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1/1000 Cosmo Fleet ships - Done!


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Hi all,

I couldn't paint the Guntank the other evening as it was too hot in the office, so I thought I'd get on with some cutting and sticking instead:

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It is surprising how many sprues are in the box - with a lot of doubles in different colours. This is all to allow the ships to be built in various approximations to the colour schemes of the anime.

What's really surprising is how the big pile of plastic boils down into four tiny ships. The cruiser above (which doesn't have all the details yet) is about 150mm long, and the destroyer is only 80mm:

23930364120_59ca0c9894_b.jpg

It all fits moderately well, but the snap-together construction makes for wide seams in places. I think these will mostly look OK under paint, but the edges of the strakes are naff and will need to be filled to unite all the little bits. I might fill the waist seams as well.

You also get two of these minute little buggers:

24117883272_80e3825326_b.jpg

which are going to need a steady hand to clean up and paint.

Cheers,

Will

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excellent - I've often wondered if you would do some 2199 goodness. I'm sure you will make these into a work of art

Is that the set with the main capital ship of the EDF fleet - the one that's mostly red and grey (red up top grey below)? set #1 I think

That's the lot I want to do myself one day

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I think that might be set 1, yes. This is definitely set 2 - with 2 cruisers and 2 destroyers.

I mused about lighting them but the size and the lack of clear bridge parts put me off.

W

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I have put the other cruiser together and cleaned up all the detail parts for both of them. They're still loose here because I need to deal with the seams first.

23947100120_8f2c788b2d_b.jpg

For the second one I thought I'd try trusting Bandai a bit more and just removing the sprue gates. I used Tamiya old-style glue on all the connection points, as opposed to the first one which had extra-thin along the join lines instead, and various parts adjusted to fit better.

TBH I don't think there's a huge difference in the outcome, but it is worth taking the time to alter parts B1-14 and B1-15 in step 3-3. As moulded they fit about a quarter mm too low and create both the horizontal gap you can see and a step in the lower hull. This is much cleaner in the red stripe of the one that I altered.

Filler next, but they probably won't get painted until the Guntank is further along.

Cheers,

Will

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Those little fuel tanks on the destroyers are a trial to assemble, I think I still have a dent in my thumb from an ill advised attempt just to squash it together :P

According to lore these guys are the last scraps of the Earth Fleet, the final reserve built around some rather outdated but hastily refitted Japanese owned warships. Whereas the other nations of the world had seen their fleets gradually wiped out Japan had been assigned to defend the Earth-Moon perimeter so still had some ships and resources in reserve, this is also I think why Japan handles construction of Earth's mega ship, the rest of the UN is throwing everything into the grinder to buy them time.

The cruiser is a Murasame Class, the destroyer Isokaze class.

These are all the names I could find...

UNCN First Fleet at Pluto in January 2199.

1 Kongo type Battleship
Kirishima (BBS-555)

8 Murasame type Cruisers
Atago (CAS-226)
Abukuma (CAS-229)
Yugiri (CAS-253)
Nachi (CAS-702)
Murakumo (CAS-718)
Ibuki (CAS-741)
Tsurugi (CAS-777)
Yakumo (CAS-890)

12 Isokaze type Destroyers
Isokaze (DDS-101)
Ayanami (DDS-103)
Shikinami (DDS-106)
Shiranui (DDS-114)
Yukikaze (DDS-117)
Ayase (DDS-119)
Fuyusuki (DDS-147)
Minazuki (DDS-148)
Hatsushima (DDS-149)
Kagerou (DDS-164)
Shimakaze (DDS-172)
Tachikaze (DDS-216)

Two other known ships:

Murasame (CAS-707)
Yamato (BBY-01)

Battleships, Kongo class

Kongo (BBS-551)
Haruna (BBS-552)
Yoshino (BBS-553)
Myoko (BBS-554)
Kirishima (BBS-555)
Hiei (BBS-556)
Chokai (BBS-557)
Fuso (BBS-558)

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Thanks Misrule, I thought you'd be able to provide the gory details :) I suspect the centre pages of the manual cover this but it takes a while to feed it into Google translate...

I didn't have too much trouble with the fuel tanks (or are they torpedoes?) after I cut a bit off the pin on one of the end caps. Cleaning up the parts, on the other hand, was fiddly in the extreme.

I went ahead with my plan to fill some of the seams and unify the strakes - I did one destroyer and one cruiser as a test, although the destroyer isn't finished since it needs some tricky re-scribing.

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The strakes look a lot better, I'm hoping that seeing those continue smoothly along the ship will help disguise the broken-up nature of the construction?

23992117980_c063f75f9b_b.jpg

Primer next, then the inevitable cleanup.

Cheers,

Will

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Hot damn these things are stupidly addictive. Too dark for shaping in front of the telly last night, so found this in the stash and one thing led to another...

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Unlike the Cosmo Fleet, this has immaculate fit and is quite easy to clean up (bar the prongs which take a while - I have four more sets to go). I've cut the tips off most of the locating pins at an angle so it's easy to take apart, I also bevelled some of the square locating blocks on the spine to do the same thing.

I reckon this one is worth lighting? There's a bit of room inside and the clear bridge would look good provided I can mask the windows - I doubt a brush painted window frame would prevent light bleed.

Will try and get the little ones into paint before I do anything else stupid. It's OK to have multiple builds at different stages isn't it?

Cheers,

Will

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They are addictive aren't they. I have built the command ship already and you could light it. The windows you can spray black to prevent light leaks then the main colours all with out masking because if you spray with acrylics, you can use a tooth pick to scrape away anything you don't want really easily. The plastic lends itself very well to that technique. I did that on the Domelaze bridge windows and it worked a treat.

The status windows up front would be the trickiest part to light as space is at a premium, so SMD's would be the way to go I reckon.

This was my one:

IMG_0027_zps8e88ad6a.jpg

As for having multiple builds at once, I currently have 3 on the go which is a new record for me :)

looking forward to seeing more of these Will!

Si

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It is nice to see them evolving, the early kits like the Earth ships were a bit fiddly but by the time we get to the later carriers and such their design team hit their stride and they are engineered very nicely :)

I love the triple decker carriers and the long nose battleship, hefty but detailed and quite striking. :)

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This was my one:

That looks awesome, love the worn paint. Is that dry-brushing or something else?

It is niby the time we get to the later carriers and such their design team hit their stride and they are engineered very nicely :)

That's great to know, not least because I seem to have acquired a triple deck carrier and the Gatlantis "Nazca" carrier. How did that happen?? The tricky bit with those is going to be installing fibre optics in the decks, which seems like it ought to be done. And painting the air wings!

I primed the Cosmo Fleet cruiser that I'd filled and sanded last night. Two coats aren't enough to banish the red:

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I think the strake looks pretty good, the deep seams are still deep though - do I wick glue into them to make them shallower, or use washes to deepen the shallow ones? I also need to do some more sanding and such before the final primer coats since there are a few scratches. Could be worse though :)

The little planes (recon craft?) are cool in primer, I've almost convinced myself that I can leave the gap where the top piece (with the fins) fits into the fuselage.

24296936396_30f4dd8782_b.jpg

Cheers,

Will

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That's great to know, not least because I seem to have acquired a triple deck carrier and the Gatlantis "Nazca" carrier. How did that happen?? The tricky bit with those is going to be installing fibre optics in the decks, which seems like it ought to be done. And painting the air wings!

Ah yes, miraculous how one can 'accidentally' acquire a fleet :P

Not built the Gatlantis ship myself but the multi decker was a treat, which colour did you get?

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Ah yes, miraculous how one can 'accidentally' acquire a fleet :P

Not built the Gatlantis ship myself but the multi decker was a treat, which colour did you get?

I hope he got the green one (Balgray) as that is the best looking of the 3 (IMO)

I should've bought the Nazca when I had the chance - but at the time I just didn't have a spare $100.00 :( Oh well, maybe one day

The decks can be lit with fibers but it'll be an effort as the space between the plates is very, very small. I reckon you'd need SMD's inside a small tube to be the light source. An ordinary LED just would not fit - but then Will - you are a master of lighting effects, so you'll figure it out I'm sure :D

Oh yeah, my Core ship was dry brushed and pigmented to give it a used look. Not really in keeping with the show, but then how often have I ever gone for screen accuracy? :)

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I got the boring blue one with the non-angled deck. "Schderg" I believe? The whole concept is nuts but I thought the angled deck was a step too far. It comes with an awful lot of planes!

Will

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  • 2 weeks later...

I did a dry fit of some of the carrier, there is indeed very little room. Unfortunately I also got a couple of Japanese books showing that it's possible. I think thin fibre with pre-bent corners would work, and maybe allowing it (on the top deck at least) to come all the way through and end up as a detail on the overhead of the level below?

In other news I scribed the fin edges on the destroyer and then picked up the gauntlet Blastvader threw down a few posts earlier:

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This was with very thin paint and medium pressure, I think it looks like a good base. Unfortunately the second one (painted in the same session with the same mix) looks less good - lots of tide marks and a few spiders. I think maybe the compressor got a bit too warm?

24167806859_3363fa6c9f_b.jpg

I think it'll be OK when painted over though.

Cheers,

Will

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Ta very much!

I mixed up some warm yellow from Tamiya Flat Yellow and Orange and decided which bits to do:

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It then had a pass of the same thing lightened with white. The jar has what I want to use for the main colour, a mix of Hull Red, Flat Red and Orange. I think my subconscious has produced a little homage to Britains Space toys (remember those?) although I suppose those might have been influenced by the original SBY :)

Masking next, I'm a bit worried about masking along the panel lines since there's much more opportunity for bleeding, so I might try airbrushing a little varnish first to seal the tape edges. I suppose I could mask away from the panel edge but that might look a bit weird?

Cheers,

Will

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Got the other colour on now, there are a couple of patchy coats of the red and then some highlights lightened with flat flesh.

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Masking the cruciform nose was a bit of a fiddle, I used 2mm Micron tape to edge it and then filled it in with 6mm Tamiya tape. Even though I was careful to burnish each section as I laid it down (to stop tension pulling the tape out of the corners) it still managed to do that a little bit as you can see from the softness in at the front of the yellow band.

The rear section was done with 1mm Micron tape - very useful stuff. I think I'll paint the very tip of the "drive emitter" gunmetal or similar.

24507520881_88e26567e7_b.jpg

The panel line gaps are still annoying me, must try and fill them somehow on the other two.

Cheers,

Will

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oh yeah - that's looking fantastic Will. Really nice work. The colours look right to me but I can't see where you had tape issues. Not that I'm really looking for it.

It'll look better with a flatter coat but that'll come along in due course

How many ships in total do you get in that Earth pack? 3? or 3 and a couple of other smaller ships?

Si

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Thanks chaps!

I can't see where you had tape issues.

In the first picture at the forward edge of the front yellow stripe where the hull meets the top "fin" it's a bit soft in the corner. And the next corner down, compare to the other side where I did better. But it is pretty minor :)

It'll look better with a flatter coat but that'll come along in due course

Normally I'd agree, I like my models dead flat. But somehow the sheen is working on this one for me, which is weird because I think the scale almost requires a flat finish. I guess I'll see what happens after weathering.

How many ships in total do you get in that Earth pack?

Two cruisers and two destroyers, both identical apart from colour. The first Cosmo Fleet set is probably better as that contains the bigger Kirishima battleship, one cruiser and one destroyer. I do like the destroyers though!

blast from the past with a mention of Britains Space toys, I have fond memories of playing with thoseas a kid

Me too! I had a black-and-green flying saucer with an awesome gimballed cockpit, and a couple of the later red and white ones. I remember a very happy summer holiday in Kirkcudbright playing with a little red and white space scooter/car thing in and out of the rock pools.

I don't think I ever had any of the red and yellow, but they were in the catalogue. I think you can still find them on eBay etc.

Even the destroyer's fins remind me of those toys :)

Cheers,

Will

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Happily enough those colours are probably perfect for the setting given poor old planet Earth looks like this...

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those dull reds and yellows blend in nicely with the whole nuked out Mad Max scenery :P

I always reckoned that's why the Earth ships were painted in mostly reds, yellows and greys. Not very good camo for Earth but if these fleets are deployed to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn etc those colours work out quite nicely :)

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