PURCHASED:
061130

BEGUN:
061130

CONSTRUCTION LOG



061116.21
I found this kit in the last seven hours of its' sale. Several others went for similar prices. The original is also around, but I'm skipping that. I figure it'll be around again. There are also other things I must get first.


061215
The kit arrived a week ago or so. I primed silver last night I went camo gray this morning. No lights for this one simple assembly, paint and decals.


061218
Simple is not quite the word. Actual assembly is idiot proof. The patch and sanding that I'm now in is detailed and will be the best job yet, as it is already showing to be.

Prior to this weekend I've been puttying with sprue twigs and finger smudging -as that was all that was needed. This kit made me realize that I needed to step up. I bought sculpting tools. Of a 14 piece set, 11 are fully useful, three or four of which are primarily used of those so far.


061224.00
The hull refused to glue together. I'd never matched wits and force with such a piece of plastic as this before! Three or four times with regular glue was no good. First application of Krazy glue didn't do it at all!!! I needed three additional applications of crazy glue to finally weld the shit shut. Holy shit!

Next step is more putty, now that the hull is finally sealed. I gotta find the perfect gray for this bird. I'm strongly leaning towards painting graphics on, rather than decals.


061225.02
Pondered the next putty phase and what grey to give the body. I'm almost thinking strong silver, and clouded up with dusting of medium gray or simply loading on the matte coat. I should simply get ST TMP for true reference...


061231.02
I spent approximately an hour puttying. I need a second round, then a sanding. It's looking good!


061231.18
It's all filed away and it looks good over all. I'm trying to glue the neck on. So far I have failed three times with the crazy glue! This kit does not like being put together.

Once the neck is on, then putty and fill and file. Followed by a new silver base, camo top in the final ultralight white. Then, detailing and decals.(The neck is on, hours later!).


070103.21
Silvered new base coat, which shows off the very rough filing job I I did. I have to decide on letting it pass or not. I'm sitting on it until tomorrow for silver to set and will do more silver coat after patching the neck base.


070105.20
I've done the last of the silver. Now it's down to putty neck base, cover with basic camo gray and then decide how far I'm going to take the detailing.

I watched TMP today, and while there's only a minute of shots for the D7, there is a massive paint job not easily seen/commonly dismissed. The box art and pics may be the best reference after all... There's a surprising amount of green and gold on this ship.

So, do I want to take it that far???


070224.16
Nearly two months later, I started off painting individual armor plates this afternoon. That process soon gave way to a thick mass wash coat of blue/green/silver with soggy sopping wet q-tips. Downfall with them is the fibres left behind...

Had anyone ever told me that I would paint a Klingon bird this color, I would have said they were off their rocker.  But, according to what I can find, this is indeed the base coloration.

The D7 shown in ST VI was mostly reds and I didn't care for that scheme at all. This blue/green/silver doesn't look bad. 

Once dried by tomorrow, I'll throw some spot colors down, wait a day, decal, wait a day and matte seal. After sitting around for months, this bird is done. 

Spot colors included deeper blue/green/silvers on a few plates, some burnished golds and maybe some hints of red/purple.  We'll see about that last one.  Don't want to get carried away.  This is a warior race going around enslaving and destroying everything in their path afterall (until ST TNG came along and rewrote history, at any rate...)


070225.22
Took about 3.5 hours all done in one shot.  All spot colors are down and finished.  Used a sand color which mixed in nicely with the base green; a little bit of yellow here and there which gave an irish green, so I used it minimally; a dark blue which also blended in nicely and finished off with washes of a black/copper mix.  There are about 5 dabs of red here and there, not including the red for the impulse engines (which should be lit). Tried mixing the red into the base, but it just didn't work out well at all.

While I took some liberties with the paneling, I have basically stayed as true to the studio model as the references I have suggest.

Looking at the movie, it seems to be a basic silver at a casual glance, but all the pictures have loads of green and blue. And considering what they did to the ships in ST TNG, this makes sense to some degree.

Overall, I am very pleased with the end result! Decals tomorrow and I will probably wait a full 12 hours before matting. I've got a new can of matte, so I have to be careful as it is a strong spray.


070226.18
The decals went on pretty horribly, even with the Solvaset.  I considered washing them off and printing new masters, but went ahead with sealing everything up.  Maybe they went on poorly because I didn't seal the paint first?

Next kit that needs decals, i will seal first, then put decals on...

Still, she looks nice and is hanging.  Once my batteries recharge, I'll get some photos and post them.