Darkwing's Miniatures

[Darkwing]

I have been realigning bits of my miniature collection in anticipation of the new Starline 2500s. I have several Micro Machine ships mixed in with official ADB ships and I was using the introduction of the new ships as an excuse to clean out my collection and have it make more sense. Still, waste not want not...

You can read this if you are interested, or just look at the pictures...no hard feelings (please) either way. Please remember that these are "in progress" and need touch up paint. They are also waiting on my budget to allow for the purchase of decal paper so they can be lettered and numbered.

I understand that there are copyright issues so I will not mention any ship from any other Star Fleet-like Universe directly, but I found myself with several copies of a villain ship from a certain movie that had been standing in for the DDX for quite some time. I like the look of this ship, but the square engines don't fit with my view of the Star Fleet Universe and I have always wanted to modify these. The opportunity to change these from what should be a light cruiser to a destroyer was too great for me to resist. I kitbashed a squad of new DDXs.

(And yes, I do realize that these do not match the art shown in the Module X rule book.)

For starters, understand that I had ordered several of the "Zocchi Bags" that ABD was selling recently. That is where I got the extra dreadnought center warp engines which are needed for this project.

To make each ship, I used one Micro Machine ship and two Zocchi engines. I took a picture of the raw materials, but I did not want to show the ship in question as I was not sure if that violated any copyrights. It should be pretty clear which ship I am using.

Anyway, the first step in this kitbash is to separate the main body of the ship from the warp engines and the "rollbar." I just used a sharp knife and cut the unused sections away. Now, understand that the starting point of this ship is a toy and it tends to twist and warp (not in the good way) and get a little out of shape. I found that the best way to deal with the hole left in the basic hull after the removal of the engines was to cut away the area and leave the ship with a notched silhouette rather than trying to fill it, although I admit that anyone with mad putty skilz might have better results than I did. Once the existing engines are gone and the rollbar has been removed, I glued a Zocchi DN engine to the BOTTOM first. (The reason for this is that if you glue it to the top first, you may not be able to match it on the bottom.)

A quick paint job and -




Here is the basic DDX viewed from above:

(It looks better in person than it does through the camera lens...at least to my 40 year old eyes. Also, remember that this is before touch up.)



And from the side:

(I should mention that I know there are six phasers in each bank on the ship. I made the decision to put two on top and one on the bottom on the sides and one on top and two on the bottom on the front. It gives an interesting look.)



I had experimented with trying to fill the hole created by the engine struts and was not happy with the results. I ended up covering that with a strip of plastic and envisioning it as something to do with controlling the seeking weapons...I give you the DGX:




Now, there is another Micro Machine ship that is similar to this ship, but has the engine attached in a different way. Since this ship doesn't have a rollcage, it does not have to be cut or filled like the other ship does. This ship might be found if one searched for a vessel that had the same name as the American aircraft carrier that was named after the battle of Saratoga.

The notches for the engines are on the underside of the main body and make nice recesses for special sensor dishes. I used mine to make the X-scout:

(The special sensors are actually little crafting jewels that are semi-circular and mirror silver on one side. I used that look to differentiate them from regular special sensors along the same lines as blue/red domes on the warp engines.)





Anyway, I'll post some pictures once these are touched up and lettered. Here is a shot of the group of them, including an interesting DNX! (The black spot is where I removed the image of the original ship as I did not want to step on any copyrighted toes!)

[OGOPTIMUS]

Nice job. Great use of the Micromachines minis. Your putty work and added plastic card sides look nice. I like the DNX too, maybe some more close-ups of that one?

You can mention the ships here. People even post pics of the minis made by other game companies (I do). So while there are copyright issues, I've never been told to take pics down or change descriptions using the TMP era ships. But it is always better to err on the side of caution.

[djdood]

The only time I have been smacked is when I posted a picture *from* the films/tv show. Those and any similar promotional still images are where you can get into trouble. Stay away from anything CBS/Paramount owns and you ought to be fine.

As far as I've seen, the giant robot has it correct and you can post pictures of *products* you own (regardless of what company made them).

I think ADB appreciates that we keep it focused on their products or at least things being re-purposed for their games. There's been no shortage of folks who have posted pics of FASA movie ship minis that they are using as CX ships.

[Darkwing]

Thanks for the comments and the copyright clarifications. It makes it easier to talk about what I did when I don't have to speak in non-specifics!

As you asked, here are some in progress shots of the DNX. I have not fleshed out the phaser and photon configuration as of yet. This ship does not appear to actually exist, even though there is mention of it on the Starship Name Registry.

This ship is obviously a Micro Machine Excelsior with a Zocchi DN saucer and center warp engine attached. I sawed off the original MM engines (the plastic is pretty soft, so it can tear if your blade is not sharp). Then I glued a left and right warp engine from a Zocchi DN up against the scars where the engines had been. With a little work, this can be made to look like it is supposed to be that way. Just cut a little deeper into the elongated blister where the original engines were mounted.

The Micro Machine saucer can be pulled off pretty easily, but leaves a strange triangular "neck" above the secondary hull. It might be possible to use that, but it did not mate with the DN saucer easily, so I decided to trim that down so that the secondary hull was nearly flat across the top. I left a very small "step" at that point.

Anyone doing this project will see that the triangle neck is hollow, but most of the secondary hull is solid. I cut away the walls of the neck and used the existing "floor" to form the new top of the hull at that point. (Sorry, I did not document that portion of the project with pictures.)

I tried setting the DN saucer on top of that with no modification, but it looked awkward being so high. I trimmed a little off the bottom of the dorsal connector and came up with a "dropped" look that I was pretty happy with. I cleared out a small slot for the dorsal to sit in and glued them together. That made a surprisingly solid connection between the two ships.

I also added a couple of spare deflector dishes. The one up front is from the Zocchi tug and the one at the rear would actually go into the front of a Zocchi DN's secondary hull. I put two because the Zocchi DN had a dish front and rear. It looks interesting, but one could leave it out if they wanted.

One could also do this kitbash by using a Micro Machine Enterprise-B as a starting point.

As a side note: The Micro Machine Excelsior was badly out of scale, being only slightly larger than the Connie. Because of that, this ship is out of scale with the 2400s and will be badly undersized with the 2500s. I have one of the old FASA minis of this ship, but it's in a box at my parents' house about a thousand miles from here. I may try to find it next time I'm up there. If I do I might take another stab at this ship, just for fun!

All that said, here she is:

[Darkwing]

There is nothing quite so humbling as taking pictures of a starship miniature that looks fantastic in your hand and discovering that - when seen in the photos - it actually looks like junk.

Anyway, here are some shots of a couple of ships that will serve with the Federation National Guard. They are painted a slightly darker color than the average Star Fleet vessel. The cover art for Module R8 shows the Revenge and it looks to be almost silver in color. I painted mine the same color as my Klingon fleet.

This is a group shot of the GCA Warspite, GVH Monaco, and the GDE Luna.



The Monaco is a standard SL2400 CA and the Luna is a DD (both use the saucer w/o grid lines). The Warspite was assembled from parts to be a GCA all along, so it is an odd collection of Zocchi bits.



I wanted my GCA to look at least a little different than the CA, so I used the regular CA secondary hull, but the saucer is actually from a tug. That makes the dorsal a touch shorter than the CA and also has a slightly different shape. Now that the new 2500s are coming out, that will *really* solve the problem of needing these ships to be just a touch smaller than the CAs.



In this picture you can see that I did not fill in the slots for the engine pylons on this model, nor did I fill in the lower dome. At one point I had toyed with the idea of using the deflector dish from the tug and removing the one from the front of the secondary hull. I might do that for a future YCA project, just to try it.



The Monaco is a heavy carrier which was supposed to use F111s as a strike group. I have the squadron mounted to the outside of the secondary hull. Some will argue that my heavy fighters are too big. They probably are, but I like the look of them. (Please forgive the looks of this paint...it really doesn't look this bad in person!)











And here are the Warspite and Monaco in formation:

[Jack Bohn]

Your mention of trying the FASA mini for the DNX caught my attention. Is it scaled to the line, or just closer to scale? I'm thinking the result would look like the old CVA "flattop" mini.

I have model kit parts to scale with each other, so this weekend I taped some together to get an idea... is this what you have in mind?

[Darkwing]

If I recall, the FASA Excelsior was roughly in scale with their other ships, so that secondary hull would have been similar in size (maybe a bit larger than) to the Fed CVA/SCS. It would end up looking like your mock-up there.

[Darkwing]

Some of my old minis are bound for service in the National Guard forces of their various empires, but since I just got my early years modules, some of them will represent front line warships of an older era.

Here are some in progress pictures of some of my ships (and ideas) as I wait for the new Mongoose minis to arrive.

First up are two shots of a Zocchi CA next to a Mongoose CA.





Now, I had heard bits and pieces about early years battleships (YBB), but I really didn't know much about them until after I got my source materials. I had created this little monster as a possible YBB.






Obviously, this is a Zocchi tug with a Zocchi DN secondary hull and engines. It's ugly but still interesting and would have represented an experiment by the Federation. If I had ever finished it I would have corrected the phaser and photon points and cleaned up the paint some.

Having seen iams' NBC project over the course of this week, I was inspired to make a better-looking YBB than the tug-o-naught. So I tried something else. You can see it in formation (at the 4 o'clock) position in this picture.



I know that I should have started with the saucer from the SL 2400 BB, but I liked the idea of starting with the SL 2400 NCL. I joined that to a Zocchi DN secondary hull, leaving the NCL's shuttlebay intact. I cut a notch in the DN's dorsal to make the connection. The result is a small, clean-looking BB that has a bit more of a family resemblance to Star Fleet vessels than the official BB design. (That's the SL 2400 BB beside her on the game table.)








Again, this is intended to be the unbuilt early years battleship, not the unbuilt ship designed to tangle with the B10. I guess I could have just gone with the SL 2400 BB...Here is the 2400 BB next to a YCA.



And just for fun, here is one more group shot of early years firepower:

[iams]

Nice! I am really digging those YBBs. I would even call the second one a NBB if there were such a thing, just add all the weapons points. It looks sweet. I'm ordering some more DNs soon and I might have to experiment with that. Awesome stuff!!!

[Darkwing]

Fresh paint on a couple of Klingon squadron boxes. I have been waiting for these since December!

First up is my C8.



Next is the C9. She is wearing a light gray command stripe on the port wing area. And yes, I did shave off the extra phaser nubs so that the weapons are correct for the C9 vs the C8.



A sweet view of a C7.



A squadron of F5s. The lead ship is wearing a gray stripe marking her as an F5C.





Now some D6s in formation. Two are the standard model while the third wears the brown stripes marking it as a D6J.



Here they are again with the J model in the lead "sacrificial" position.



And the underside of the D6J, showing the small warp engine.



Some D7s in formation. The leader is a D7C, again with a light gray stripe.





Battlecruiser review! A C7, D7, and D6 in formation. I am glad that Mongoose kept the grille lines infront of the deckhouse for the C7. It helps to mark the ship as different from the D7.

[Darkwing]

It was just a quick conversion to lop off two phaser nubs under the forward pod and attach a post for the stasis field generator, so here is the C7A, IKV Fear.

Note that this ship is also carrying two PFs on the aft hull.

[Jim Lewis]

I really like your C-7A - I want to do one for my mini fleet too.

[trynda1701]

Like the PF's on the C-7A, very cool! Scale looks right.

[Darkwing]

Some people are not going to like this one.

Klingon carrier variants have usually been made by adding a little height to the deckhouse over the rear hull. This might be as easy as cutting a small square of styrene and gluing it to the top. These new 2500 minis have such great detail all over it would have been a real pain to cut the detail from the top of the deckhouse (in such a way that it could be re-used), insert material to build up the deckhouse, and then to glue the removed detail on top of that. That really didn't seem like fun, so I went a different way in converting one of my C8s into a C8S space control ship.

Here she is from the side and front:



The cast-on lines that represent the impulse engines were pretty bad on this model, so I shaved most of them off. That left an ugly flat spot on the back, but I found what I think was a great way to cover that.




That back side does not look that rough in real life. The camera really brings out the flaws.

Here are two shots of the underside, showing the lower fighter bay and two of the PFs docked to her belly.




From the top with the other four PFs docked to the wings.




Some of you probably see what I did. I took one of the spare B10 deckhouses and glued it to her belly upside down. Here is a look at her after construction but before painting.

[Scoutdad]

OK. Now that gives me an idea.

I need to drill out for rare earth magnets on the hull surface of my C8 and glue them in before painting.
They are strong enough that even with a coat of paint over them, they will still attract something as light as the PF minis...

Mwahahahaha!