After just over a month I have completed my next project. The interplanetary U.F.O mystery ship from company AMT.
A brief history on this kit, it originated from the 1960's and had Star Trek connections under the name Leif Erickson Galactic Cruiser.
It was part of the original Star Trek designs but never made it to production, instead it was launched as it's own line of models and had a little story fleshed out for AMT's non Star Trek line.
It was a two piece hull molded in a light blue plastic, chrome plated parts, clear red tinted engines, a small scout ship, a lighting kit, and a paper record of "Sounds of Outer Space".
It then was re-released as the U.F.O mystery ship in the mid 1970's and had glow in the dark plastic and minus the lighting kit, chrome parts and sound record. Somewhere along the way AMT decided to make the box smaller so the mold was split at the neck into 2 pieces and it lost about 3 mm.
In 2008 the model was revisited by AMT and in 2009 the U.F.O mystery ship was re-released with new box art and a new decal sheet using the split neck mold.
The latter is the version I bought and made. The instructions made it clear that there was no paint scheme to follow and it gave you options for an earth space ship, the USS Yuri Gagarin or where the ship had been taken over by alien pirates. As I wanted this to be a really fun build I decided to go with the pirates, and I bought 3 new green paints for the project. Dark Green, Goblin Green and Livery Green all from Vallejo's Game Colour range.
I wanted it to have an organic feel to it but at the same time for it to have structure like the aliens had infected the ship but you could still see the panel lines and structures made by man. I laid down the primer followed by some pre-shading and a base coat of Goblin Green. I opted to go over the pre-shading with a more contrasting green with some post-shading, also laid down the Livery Green in the larger surface areas.
To tie it all together and give it that alien look I used Some Scotch Bright sponge as a mask and sprayed some Dark Green through it, leaving some organic looking patches over the model. Next I used some old styrene card and lightly sprayed lines onto the model to simulate panel lines.
After a few thin coats of Tamiya's clear gloss I set to work with the decals. I started with the red lines that go down the "Spine" of the ship....they were destroyed.
Broken, over lapped, disintegrating, stuck, you name it ...it went wrong. I quickly threw them aside and masked up the outlines for the strips and air-brushed them in. I then started with the decals again, this time to much better fortune, all though some of them still broke coming off the sheet! Another coat of gloss and it was time for weathering.
I went with the idea that in space no one can see you rust. So I stuck to a dark pin wash and some light streaking followed with a matte clear.
I really enjoyed this build and loved how the paint scheme came out, getting to use a few techniques I Don't normally use. I would recommend this kit even revisit it again to make the space command version and put lights in the engines.
On to the next project....
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