Spacefighters ( three different ones )

[Doc Yo]

 Though a case of cold feet, and tiredness, prevented me from entering them, I've spent most of the last three
months working on a set of 'starfighters' for a Starship Modeler contest.







The first and last are both bashed from the old Heller Javelin ( Which I've always thought was
a lovely airplane ) while the green one was knocked out of a Matchbox Buccaneer.
More images are at my flickr site:The Flickr site of
the vile Dr. Yo

( Well, its actually my little brother's site, hence the "vile" tag. )

[Alvis 3.14159]

Wow...those are gorgeous!


Alvis Pi

[Taiidantomcat]

Dude those are awesome! I am still trying to get the hang of taking regular aircraft kits like this and bashing them into great looking star fighters  You have it down perfectly

[philp]

Doc,
Love those.  But I need some names before I can nominate them for next years Whiffies.

[Weaver]

Nice work! 

Am I right in thinking the green one is inspired by Jim Burns' Gaussi fighter on the cover of Harry Harrison's Mechanismo?

[Doc Yo]

Nice work!  

Am I right in thinking the green one is inspired by Jim Burns' Gaussi fighter on the cover of Harry Harrison's Mechanismo?

Got it in one, Mr. Weaver  This is actually the second iteration for that project. When I decided to repaint
it for the contest, the nose was a bit...lumpier. I never saw Mechanismo, but I think the Gausi was
featured in an issue of Omni magazine around the same time. I added a bit more underwing ordnance,
along the lines of what I remembered of the image, and a few red stars from a Zhengdufu Su-27.

Philip-Thanks you! names...hmmm. Lets see...

(1) Curtisssss*-Gernsback Aetherhawk  First flying in 1934, the A-hawk, as it came to be known, is shown
     here in its prototype paint scheme, which appeared on the cover of Mechanical Modernist in the June
    issue.

(2) Mikoyan-Yakolev Skorpian When corporate Earth attempted to suppress the worker's republic of
    Soviet Ceres, the reply was this sleek and astonishingly capable fighter.

(3) Yo Kinetic Enterprises  SA-37 Krakeray  Using a powerful 'fusion spike' drive, the profits from selling the
      Krakeray kept the Yo clan in test tubes through most of the 22nd century.


* Hector, not Glenn-he came from the reptoid branch of the family.

Alvis- Thanks!
Taiidan-You'll get there. Always remember, its harder to see the flaws in a thumbnail. ( There was
a minor disaster with the A-hawk on monday-I was attaching it to the stand, and hit the super glue
with accelerator, which I quickly discovered is a great solevent for rattle-can enamel...

[Old Wombat]

You should, still, have entered them, Doc... Especially the green one, that's awesome.

Actually, I could really see that one escorting "siskoash"'s Soviet space freighter!

I have returned my models to the dining table, where they belong, after they were banished for the Christmas/New-Year period by the Missus; only I find I've run out of enthusiasm for my SSM Contest space fighter (which I, now, want to finish for me).

So, I'm trying a couple of whif's to get my modelling mojo back (seems to be working, so far).

[AXU]

Waaaaaaaaw that Skorpian is amazing !!!  and the rest of the models are beautiful
So cool.......

[Weaver]

Nice work!  

Am I right in thinking the green one is inspired by Jim Burns' Gaussi fighter on the cover of Harry Harrison's Mechanismo?

Got it in one, Mr. Weaver  This is actually the second iteration for that project. When I decided to repaint
it for the contest, the nose was a bit...lumpier. I never saw Mechanismo, but I think the Gausi was
featured in an issue of Omni magazine around the same time. I added a bit more underwing ordnance,
along the lines of what I remembered of the image, and a few red stars from a Zhengdufu Su-27.

Found it on the web:

[Doc Yo]

 Thanks, Weaver-nice to see I wasn't too far off the mark! ( And i'm kind of glad I didn't remember it well enough
to try and replicate the peculiar attachment of the warp drive/AWACS dome/ discoid thingy over the rear
fuselage. )

I didn't take any WIP pictures, but I'll tell you a little bit more about the builds. I put the Skorpian together
about twelve years ago. It was originally a matchbox Buccaneer, and must have been one of the kits that
people talk about having been the product of the 'mad trencher'. This was fairly simple, as the only major
structural mod was cutting the wingtips and swapping them left to right to get the 'W' planform. Still had to do
a bit of grinding to get the contours close, but nothing overwhelming. As I said above, the orignal nose was
closer to the inspiration-I'd faired over the cockpit opening with a drop tank half, then added a...strut of some
kind, I think, all leading to one of the smoke stacks from an old Revell battleship ( an Iowa class, I think )
I never really liked the orginal outlines, so for the re-build, everything got faired smooth with Aves epoxy putty,
into the hatchet-fish shape you see now. The outer gun pods are the nacelles from the old Tamiya 'Beagle'
in 1/100th, reversed, with barrels from a old gaming minature set. The pod above the stern is an old Lindberg
base. Paint was a Gunze metallic green, darkened with a couple drops of Gunze 'soot'.

THe A-hawk was probably the most challenging of the three. One of the things that I keep putting off is
a full scratch of a conventional airplane*, mainly because I worry about getting the shape of the wings
right. This was a step in that direction, as I carved away the rear protion of the Javelin wing, and replaced
it with sheet, drawn out with a french curve, and then faired in with Aves. Not bad for a first effort, I think,
but I still need to refine the technique. The intakes were faired over with sections cut from an old Gundam
support plane, smoothed with yet more aves. Since I was using the two top halfs of a Javelin for the Krakeray,
I was using the two bottoms here. I could have just tacked in the gear doors and sealed them, but I wanted
some 'radiator fins' on her someplace, so I left part of the upper bays open and made fins out of sheet, clamping
them together and sanding them as close to identical as my trembling fingers and aging eyes could mangage.
Still, I kind of envy those fellows with the gumption to do their own PE, or have 3-d printing done...will have to
look into it if I persue this particular aesthetic.

The krakeray...I'll tell y'all about it later.
* Conventional by my standards, anyway.

[Green Dragon]

Great designs Doc! Fave has to be the Skorpion, love the metallic green paintjob.

Paul Harrison

[frank2056]

You should have entered them, Craig!
 
My fav is the Krakeray.

[sotoolslinger]

Most excellent Doc

[Doc Yo]

 Paul, Frank, ummm...Ron? Rod? ( Sotool, anyhow ) Thanks!

The krakeray ( I have a fondness for portmanteau names-in this case its an obvious combination of
kraken and stingray. ) is the top halves of the two Javelin fuselages to the outer wing panels. The nose
was removed back to the intakes, which were ground down and re-purposed as 'space torpedo' tubes.
The big gun pods were from another old Gundam kit, the MS-06N. The outer wing panels were from the
ancient Airfix SR 57, which I think I picked up as an abandoned built-up from a local hobby shop. I had
vauge notions of fixing it up some day, but finally decided to use it for scratching. The triangular tail spike
is cut from .040 sheet, beveled and fused. The cockpit fairing came from the Star Wars "Roger Roger" droid
head, and I can't tell you how satisfying it felt to trepann the thing. The removed section was used to smash-
mold a clear canopy, and while I botched the cutting a bit, I was fairly pleased with it. The last time I tried
the technique, the plastic kept fogging for some reason.

Both the Krakeray and the Aetherhawk used blue tape masks for the paint patterns. ( Can't really call it
cammo ) I wanted symetrical masks, so I laid strips of tape on either side of a sheet of thin card board,
( after experiments with ordinary paper and aluminium foil were tried to mixed results ) and cut the shapes
out. Its not a perfect technique, but if you keep your blade very, very sharp, you can get fairly good results.

The Krake was finished with pollyscale colors.
Again, thanks for all the commments and kudos.