MorningStar Starfighter
All the printed pieces, plus the pilot figure I'll use. The main hull had to be split into 3 pieces, and each of the wings into 2 so they would fit on my printer
The 3 pieces of the main hull epoxied together - not the best job but filler will hide a lot!
Rear hull section glued on and hull primed
Each engine comes in 2 parts but have openings at either end for lighting. As I won't be lighting it I glued a circle of styrene sheet into each, sprayed the openings black and glued them all together. They've also been primed.
The cockpit will be very visible and had some openings for lighting (I think) and the details were a bit sparse. I added a screen to the gap at the front and some extra buttons from styrene (in white)
At the back of the cockpit I also blocked some holes and added some details with punched styrene circles. I also ran some rubber hoses, because why not?
Started working on the pilot - I wanted him to be holding one of the throttle levers so I pinned the arm to the shoulder with a bit of flexible wire and set him and the arm in place while some thick superglue dries. It will need some putty and resculpting
A little bit more work on the pilot's arm, trying to make it look a bit more natural. Aves putty has been used to fill gaps
Wing parts have been glued together, filled, sanded and primed. Some imperfections needed another round of filler
Finished painting and weathering the cockpit, painted the pilot and glued him in place
Canopy glued in place
After a rethink I decided the ship was too big for a 1/72 fighter, but wanted to keep the cockpit interior. I printed a range of scaled down cockpits to see which one would fit the cockpit when hollowed out
Eventually decided on a new size and cut out the cockpit tub from the old version
New cockpit hollowed using a Dremel and tub shaped to fit
Old tub and new cockpit mated together, with some Aves putty used on the interior joins
New, smaller body compared to the original
New, smaller engine compared to the original
125% wing (centre) compared to 176% original wing. I decided the new wings were still too long so I reprinted them just reducing the length by 80% while keeping the width and depth the same (so they would still fit the body recesses). Mush happier with this.
Wings being glued in place. Rear section has been painted Light Gunmetal
All main parts together and primed - cockpit not glued in place but canopy on and masked. Engine nozzles have also been painted and masked
Base coat grey applied and, after many sessions, the first round of masking is done
Some Maskol applied for chipping before the first round of painting
First colour sprayed - dark red for sections of the engines and cockpit, and for some striping
Painting completed on the engines - was using them to see how well the Vallejo red would stand up to masking
Masking (finally) completed on the red stripes
Yellow sections on wings sprayed
All colours on and masks removed. No surprise - some touch-ups were needed!
Komentáre
21 2 May 2022, 04:46
TorstenAgain very exciting and unusual, I find the models off the mainstream always particularly beautiful, am curious how it continues 👍
3 May 2022, 07:15
Uwe KaedingThanks Torsten - yes, while X-Wings and Falcons are nice, you get tired of only seeing them and different stuff gets more interesting. Anyway, this ones moving along - the cockpit is done and I'm waiting for the glue to cure on the canopy
3 May 2022, 12:43
Uwe KaedingHad a rethink on this build as it was looking much too large to fit into my 1/72 scale SW collection (it was going to be bigger than my MF or shuttle) and the pilot was looking lost in the cockpit. It looked to me like it might fit as a 1/48 ship so I scaled it down by about 66% and am much happier with the size now. The cockpit has been printed a little bigger than the rest (although it still fits the hole on the body) and has been hollowed out to fit the original cockpit tub. I think the pilot doesn't look quite as lost in there now. Even the scaled down wings looked too long to me so I reprinted them with reduced length while keeping the width and depth the same, so they would still fit the slots in the body.
Luckily I could do all this with the 3D printer, and I didn't have to be concerned about real life as its a fictional ship and there aren't any official sizes for it!
2 June 2022, 02:27
TorstenVery interesting to see the parts in comparison, I watch excitedly further 👍
4 June 2022, 08:55
Uwe KaedingThanks everybody - finally started on getting some colours down, although there will be more masking sessions before each of the next colours
13 June 2022, 06:19
Uwe KaedingThanks guys - this one is finished now and quite happy with the way it came out. Very weird looking ship!
10 August 2022, 03:35
TorstenAnd again an unusual model away from the mainstream, super 😎, very good work with many beautiful details, TOP, ❤️️ it
10 August 2022, 04:40
Uwe KaedingThanks guys - can't take any credit for the weird design though: they made some strange ships for the prequel games and Mark Kozik (Zarkus Models) did a fantastic job on the 3D model. Was very happy with the rework of the cockpit though.
10 August 2022, 12:38
Uwe KaedingThanks guys. S M: the chipping was done with Maskol and a sponge - worked well for the red and blue sections but not quite as well for the yellow, which was harder paint finish. Happy with the way it came out though.
11 August 2022, 05:42
Album info
This is a companion-piece to the Dianoga starfighter, again from the prequel-era Star Wars: Starfighter game, one of the ships flown by a prate faction. The model is 3D printed from a file found on Thingiverse, posted on there by Zarkus Model Kits. The original file is scaled at 1/144 so I scaled it up by 200% to fit my preferred 1/72 scale. I did a test print of the cockpit and 200% turned out to be too big to fit my 1/72 pilot figure. Scaling the file at 176% ended up fitting the pilot nicely, so all pieces were printed at that scale using an Elegoo Mars 2P and Siraya Tech Fast Grey resin
