SF and fantastic models

Giving life to a model as the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars cannot be sufficiently achieved by just assembling the model “out of the box”, it is necessary to light it up. I’ve already talked about lighting up a model on Fantastic Modelers but never using optical fiber. Optical fiber in scale modeling allows to realize a multitude of small spotlights on a model surface. These spotlights can represent dashboards lights or small portholes, depending on the scale. Here of course, they represent the countless portholes of the Star Destroyer.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on an Enterprise model kit, at least a version of the Enterprise : the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A. I won’t review again this model work, you can find many details here. Before I was ordered this kit, I knew nothing (John Snow) about Star Trek. I saw a few episodes when I was a kid but I did’nt imagine the extent of this universe. I won’t tell the all story of Star Trek (more than 700 episodes during 6 TV shows…) but instead have a look on the different Enterprise ships being at the center of the shows and the movies, using my modeler’s eye of course.

Assembly of the Star Trek Enterprise Polar Light, next episode. The painting of the saucer was the biggest challenge of this kit. Making a perfectly accurate painting pattern was very hard. I had to use paint masks sold under the brand Aztec wich reproduce the original pattern.

And that’s it, the first assembly test is done. Not easy. Not easy at all. Some details are still to be finalised but I can see the end of the tunnel after a 3 months work, about 80 hours. The real complication with this ship is the design itself : beautiful, elegant, so that the design will inspire almodt all of the others ships seen in Star Trek serials and movies. However, for the model maker, what a pain in the ass !