USS Reliant |
| By Billy Lehner |
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Starcrafts made this 1/1400 scale Miranda Class starship resin model "in the rough" for assembly by patient modelers. I say in the rough as there were numerous sink holes and flashing and the castings looked like the mold was worn out. I was shocked at the poor quality of the parts because I had just finished making a Starcrafts classic Romulan Bird Of Prey that was so easy to build and looked great when finished. But modelers are creative and this is not a review so I assembled as best I could with the materials Starcrafts gave me. My finished model is of the starship Reliant is the Star Trek II movie version. It varies from other versions I have seen with lighting and saucer marking schemes. In the movie the warp engines did not glow and the saucer had gray strips on the saucer instead of light blue. The only variation of the movie model I did was to relieve the monotony of dark colors by painting the saucer thrusters and phaser emitters amber. Part of the drama of the ship in the movie was the effective use of lighting/contrast. I wanted the flavor of the dramatic lighting on the solid resin model so I lit the ships spotlighted areas with paint. |
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The main paint color is one third of a Testors Flat Enamel white (.83 ounce) with ten drops of Testors Model Master Russian Flanker Blue/Gray Enamel paint. Darker areas on the ship are various Model Masters Buffing Metalizer colors-mostly Dark Anodonic Gray and Burnt Metal. The spotlighted areas are airbrushed Testors gloss enamel white. The three gray strips surrounding the edge of the saucer are made a decal designed by me. Those strips are not easy to design into a one piece decal. The saucer has a slight taper to it and straight strips will not work and disappoint you by arcing off the saucer. An arc had to be designed into the decal to get the strip straight on the saucer edge. Other decals I designed are the gray strip on top of the saucer at the command dome and in the rear; the shuttle bay doors. The blue shuttle bay doors were fun to design a decal for. The decaled doors do not have a simple blue color scheme but extend the dramatic lighting effect of the movie by adding spots and flares of white light hitting the bay doors. The resin ship's warp pylons looked a little flimsy so I put two internal pins per pylon to reinforce them. Those engines are sturdier than they look now! The Reliant "roll bar" is also reinforced with a pin on each side. I wouldn't buy another of the Starcrafts Miranda Class starships because of the poor quality castings but my son likes it! Image: Stern Image: Top of the saucer Image: Underneath Image: Bottom/rear view Image: AHHHHHH!!! In the clutches of a giant space monster! |
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