven Morpheus]

I don't mind discussing the subject matter. It breaks up the discussion from boring progress reports (of which I'll have none until the weekend).

[puts on beard and Klingon outfit]

Most of the ships in oilenach's pictures you never see in the TV series or films, there's only really been a handful of Klingon and Romulan ships used in the TV shows and films.

Star Trek III The Search For Spock was where we first saw the Klingon Bird of Prey (the model I'm building). Then it was used in IV Voyage Home, V Final Frontier, VI Undiscovered Country, and in Generations, it was effectively retired in terms of film appearances after Generations (where Enterprise D blew up the BoP of the sisters Lursa and B'Etor of House Duras) as it's not appeared in film since. The new JJ Trek films did have a new Klingon Bird of Prey but I'd rather forget those 2 films exist...

The Klingon Bird of Prey has been used in all the TV series apart from ToS and has made a total of 44 appearances in various guises (because there's more than one type of BoP).

There's also a bit of a debate about it's actual size - http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/bop-size.htm

The other notable Klingon ships are the D7 Battle Cruiser which made a total of 24 appearances over 5 TV series and was the one the Romulans "borrowed", to my knowledge "canon" states the Romulans and the Klingons had a tech sharing pact in the 23rd century. Then they made the Vor'cha which made 24 appearances, then came the Negh'var which made 9 appearances. In the films Star Trek TMP, The Wrath of Khan and VI Undiscovered Country you also saw the K'tinga class which looks to me like a D7 model but might have a couple of modifications that I can't spot. It also made 15 appearances in the TV series.

The Romulan Bird of Prey is this and this as seen in Enterprise and ToS respectively. Both have only made a total of 5 appearances across all TV shows and never in the films.

Those more familiar with the series post ToS but pre-Enterprise (Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation and Voyager) would be more familiar with the Romulan D'Deridex Warbird which made 31 appearances across all TV series except ToS. Then for the film Nemesis they introduced the Reman Scimitar and the Romulan Valdore type warbird, also known as the Mogai class.

Then there's the Cardassian Galor Class ships which made 29 appearances, mostly in DS9.

in DS9 you also had the Dominion Jem'Hadar ships

And that just about covers the regularly seen non-Federation ships (not counting Borg ships, the Kazon ships and others from Voyager and ships of the less seen races such as Ferengi (mostly the Marauder to my knowledge (8 appearances)), Vulcan and Andorian) in Star Trek films and TV series in my opinion.

To my knowledge the rest of the ships in oilenach's pictures come from media other than the TV series/films. Star Trek Online (an MMO which I play but as a solo player) has pretty much every ship you could think of.

Whilst I'm not a Trekkie as I don't dress up and go to comic cons I do seem to be on a bit of a Star Trek binge at the moment because I've been re-watching the TV series and films (TNG, DS9, Enterprise and some ToS, I don't like Voyager. and I really dislike the JJ Trek abominations (I'm really really hoping they stay in the cinema, a Star Trek version of Lost would not be good!!), and I will be buying a 1/1000 Enterprise Refit (Round 2 kit) to go with this build (I don't have the space (3ft x 2ft) or money for a 1/350 scale Enterprise to match the scale of this build).

BTW here's a list of model kits made, some still in production (mostly sold/made by Round 2) - http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_model_kits

There have been some others I've come across like a 1/1000 Klingon Bird of Prey (early variant) or even the Reman Scimitar in 1/2500, but they're from "indie/garage" makers and don't look to be available anywhere, and there were/are some early 1/537 AMT Enterprise kits knocking about, but those aren't all that good and take too much money/work to make right from what I've read.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[oileanach]

For Don- the charts are for illustrative purposes only- there are about a gazillion of those things on line! Main point being /b/eardies like to expand and debate all that stuff- while the reality is what Raven described. The ship looks cool, so the cash strapped (mainly TV) studio recycled it as much as they could get away with.

Raven:

I'm with you on the JJ films- great opportunity utterly wasted, with whole clans of babies being ejected with the bath water. He seems intent on p*ssing all over four decades of continuous story arc and multiple characters development, just to score some cheap laughs, or to tie in some major special effect to something some of the audience might recognise. It's the Hollywood way- redact, redact, redact. Even the Enterprise looks wrong.

No problem with casting, btw, the new guys are great, but with their talent they could be convincingly exploring new lines of character development, either too subtle for ToS, or too contentious, instead of just trotting out the same old Hollywood buddy krap...

[jetboy]

heres a paper one,for a laugh....lol

i,ll let the kids loose with this one..lol

don

[Raven Morpheus]

For Don- the charts are for illustrative purposes only- there are about a gazillion of those things on line! Main point being /b/eardies like to expand and debate all that stuff- while the reality is what Raven described. The ship looks cool, so the cash strapped (mainly TV) studio recycled it as much as they could get away with.

Raven:

I'm with you on the JJ films- great opportunity utterly wasted, with whole clans of babies being ejected with the bath water. He seems intent on p*ssing all over four decades of continuous story arc and multiple characters development, just to score some cheap laughs, or to tie in some major special effect to something some of the audience might recognise. It's the Hollywood way- redact, redact, redact. Even the Enterprise looks wrong.

No problem with casting, btw, the new guys are great, but with their talent they could be convincingly exploring new lines of character development, either too subtle for ToS, or too contentious, instead of just trotting out the same old Hollywood buddy krap...

As far as recycling of models go I think it makes sense (not only financially but practically), if you look at current navies for example (I'm primarily thinking US Navy here) there's only really a handful of different class of ships with several differently named ships within that class (such as Nimitz class carriers where you have the Bush, Reagan, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Vinson, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, Stennis and Truman), so the recycling of models in Star Trek over the years goes some way to represent that although on a smaller scale. So it seems quite reasonable to me to see the same model appear over and over again but representing a number of individual ships.

I actually like the JJ Trek Enterprise, in fact apart from the Apple iBridge and the "brewery" in the engineering hull (although it does kind of make sense) I can't really fault the films visually, it's everything else about the films I take issue with. I actually considered getting the Revell 1/600 kit, instead of the Round 2 1/1000 Enterprise kit, but it just wouldn't look right next to this BoP and I'd have to buy the aztec decals separately, at the cost of the kit itself from what I worked out (or print my own, but that'd cost almost as much due to buying ink)!

However I think this article sums up what's wrong with the films and I can't really argue against it (although the guys reasoning on some points, and spelling in places, is poor) - http://whatculture.com/film/15-blunders-that-ruined-j-j-abrams-star-trek-and-destroyed-the-franchise.php

Anyhoo I got some more masking tape today so I'll be having a go at redoing the "feathers" on the other wing of this build tomorrow, among other bits of progress I hope to make.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Raven Morpheus

[Raven Morpheus]

Captains log, stardate 92469.17

Made some more progress on this build today. Didn't get to do any at the weekend. Re-did the "feathers" on the underside of the other wing.

Both together -

Started to try to do the Green Zinc Chromate colour on the panels on the top side of the wing I re-did the "feather" on today but my airbrush has started acting up on me so I've had to leave the nozzle (where I think the problem is) to soak overnight in Fairy Power Spray.

I think I'll invest in a cheapo ultrasonic cleaner and see if that does the job better than Fairy Power Spray if leaving the nozzle to soak overnight doesn't work.

I've also noticed that I've got to apply Green Zinc Chromate to some of the panels on the underside of each wing as well as having had to do the "feathers". Ho hum, seems the more I look the more I find I need to paint something before I put down a layer of Future and start with an ink wash for shading!

Edited November 12, 2014 by Raven Morpheus