Space Carrier Dessalok

By John Lester Tweet

This is an old (and small - it's only six inches or so long!) Bandai kit of a ship from the original Space Battleship Yamato animated series. It's a good 'bang-together-in-an-afternoon' project - it took longer for the putty to dry than it did to build the thing. The box art shows an all-red ship, with no markings. Boring. I used this model to try my hand at a new (for me) technique: pre-shading. Basically, this involves spraying a dark color (usually black) along panel lines, then painting the color coats over this. The result is subtly darker edges of panels - on airplanes, this often looks more realistic than running ink or washes in the lines. I didn't want it too subtle, so I used Testor's Boyd Red as the base color. This is a transparent red that is used by car modelers. Several coats are needed to build up an opaque finish, but when you're done, you have a deep, glossy finish. I sprayed just enough coats that the panel shading was still visible for a 'tiger stripe' effect. Finishing it off are decals from the spares box. The base is the cap from a used-up deoderant stick, filled with sprue and resin to weight it down. Image: Underside. Image: Front view.

Starship Modeler Home | Site Map | Gallery Main Page | Feedback

This page made possible by Starship Modeler™ - copyright © 2000.