Moebius Colonial Viper Mk vii with custom base

[modelerdave]

Hey everyone. This is only my third model kit as an adult. The first two were a TIE interceptor and TIE fighter. 

 

I started this build about a year ago, worked on it for a while and then put it aside as a series of cascading life problems overwhelmed my time. I finally picked this back up about two months ago and have been slowly working my way toward the finish line. I am not a fast builder by any means. 

 

The pilot is now not going to be used. The photo etch probably won't be seen very well either. 

 

Photo etch landing bays will be largely hidden now that I've decided to mount this to a custom landing pad. 

 

 

Original cockpit seat with photo etch belts. I decided I hated this seat and redid it. More below. 

 

Some 3D printed parts I'm going to use to liven up the landing pad.

 

Painted, weathered, and with some decals. 

 

 

This is going to be an open pit in the landing bay. Build from sheet styrene, with some TIE fighter base connectors, a guitar string, some solder, a small metal tube, and a few pieces of rube styrene as details. 

 

The new cockpit seat compared to the old one. I'm much happier. Took a lot of sanding and filing on the bottom to make it fit. I did reuse the photo etch belts. 

 

 

In the cockpit. 

 

Landing pad started. This is just a FOR SALE sign from a hardware store. 

 

Weathered and with a cool white SMD in place in the pit. The black base is a $12 picture frame with some foam board beneath the for sale sign for strength. 

 

 

Lighting test of the cockpit. If you compare this to the earlier unlit cockpit you'll see I swapped out the main view screen image. The first one just looks too much like Eric Cartman -- it's all I could see. So I cut that out and used a different one. 

 

[modelerdave]

The engines, which will be lit with flickering blue 1.3mm LEDs. I need one more light to finish the cockpit and then I can start putting this all together. I'm still unsure how I'm going to get the wiring into the base. I'd like it to be invisible but I'm not sure how I'm going to manage it. I'm thinking I may put in a fake fuel hose or something. 

 

Here's the front landing strut. These things were kind of a pain to get out the seam lines and paint in a way that they look kind of interesting. 

 

The engines. The side control rods were also rather difficult to attach. I gave them a dry brushing of copper to give these a slightly more interesting color variation. 

 

Finished Viper. 

 

I kept the weathering fairly minimal. It's easy to go overboard and I didn't want to make this one too banged up. Some weathering close ups. 

 

 

 

 

So much putty along the body seams to get the stupid cockpit to fit. Thank god for weathering to cover up the larger mistakes. 

 

You won't see much of the underside once it's mounted. 

 

I added a scratch-built throttle since the kit only has one mounted in the pilot's hand, and I'm not using the pilot.

 

 

Engine lights flicker. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RACETRACK]

very, very cool. Usually I see a lot of mk2 Vipers get the detailing treatment so its refreshing to see this gem. A great job mate from a massive BSG fan. The hanger deck is awesome, nice to see, any room for a raptor?!

[modelerdave]

I may do a Raptor at some point. Right now I'm working on Colonial One. I'll post pictures here shortly but if you want to see some progress pics, you can go here: http://scifimodelaction.com/sfmaforum/index.php?topic=7607.0

[RACETRACK]

yep will do..

[picard]

"Frack"! One of the best MK VII's I have seen sir. A fabulous Viper, looking just right,, and your office is just stunning my friend. Nice one Mr Modelerdave. Cheers.

 

"So say we all"  

[RACETRACK]

"what do you hear?"...........

[Nocoolname]

……...the sound of my stomach?

[modelerdave]

3 hours ago, picard said:

"Frack"! One of the best MK VII's I have seen sir. A fabulous Viper, looking just right,, and your office is just stunning my friend. Nice one Mr Modelerdave. Cheers.

 

"So say we all"  

Thank you! But that's actually my kitchen table! lol

[steeli]

Office is generally a slang term for the cockpit. 

 

Viper looks amazing!

[modelerdave]

Oh, I never heard that before (re: office=cockpit!). 

[picard]

19 hours ago, modelerdave said:

Oh, I never heard that before (re: office=cockpit!). 

Opp's sorry, my bag in that case sir. Although your kitchen table is also very nice as well, I was indeed referring to the stunning job on your Viper cockpit or Viper office. Lol. 

[Father Cool]

This is a stunning piece of work. I am not a fan of the MkVII in the show but it makes a change to see one modelled as everyone does the MkII.

 

Will you be adding figures to the deck?

[modelerdave]

On 12/15/2018 at 4:06 AM, Father Cool said:

This is a stunning piece of work. I am not a fan of the MkVII in the show but it makes a change to see one modelled as everyone does the MkII.

 

Will you be adding figures to the deck?

Thank you! I bought a figure but didn't really care for how it looked. It's actually kind of hard to find figures in this scale that look good. For now I'm considering it done.

[Father Cool]

Is it a 1:32?

 

Could you get a 3D print for the figures? My printer could easily print figures at that scale.