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pylons and nacelles are mostly done with patterns of hand cut 2mm and 3mm tamiya tape the strongback and nose of the engineering section have a different set of patterns in all of those cases i copied decals from the 1 1000 uss enterprise refit model i have and then printed them out onto tamiya sticker paper i did have an issue with the ink from the printer not quite binding with the paper even after having been left to dry for days i fixed that by spraying a thin coat of gloss varnish over all of the sheets it did bleed in some spots but there was still enough of a pattern that i could use it to cut out the patterns so after that a lot of cutting out of the patterns and applying them to the kit and a final coat of the lighter gray to finish off the work there is little as satisfying as removing so much masking material and finally seeing the result of all that work come out just like you planned final assembly and light testing with most of the painting done the scariest bit is the final assembly getting something wrong at this stage would be terrible so it was a rather nervous few days putting the pylons onto the main hull and getting then onto the neck piece and finally the saucer at every stage i needed to made sure to test the lighting to double check that all the connections nothing worse than closing things up and getting it wrong assembling them upside down actually helped get the alignment on the nacelles right it also made it easier to do that final solder joint that held firmed up the nacelles so they shouldn t break unfortunately not everything came together perfect i got the neck a few degrees off it s hard to notice but i can still see it thoughts on the final results this is one of the biggest models i ve every built and i spent a lot of time trying out new things including tricks with the lighting and airbrushing that i d not done before i learned a lot and it was a lot of work despite a number of small issues and mistakes i m pretty satisfied with the final result i ll need a bit of a break before i go to tackle my smoothie version but i look forward to improving on what i ve learned before i jump into that adventure for now i m just going to enjoy seeing it hang in my favorite hangout for pizza interesting conversations and live music pop pizza in kyoto japan leave comment may 22 building and lighting the revell build and play star destroyer by james kitson in models scifi hello i don t usually do this kind of thing but since every time i do a lit model i always get peppered with questions on how i did it i thought i d put together this little blog to show some of what went into the build and maybe some of my insights on the process i ve been building models since i was a kid on and off and it s always been a mix of fun and relaxing this is only the third model that i ve actually put lighting in and it definitely adds a level of challenge and complexity to the build despite that i find it rather fun as there is a number of engineering type challenges involved in figuring out exactly what can be done and how to do it now a days it s not hard to find lighting kits for many of the most popular sci fi kits these can come with instructions and all the parts necessary to do the job which is all really cool but being a tinkering type i prefer to build my own from scratch starting things off ok first this is the revell build and play star destroyer that was released a few years ago i think around the release of rouge one as star destroyer offerings go it beats the old 80 s kit in many ways it s got decent details the lines are pretty crisp and you can build it out of the box in about fifteen minutes it is a build and play kit though so there are a lot of peculiarities on the kit the biggest issues are on the bottom side there are three flip out landing gear that are of course completely unrealistic there are also cutouts for the provided lights and sound module so that you can get to the batteries slits for the sound to get out and a push button to turn the module on all of these require some degree of filling sanding and scribing to clean up this is not as nice a kit as the other recent offerings from bandai or zevezda but it does fit in a nice mid size and while i do have the bandai kit taunting me from my shelf i figured this would be a good little project to practice on and test things out before i tackle the smaller though exceptionally detailed bandai kit planning things out one of the things i like about lighting kits is the planning that goes into them of course that means making choices for this kit that meant picking out how i wanted to light it for this kit that means the windows and the engines in this case i decided to light the windows with fiber optics and the engines with leds directly for things like windows there are really two big choices fiber optics is one and back lighting is the other each has it s advantages and disadvantages my quick thoughts on the differences can be broken down this way fiber optics pros direct light to where you want it easier to contain where the light goes good for small round windows can mix different light colors easily good for getting light into complex areas cons need a fiber strand for every window you want to light need a light source for every fiber strand need space to run all the fiber and hold light sources back lighting pros good for lighting differently shaped windows can light many windows with only a few light sources cons need to be very careful for light leaks from edges and thin or translucent plastic can t mix colors without careful light boxing can be difficult to get light into corners and edges can get lighting hot spots if the back lighting isn t diffused carefully so for something like the star destroyer where i have plenty of space to run fibers it makes things easier than trying to back light the windows especially with one of the other decisions i made with this build that being that i wanted to try and keep the power inside that meant i wouldn t be completely sealing up the kit so that i could open it up to replace the batteries when necessary as such i d be risking huge light leak issues if i tried to do back lighting since the plan was to keep top and bottom main hull unsealed and i needed to put lights on the windows in each side trench running fiber so with that decided i proceeded to start running the fiber this involved a lot of drilling with a 0 5mm drill bit in a pin vise somehow i managed to drill all the holes while only losing two bits there was also a lot of gutting of the internals and drilling of access paths for the fiber to run through since this was heavily built up to be a build and play kit it s actually got a lot of really hardened internal structure with snap tight pins i removed a lot of them to open up space and to make it easier to pop the halves of the kit open later a key point in using fiber is making light boxes technically you don t need them so long as your light source goes into one end of the fiber the light will come out the other but since that can lead to light leaks it s better to create a light box so what is a light box it s basically a box or tube where the fiber goes in one side and there is a light source on the other then it s sealed up to contain the light so that it only goes out through the fiber so when running the fiber decide how you want to make your light boxes and where to put them then you can start designing your fiber fiber runs in my case i choose to make my light boxes out of plastic tubes i secured the tubes that would house the fiber end points and then some additional tubes where it would be useful to help direct where the fiber would run you don t want loose fiber running everywhere or it ll be a serious pain another point is to spread the light boxes around so that you don t need to run more fiber than you have to you could choose to run all your fiber to one light box but then you d have huge runs of fiber from all over the kit which can be a pain to manage and you d use up a lot of length of fiber it s better to choose strategic spots spread around the kit so that you can run short lengths of fiber and make the project more manageable in my case i had 5 light boxes on the upper section and three on the lower for each piece of fiber i made sure to leave a quarter inch or so of fiber poke out from the kit and the same on the other end at the light box this will be trimmed up once everything is done you want the bit on the outside so you can trim it off cleanly once the kit is painted once i finished running the fiber in each section i painted the areas around the fiber with black enamel paint i did this for a couple of reasons first it was as a backup light blocking it s always better to plan on some like leakage from your light boxes just in case there is more light than expected once you ve built up the kit it can be very hard to go back and fix it later the other reason is to help hold the fiber in place fiber optics doesn t respond to many plastic glues and when it does it can melt and lose it s effectiveness for lighting and make a unholy mess to cleanup for the same reason don t try using super glue with fiber i made that mistake and before and it was a horrible mess to fix after loads of fiber melted into the hull there are other ways to hold fiber in place than paint white glue can be another good choice the best idea is to test out your plan with some spare fiber and plastic first once the fiber runs were complete i would trim up each section s fiber as it exited the light box so that it would be neat inside then i prepared the other end of the light box so that the led could be attached later once the light box is built up i made sure to coat it with several layers of good blocking paint black and thick metallic paints work well for this this usually helps well with light blocking fiber runs and light boxes leds and wiring another of the big things with lighting of course is your light source now a days leds are one of the best choices though there are other good ones as well they don t consume a lot of power and don t generate heat if they are wired up correctly for this kit i went with a simple run of parallel loops for the leds i choose parallel loops because that way if one led does burn out the rest will still work that isn t may not always be the best choice but that is one you should make for each kit you build since i ve got easy access to the internals on this build replacing an led isn t the scary thing it might be in other builds the led circuit is pretty easy a resister on the positive input and then wired up to the power repeat for all led loops if you re new to making electrical circuits then you should be able to lookup how to wire up an led if you re just starting out i suggest keeping things simple but if you pick up the components and a few bread boards you can experiment until you get the right mix for what you want to build once you ve built up your circuit plan make sure to test it out plug in breadboards are very helpful for this it is a good idea to let this test run for a while and then make sure that none of the components heat up if they do you should make sure you ve got the right resisters selected for your leds and they are attached to the right input there is nothing worse than having a hot running circuit in your kit where it could do untold damage again i speak from experience and had to dig into a built kit to rewire it correctly once the circuits are tested then it s time to attach the leds to the light boxes and finish sealing them up at this point it s time to proceed to the next step test runs once you ve got the light boxes fixed up run the wiring this is the time to run another kind of test plug everything in and turn it on now you ve got lights if everything worked hopefully it s looking impressive now you want to turn off the lights and check for light leaks try to seal up as much of your model as you can and if you see any thing that is lit that shouldn t be then now is the time to fix it in my case i found a section that wasn t getting lit properly from one of the light boxes and had to redo it that s why it s always a good idea to test and then test again this can be harder if you re doing something fancy and you won t be able to really test it till it s completely sealed still you ll get the best result if you thoroughly check that everything lights up the right way before you seal it all in testing for light function and light leaks painting and finishing once i finished up the testing it was onto the painting i mixed up a batch of light gray paint just off white really basically a couple of drops of black in a short bottle of tamiya white enamel a star destroyer is pretty simple paint wise so i basically used that as the main paint coat after that i finished it off with a dark gray wash to make all the details pop with the main painting done i trimmed all of the fiber optics and put down a matte clear coat i also put in some magnets on the edge of the wings to help hold them in place and that s it a lot of work but the result hopefully speaks for itself i do need to get better with the photography though maybe that s next on the list for practice leave comment nov 14 models for sale by james kitson in uncategorized to make room for new kits and fund future builds i m trying to sell off some of my kits show as slideshow leave comment feb 06 amt klingon cruiser vor cha by james kitson in models scifi after sitting in my model stash for 15 years i decided to finally build the klingon cruiser that debuted in the next generation i ve been holding off until my skills and time could hopefully do it a measure of justice i always liked this design as a heavy compliment to the smaller bird of prey ships that the klingons were known for continue reading leave comment apr 26 modeling the kazon raider by james kitson in models scifi after deciding to take a break from some of my other projects i decided to build a quick model to keep my practice up and relax a bit with a kit that i didn t overly care about my closet is sadly full of kits that i resist building simply because i don t feel that my skills are good enough to do justice to the subject so after around 15 years on the shelf i decided to attack the kazon raider i have to say i ve never been a big fan of the kazon either as an enemy race on voyager or in the designs of their ships i owned the kit simply because it was on a closeout special at a kaybee toy s outlet store for like 5 i d also heard horrible things about the kit and so i was curious to confirm them first the horror stories were not misplaced every seam on the kit needed to be sanded and sometimes puttied to bridge the gulf between pieces every joint needed to be puttied to fill in huge gaps where the pieces came together in several cases i needed to sand off tabs and free fit pieces so that i could get t...