Moebius - Viper mk2

[olcabour]

As there are already a bunch of reviews this kit on the net, I will not take much time on this point, so quickly :
- Overall good rendering of the shapes and proportions of this bird
- the 30 small steering nozzles (or vernier ) missing if we represent the numerical model ( the full scale did not )
- For once in Moebius , decomposition of parts healthy air , and should not lead to large fillings / sanding
- The surface of most of the parts is slightly grainy and requires almost complete sanding.





- landing gears lack details. As it will be depict flying, so theses area will be hidden.
- The pilot is superb ... and in resin, which is not common in this type of model kit.
- I find that the cockpit is quite well detailed and through a few mods, the PE set is not necessary here.
- The bottom end of the air intake behind the cockpit will be improved, as well as the technical parts of the engine flank covers.


The pilot will be replaced by the mk7's one, whose torso give the coice for a man or a woman, which will allow me to depict Starbuck/Kara in his fighter.

I hesitated a lot if I was going to install the lighting in it, and it will be the case, although it significantly increases the assembly time.

[olcabour]

Improving the cockpit

Overall, I found the cockpit is reasonably well detailed. And with some improvements, and a good paintjob, upgrade photoetched will be superfluous.

In fact, it essentially lacks a good set of round dials. I marked the locations and drilled the plastic with different diameters bits and drills on the Dremel.











At that moment, I was not decided to light the model, and I did not perforate completely. My intention was, before paint them, to put a drop of white at the bottom of each dial to highlighted them.
With the lighting, I did break through all dials with the dremel.
With a thin bit, I also drilled the tiny buttons, but I drift a little and they are not very straight...





I hollowed the sides to allow the light scattered from the led that will be installed behind the dashboard.





Before installing the LED, I applied the base color of the cockpit : primer and base of light gray Tamiya xf66.




2 wires are added behind the headrest. I thought it was the ejection handles, but it looks like hoses.




I get back on the non-aligned buttons, widened the hole and covered it with a small tab where the buttons were redone.
At the same time, I filled an edge damaged during drilling dials.




Then I finish to paint the cockpit. All dials and screens are covered from the back with a thin sheet of clear plastic (frosted with sandpaper to limit the direct light).
I first tried to fill a dial with humbrol klear, and this is to avoid as solvents attack the paint. Then tried Microscale krystal klear, but that seemed a little opaque even after curing. So I swithed to frosted clear plastic tab.
I also use a small strip of white plastic card (not painted) will reflector in the center column between the legs of the driver, in order to clarify the three dials.











The dials are then painted with different colors clear paints (Tamiya or Gunze).



The two screens images (Dradis) were captures found on the web, printed on transparent decal paper and protected by a layer of microscale liquid decal film.

[Wombat]

Once again you are doing some incredible things to a styrene kit. That cockpit already is looking fantastic!

Nice work!

[olcabour]

Thanks a lot Wombat.

Next step :

A first LED is located behind the dashboard. It is held in place with a part tip from the old ERTL lighting kit (closed at one end with two pre-drilled holes). The LED is held with white glue.





Under the armrests. It's a bit more complicated. If the LED is easily maintained by 2 holes in the plastic tub.
I installed a plastic wall to prevent the light to be apparent in transparency of the cabin, and again act as a reflector for the buttons and dials.
It is then covered with masking tape (so it will not unstick inadvertently), itself painted in black (just in case of).






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Initially I thought replacing the gun's mouth with a syringe. Finally, it was enough to drill them.



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As the fighter will be exhibit in flight, the gears flaps are closed. The bonding is reinforced from behind with spares plastic tips.




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The supply of the electrical powder is done with a conventional plug power adapter, which will also be the support plug. It is therefore necessary to modify the cabin to receive the socket.




I open a good area of the cabin in order to work in, while leaving a small tab hold the socket in place.
The small lips that held the original supplied support are leveled to insert the socket.
The rectangular opening is modified to hollow the plug to go through. The lip stubs will avoid it shifts.









As the socket was a little too long, I sanded the metal tip (a few seconds on a sanding disc). This also allows me to cactch up the thickness of the plastic, and fortunately, the plug fits more tightly, which suits me of course.

[olcabour]

To hollow the verniers, I printed to scale ZOIC blueprints found on the web.








They are then closed from behind with plastic card.




Except some on the nose, where they fall on the air inlet grid (that's the magic of computer graphics : a hole can be filled to its opposite).
I will deal them after assembly of the cabin.





Gas caps are hollowed like the verniers.




In the nozzles, the center circle is drilled, which will be good enough for an interesting lighting with the small existing squared openings around.





Plastic discs are trimed to hold the blue LED.
For the top nozzle, the hole is directly formed in the part.
To ensure proper holding of the LED, I added an additional layer on each disc.

[olcabour]

Cables and hoses are added to the technical parts.
I followed the full-size model, exhibited at the Expo SF in Paris - La Villette, so they are not symmetrical.






Photos of full size model at the expo :

[peza]

eh up buddy,i have one of these kit`s i`ve not started it yet it`s in my stash,
but wow buddt i love the extra details you`ve done it looks mint!!cant wait to see more cheers peza

[JAWS]

Niice good work on this.

[olcabour]

Thanks for your comments

The pilot will be replaced by the one from the mk7 kit, to allow me to switch to Starbuck/Kara in the mk2.




by cons, the original right arm is kept as the joysticks are not located in the same place (between the legs on mk2, and right on mk7) and thus the inclination of the arm varies.





At this scale, I was sad that the pilot's face cannot be see, so I hollowed out the helmet visor and inserted a face from a set of replacement heads from the old MMI upgrade set for Viper mk1 (TOS Monogram/Revell).
The pilot of the Viper mk7 is modified at the same time.

[olcabour]

Navigation lights on the wing ends are modified with some optical fiber. The lights are drilled, two cuts are made in the support tabs to bring the fibers in the cabin, which allows me to avoid to drill new holes there.
The fiber is held in place with tape Tamyia, and the wings are closed.





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Both sides of the cabin are glued. I put a good amount of glue, and let it dry for a few days, to allow it to harden. We can already note that the cockpit seams will need work.







Test of the cockpit lighting (it looks better and more colorful in person)

[olcabour]

The nozzles are primed with black and the interior Alclad Jet Exhaust.
Transparent plastic disk, frosted with sandpaper, are glued to their backwards to hide the LEDs and diffuse the light.






The assembly seam of the cabin is sanded after several days of drying. With the dose of glue I applied, I did preferred to leave time to the solvent to evaporate.





The bottom of the remaining problematic verniers were filled with a putty nuts, packed and shaped with a metal rod (here a drill bit for example).








The bottom of the air intake behind the cockpit is grooved to quickly simulate the thrusters petals.

[Cylon-Knight]

WOW!!!! Excellent work!

[olcabour]

Thanks Cylon-knight


The blue LED of the engines are permanently installed.
To prevent light leakage by the lip of the LED, a cap (again from the old ERTL lightning kit) is used.







It was a smaller cap for the upper reactor. I used a superglue tip, painted in black.







Everything is painted black, and connections are protected to avoid short circuits when everything is closed.




180ohms resistors are added to each blue LED to seriously reduce the intensity (I found them too dazzling as is, and I do not want the Viper to become a flashlight like I see sometimes !)






For the light source of the optical fibers going to the wing ends, I installed a LED (warm white covered with Tamiya clear red, as I did not have a red LED on hand) into the caps (lightning kit again) glued over flaps of the wings.
The optical fibers are inserted into the tube. So, there is one led by wing in the corresponding air instake.
I hesitated to install only one LED in the center of the vessel, but it became a little too sporty, and the empty spaces in the air intakes were welcoming.

[dbhs]

Wow. Absolutely incredible detail you're putting into this. The lighting looks great. I appreciate your efforts to tone down the lighting so it looks more realistic and in-scale with the ship. Overdone lighting can ruin the illusion of scale.

[olcabour]

To secure the wings gluing (they moved a little in their homes), I simply add some small wedges.
(sorry, no photos)


The electrical socket is held in place with a Dymo strip screwed on the cabin.




A beam of a 2-parts modeling glue is placed around the support hole to fill the seam. A first test made the print in the still "wet" beam, then cyano strengthens the bonding inside the cabin.






The bottom is then glued with the help of clamps to hold everything in place.






Then comes the 2 top covers, again secured with clamps.





I let it dry a good week to be sure that the solvents evaporate well.

Seams of the air inlet behind the canopy will require some work.

[olcabour]

The technical parts of the upper reactor are painted black (citadel spray can), then it is installed in the slot without gluing.




all the wires are all soldered together. Luckily there is a lot of room inside the model to fit the big spaghetti plate !




You can see that an optical fiber had broke during these manipulations. I hope it will still light correctly with a transparent plastic cap glued on...


Little tests with the nozzles dry installed







Given the poor seams, I expected to have lot's of light leakage, and luckily, it is far less serious than I thought, and only focused on the round nozzles bases.





For 2 below nozzles, a spare tube is added, and this completely solves the problem at this level (even without gluing the nozzles)





For th etop one, the back disk and the flange are completed and then covered with black paint.






These tips are sufficient to solve the problem of light leaks, so I will finally not glue these two parts (upper engine and nozzles), in case I need to have hand in the future.
Some seams will then stay as is but should remain little viewable in the end (I think the eye will ignore them).
The plug is more firm as I expected and perfectly fulfill its second office : support. Even upside down, it works

[Cylon-Knight]

Oh... my... WOW!
Great update - thank you for all the photos/info - amazing!

[JAWS]

Looking good!

[olcabour]

Thanks sirs


Some final details of construction are worked :
- Take care of the seams : engine hood, plate covers, belly ...
- For the air intake behind the cockpit, it had to take off the tabs, put a wedge below, glue back together and fill the seam (with two-component modeling glue and putty). After a good sanding, lines are engraved.






- For the wings, there was a gap of a good millimeter in some place (that I had not took car about during gluing, as I was focused to not brake the optical fibers).




It is filled again to two-component modeling glue, and after with thinner putty to fill the last defects.






- Fill a sink marks on the cheeks of air inlets
before



after




Returning to the cockpit for:
- Prepare the canopy and glue the panel behind the seat (which I had purposely left out so as not to damage during sanding the cabin



- The canopy does not lay properly because the dashboard is a little high, it was therefore necessary to sand it a little
before





After

[Cylon-Knight]

Your ship just gets more impressive!

All the attention to precise details, fixing TINY gaps and the sink spots... WOW. Excellent skill.
Another jaw dropper update. Thank you for sharing.

[olcabour]

Thanks a lot Cylon-Knight

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The inner side walls of the cockpit does fit properly to the cabin near the headrest. They are glued with the help of tweezers.





The slice is not pretty with 2 layers, so they are covered with a thin strip of Plastic, then painted.






There will be later some decals to apply here (before the final bonding of the canopy).




On the wing, the broken navigation light is repaired with a bit of fiber optic shaping and glued with the model glue. It was a test, and to my surprise, after a night of drying, this works !




Two holes in the front of the cockpit are partly visible when the canopy is installed. Since they do not correspond to any pin, they are filled with plastic bits.






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I got a upgrade kit from a friend (thank you Marc) that includes a more detail bottom back panel, and 2 photoetched ejector handles.
The resin parts are nice and very well casted, and the photoetched ejector handles are superb.
In my opinion, it will be better to switch the two resin pipes to some metal rods so they do not inadvertently break.




The ejection photoetched handles are quickly installed. they are bent a little to allow a tight fit on the curve of the cabin.






I thought I would not use the resin plate on this assembly, as I feared it breaks with the handling of the nozzles parts (which will remain removable).
But after starting masking the nozzles, the black paint started to come off (it seems I forget to wash this part, and some releasing agent is still there)




So as I have the strip the paint, an idea came to me to install the detailed resin part white the rigidity of the nozzles part.

The paint stripped off.




The original part is hollowed.




Then sanded along the edges to reduce the thickness. To avoid to too much sand the frame, I also sanded the back of the resin part along the sides.





The part is a little too long, so I had to sand about 1 mm at the top and bottom, taking care that the holes for the pipes are still usable.







And with metal rods




The bonding is reinforced from behind with a heavy dose of cyano charged with resin dust. This makes a big block, ugly but super tough.
And like that requires a good dose of cyano, ca heater for a few seconds during the taking!




This is installed. The operation took just over one hour (without paint stripping).

[olcabour]

I moved on the painting of this bird.

First, a layer of primer (Tamiya spray can)



Black preshading



And base in tamiya flat white
I had a bit too pressed here and there, so I had to redo the preshading here and there with a mixture of white and sky gray





I apply a light coat of Klir over the white to protect it from the next manipulations (masking tapes).



The stripes are in flat red, darkened with few drops of black.



As I have a bit too much diluted the paint, and it gave me some white rings.



So I applied Klir again, and they disappeared.











All the cabin is also protected with Klir.

[olcabour]

The upper engine is isolated from the cabin with a single sheet of paper, technical openings are masked, and a glossy black is applied.




Then a coat of Alclad steel.









The engines then received Alclad jet exhaust.
A burnt metal effect is done with pale burnt Alclad.
The guns are also painted steel, and shaded with jet exhaust.




The guns were a bit dark and will be lighted with Alclad aluminum (no picture)

[darkimmitator]

Excellent work and attention to details .

[JAWS]

POP!!!
That looks sick.
Great work.

[dbhs]

Paint job looks fantastic. Super crisp lines on the masking too. Awesome.

[olcabour]

Thanks guys, it is now time for the decals

They are very fragile, some have broken just in the handling !

Yellow roundels decals provided for the "I paint myself my red strips" choice can not be seen once applied !
It is therefore necessary to get those included in the complete red stripes decals.
Obviously, the red color is not the same. Too bad, I hope that playing with the weathering will reduce the difference.





The decals are then protected with a new coat of Klir/Future

I forgot to work the opened technical areas. Pipes and panels are painted in copper and silver.
And verniers are aluminum.







Klir/Future again, then black juice in panel lines and recessed areas.

[olcabour]

Before the weathering, I applied a layer of satin varnish.



Paint chips are made with an old Pale Prey miniature paint (which have a beige tint).
It is a water-based paint, which can be corrected, or removed easily (that is not possible with Gunze, Tamiya or Lifecolor paints).







A new coat of satin varnish to protect them, then dirt and streaks are made of with a medium gray oil paint. Over the white, it looks dark, almost black.



Then a final layer of satin varnish.




The canopy is masked.



It then received a thin coat of primer, followed by black to give texture.



Then it is covered with Alclad stainless steel



Then dirtied with dark gray.



I had to use some wax polish here and there to remove some alclad stains, who had managed to go under the tapes (which can be seen in the previous picture).

The navigation lights are finished, with sanding of the optical fiber bits.



Then the base is painted Steel.

[olcabour]

Viper pilots spacesuits are in a quite a special texture, with a green iridescent metallic sheen.

Rather than paint them in metallic and shade the folds with plain color, I did the opposite:
- base of tamiya xf73 dark green



- folds are in a darker green (an old Lifecolor)





- then a veil of alclad pale gold (with the airbrush)
I think it does the trick nicely.




The pilot is then finished conventionally with brush paint.
AI applied some little orange yellow the the face border for Starbuck/Kara blond hairs.






Once in the cockpit, the joystick is lying on nothing, so it had to be completed (although it will not be accurate).




A first try with the joystick from kit, not convincing.



So I simply used an evergren rod.



And once painted, it does the trick.




I still had to improve one last detail, the antennas on the wingtips. I used thin metal rods and small pieces for a tiny spring, glued together with white glue.





The support is made of an aluminum tube, a plate and a cleat. The male connector in which the Viper will plug is installed at the end of the tube, and the wires are runnning to a socket on the rear edge of the base.





Final assembly :
nozzles don't need glue, as they hold as is.
By cons, MicroScale repositionable glue is used for the guns, the pilot and the canopy.

[Cylon-Knight]

WOW!!!

Your Viper is ready for filming! Or better yet, as totally awesome as the Starbuck figure is, I want to take her out and fly the ship around myself.

One word: Perfect.

[darkimmitator]

Outstanding job on this build . Well done Olcbour !!

[dbhs]

All of your efforts on this really paid off. Fantastic job.

[JAWS]

Yep she is a beauty!
Has actually brought me around on these new series versions.
Outstanding workmanship.
Thank you for sharing your works with us.

[olcabour]

Thanks a lot for your nice comments.

Here are some more shots of this Viper ready to go on a mission to knock out the Cylons.

in the daylight :














In front of a dark background, with artificial lights :

[Cylon-Knight]

*drooling*