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Aurora Mark

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Everything posted by Aurora Mark

  1. Si, First off, your build is something else (speaking to the Star Destroyer). Working with small pieces of plasticard here is one thing... what' you're doing is a whole new level of added details. As for what you wrote about the aversion of replicating props and this build peeking your interests, well, thank you kindly! I really do appreciate your comments. Work on the seat back, because, you know, the seat is taking FOREVER to work on... rather than going right into the plastic building of this part, I figured it would be a bit fun to go at the whole process star
  2. Thank you kindly Ikon! No pictures for tonights work simply because I lost track of time and need to get some sleep rather than editing the pictures and posting them up. That being said though quite a bit of progress has been made with both the cockpit and planning future steps. This model will most certainly have more challenges in future steps. While going over reference pictures of the Viper there are certain things that have come to light. The cut outs in the fuselage as well around the engines for example. Areas that offer a lot of detail to the eye that will reall
  3. Very impressive! More and more I'm thinking we are going to see model "kits" become available as purchase/download for 3D printers and we assemble them ourselves. But that's for another time. This is one really impressive bit of work! Can't wait to see more progress. The 'grooves' for the jack posts are a very smart touch. Cheers, Mark.
  4. Brett, thank you very much! Yeah, this Green Strawberry set has it's small (read: very small) quirks that I'm discovering as I move along. However it is a valuable set for the cockpit for sure. Even if it was the earlier Viper I would strongly recommend this set. And as for those small quirks that I've mentioned so far, as you can see none of them are a game stopper in any way. Next up was the seat. The seat in the Viper was a slightly modified bucket seat commonly available - RCi's high-back racing seat (p/n 8000S): In the Viper they cut the head rest por
  5. First up was the harness. The Viper Mk II had an RCi Latch Type 5-Point Harness (p/n 9210D). Although you'd think with the G's pulled in the Viper. Looking up this harness as a reference I started by cutting the scale 3" straps out of Tamiya tape doubled over. But soon it became apparent that Green Strawberry didn't do the same... For starters, there were buckles missing in that the adjustments for strap length were present on the actual harnesses for the 4 main belts. The lap belts in the PE set were a good 3 inches, but the shoulder harnesses were not... mino
  6. Impressive build Brett! Very clean and crisp paint work and the lights add such a nice touch. Definitely setting the bar high on this one!
  7. Nice work Brett! Very crisp and clean work!!
  8. Hahahaha Thanks Ikon. Really glad it all worked out. Thanks Brett. Work has continued on the seat with the cockpit. There are three things simultaneously going on; the seat, the seat back, and the harness. But rather than a full on back-and-forth between the three, I'll post them up as an update for one part each. Right now the putty is drying on the seat and seat back as well, and the first coat is drying on the harness. Looking like the updates won't be up for a bit still. Regardless, thank you all for following along this build. The
  9. I started with the smaller LCD screen. I shot it with dull-coat and then back painted white for the four small buttons on the bottom left of the LCD panel: Next up were the gauge faces for the outside panels. Be forewarned, you need to trim about 1.0 mm around the edges of the black printed ink on the acetate for the two side panel gauges (H & G) for them to fit both on the panel edges and the inside bend. The overlap can be trimmed afterwards, but it is a lot easier to just cut them right away on the film... ask me how I know... anyway, here are the side p
  10. Brett they were very creative with parts used for the prop Vipers. Lots of great reference material out there, although the prime site I was using to build up a plan suddenly is down once I decided to start building this model. Go figure. I've emailed the webmaster but no answer as of yet. So, using some of the pictures from google search and this is a great reference for the artificial horizon (and buttons I'll talk about later on): Things garnered from this image: -The artificial horizon assembly (housing holding the gauge) is significantly raised on the main pa
  11. I swear if you were to just add a black, star filled background and have just the K'tinga there it would be right out of the movies! Amazing work good Sir!
  12. Thank you kindly Ikon. Greatly appreciate the comment. It's becoming a Viper alright Brett! Slowly.... slowly.... so the screens aren't installed yet as I'm still building up a few other parts and pieces around and adding details to the panel. As I use both medium and fast CA glue I want to wait on installing the acetate film to prevent any fogging/frosting of the gauge faces. That being said, work on the control stick.... seriously, a joy stick, was started. The stick in the cockpit: The box around it is built up aroun
  13. Very impressive work. The final photo shoot looks amazing.
  14. I needed to now turn my focus to the front portion of the cockpit - the instrument panel - to make sure that everything up from fit and would sit appropriately. As both Green Strawberry panels were identical in their shape and bends I used this one first as a practice. More over I needed to figure out how to bend this sucker right: For anyone wanting to use this set, the instructions don't indicate the order to bend the panel. That upper bend is a real pain as it has to fold over past 90 degrees, and as the 'groove' in the panel is on the forward face, this ben
  15. So, two part update. In this first one work continued on getting the aft wall of the cockpit cut to shape. Using a bit of cardboard paper I cut the shape out and then used this to mirror the cut line onto the 1.0 mm plasticard. Some trimming of the rear cockpit alignment pin-hole needed to happen, but it all worked out nicely: The tiny gap between the wall and fuselage will be taken care of once the sidewalls have been installed and some (read: lots) of filler will be used to shape the rear of the cockpit: The new pie
  16. Brett, Starbuck will most certainly be able to have normal legs! Needed for all the a** kicking she does, right? It is a bit of work to get it "right" (as close to right as I can get it), but it's a lot of fun. I continued with where I left off by starting out with the rear lower deck of the tub. Again, it's all done using 1.0 mm plasticard. The two pieces were butted up and sanded round on the exposed joint: From there it was the floor followed by the angled plate just forward of the rudder pedals: So now that we're back at hav
  17. Brett, GREAT reference! After some brainstorming on how to go about the cockpit, I didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater as it were and toss the cockpit and start from scratch. A number of problems do exist with the kit cockpit, but then again, this isn't a three digit 1/32 purchase from major model manufacturers. So, sometimes you have to roll the hard six... I decided that there is still enough good detail in the cockpit to try and salvage it. The first step was to reinforce the addition of the mount for the gear well. I took some scrap plasticard and glued them t
  18. What can be said that hasn't been already? Brilliant work there Brett!
  19. Testing your patience maybe, but WOW is this one impressive bit of work. As for the lighting, well done. Not too often you see just the right amount of light and a proper bit of diffusion to give 'the look'. I can't wait to see more!
  20. Brett, the BoP is an impressive build good sir! Fantastic aging and weathering applied with a great combination of rich and subtle tones.
  21. Right.... so, the cockpit. The steps seem pretty straight forward from the kit instructions.... skipping the figure, steps 5, 8a and 8b complete the cockpit in the kit: Although the kit does provide a cockpit with the figure, the details are fairly soft and limited in their detail. The approach of painting with decals for instruments will work no doubt with a figure and closed canopy. With an open canopy, and in 1/32 scale, there is a lot left to be desired. As such I picked up two aftermarket sets as listed in the first post. There are typic
  22. Definitely something to think about Phantom. Let me sit on that for a few days as I just had a bit of a hang-up (post after this one) that may be delaying things just a bit. Thanks Brett. This little bit of an improvement I hope will go a long way, and now that the box for the nose gear is complete, it is time to move onto the mains. The engineering behind this kit leaves me a bit baffled. The parts were taped together in order to get a good idea of what needs to be done with the mains, and I have to say.... in some ways the jig-saw style (or rather slide-an
  23. Phantom, That is one amazing GB for sure. Lots of very interesting works (both sci-fi and what-if). I was thinking of initially asking to join that GB and post in there until I saw the date. There is no way this one is going to be finished by then. The usual stuff like home life (kitchen renos), work and the like always take the priority, so this one is a bit of a plug and play as I go along. Cheers, Mark.
  24. Madhatter, Thank you kindly. There is just something about the way the Vipers look. From the original Viper, to the Mk.II, and onward... the conceptual designs people have made keeps the Viper series true to form - one heck of a fighter. The combination of 20th century look and feel without over-complicating things with tech that isn't believable, even though it is sci-fi, just makes this model build that much more fun. Work continued with the gear well (and I won't lie, I had the BSG soundtrack playing in the background). The base piece attached to the cockpit f
  25. This is such a cool project! The interior looks just so... spot on! I can hear Marty and the Doc in the background as I look at the build.
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