by John Douglass

It all started with a 1/48 PBY Catalina. I'd used an Airfix 1/72 one before, but for years have looked forward to getting one of these new large Revellograms to play with. This one came assembled and painted but damaged beyond repair, and thus needed alot of sanding because I was too lazy to Easy-OFF the paint. But then I had a gorgeous base for a ship that I was determined to enhance, not cover-up.

Like always, the basic shape got flipped upside-down and backwards. I didn't want to ignore the huge teardrop holes in the fuselage by just covering them over, instead completing the lower curve and shaping it to contain a section of cylinder - A waste of time, considering they DID get hidden behind the Cat's rudder. A miscellaneous printer part connected it to the Cat's wingroot just because it fit and because I wanted to protect the neck-shape. The next most important addition to the design were Space Shuttle aft fuselages, left-over from when I used the noses eleven years earlier on another build.

The top, sort of a long, shallow roof, tempted me to build-up towers or something on those wonderful slab sides, but that would ruin the basic longer-than-high shape that fit the nose. Serendipidously, which is how all the best ships go together, a pair of display-base pieces from the Armageddon space station were just the right width for that part of the top, and just the right height for a couple of rows of Sun keyboard key cargo hatches (I like the Sun keys because they're old, thus sturdy, and don't have a center post to cut-off). Finally, a spoon hides the distinctive Cat nose while still replicating the overall shape. Oh, and the pontoons and their supports finish-off the front parts of the Shuttle bodies.

Details and fiddly bits tied together the major components. Sandable Primer provided that magic moment when the collection of parts becomes a single ship. It also showed that... It needed something abaft and ventral, something attached to those wonderful slab-sides of the ex-pontoons. Something like wings - Er, waveguides. Something like 1/72 F-14 horizontal stabilizers. Yes! Suddenly an ex-Catalina looks like a pointy-nosed manatee.

Painting started as always with gray Sandable Primer, followed by Engine Black in all the recessed bits the gray didn't get. Hull colors are light blue and Jade Green. Decals were modestly sized for me, a corporate logo and identification numbers, applied over airbrushed Future. I forgot to Future the bottom of the ship so that decal had to be applied with Future as a substitute for decal wetting solutions. A light wash of black ink in Future Floor Polish tied it all together, followed by a light dry brushing of light gray, and smoke streaks of more ink/Future.

Certainly one of the sleaker RTF ships, somewhere between the boxy Colonial Movers and the Rising Star. It's smooth enough to appear on investment brochures, yet rough enough to look like it actually has to work in space. thus, in an ad hoc fleet of civilian crafts, it should fit right in.

Image: Port side

Image: Left/front view

Image: Rear

Image: Bottom

Image: Front

Image: Top

Image: Sans paint