Night Runner sci-fi ship

illithid00 · November 09, 2008, 01:36:50 PM

After having some trouble with the P-61, which I originally intended to build OOB and semi-accurate, I decided that a kitbash sci-fi ship would be more fun, so I started this. It is, or was, a 1/48 Monogram P-61. I grafted part of one of the tail booms and an engine cone from a 1/72 SR-71 to the aft end to create the stern, helped along with much CA and sand paper. I chopped up the former-port wing and put the innermost part on the now-starboard side of the craft. I sanded down and covered the mounting point of the other wing with an upper-wing piece from a Hasegawa 1/72 Ki-84 (I think). I'll be using parts from the 1/48 Academy MiG-29 and 1/48 Monogram F-106 to create the engine parts. I've started to add in some plating using plastic sheet, along with adding some parts to the nose to add more detail.

The ship is known as the Night Runner. It's a deep-space rescue ship, designed to pull spacefarers out of danger at a moment's notice. I'm guessing it will end up being somewhere around 1/350 scale or so, for now.

On to the pics!

Sorry about the crappy pics. I'll try to get some better ones up soon. I've also got a similar thread going over on ARC.

pyro-manic · November 09, 2008, 05:06:55 PM

Looking good so far! Asymmetry is always good.

BlackOps · November 09, 2008, 06:35:11 PM

It's got a real nice shape to it, definately eager to see more

Daryl J. · November 09, 2008, 09:10:26 PM

Nice!

Daryl J.

nev · November 10, 2008, 12:17:20 AM

Interesting. Keep us posted.

Sisko · November 10, 2008, 01:19:08 AM

I like it, it looks like something from homeworld!

cthulhu77 · November 10, 2008, 05:58:21 AM

Very cool. I like the tyre effect, it reminds me of purchasing my first cylon raider model from amt, and noticing that they used Tamiya panther tank parts for a lot of surface detail, sprockets, gears, whatnot.
Ingenious use of the 61, though it is almost sacrilege !

sotoolslinger · November 10, 2008, 06:34:25 AM

Absolutely nifty

Looking forward to this one

Brian da Basher · November 10, 2008, 02:52:09 PM

Now that's some very impressive "outside-the-box" thinking!

Brian da Basher

illithid00 · November 10, 2008, 06:54:56 PM

Thanks for all the replies! I spent some more time working on this, and here's how it looks now. As a space rescue ship, I built the Life Boat rescue pods from the tips of Academy's 1/72 F/A-18 Hornet drop tanks. The bridge on top is from one half of an Academy 1/48 F4U-4B Corsair. The cargo pods on the starboard side are the other two drop tanks from the Hornet, glued together and shaped with a sanding pad and some styrene detailing. The tire on the underside is the reactor ejection point, in case there's a catastrophe involving the ion reactor. The docking ring on the port side aft of the Life Boats is built from an Italeri 1/72 F/A-18E Super Hornet engine.

All the plates on the bow are metal plates from a recent repair. It'll make more sense when I write up the backstory. On the bottom, below the nose I added clamps made from the Hornet pylons, to ferry damaged ships back to shipyards for repairs or salvage. The sensors on the nose are part of the communications suite, made from a target pod from the Hornet kit, styrene rod and tube, and a propeller hub from the original P-61 kit. The exhaust has parts from a MiG-29 and F-106 engines and will be added later in the build.

On to the pics!

Again, thanks for all the feedback! I really appreciate it.

EDIT: The bridge hasn't been filled and sanded yet, but as soon as I get a new tube of superglue, I'll get on it. The same goes for the sensors on the bow.

pyro-manic · November 10, 2008, 07:29:25 PM

Looks really good! I would possibly question the wisdom of having your reactor eject into the hull of the ship you're trying to rescue...

Those pylon parts are perfect as docking clamps, though - they look fantastic!

How will you be painting this build? Is she going to be beaten-up and weathered all over, or will she have a clean finish, marred by those patches on the forward hull? Or am I asking too early?

Enjoying this.

illithid00 · November 10, 2008, 08:28:09 PM

Quote from: pyro-manic on November 10, 2008, 07:29:25 PM
Looks really good! I would possibly question the wisdom of having your reactor eject into the hull of the ship you're trying to rescue... Those pylon parts are perfect as docking clamps, though - they look fantastic!

How will you be painting this build? Is she going to be beaten-up and weathered all over, or will she have a clean finish, marred by those patches on the forward hull? Or am I asking too early?

Enjoying this.

I hadn't really thought about ejecting the reactor if there was another ship there. What I'm thinking right now is that the crew from the damaged ship would be on board the Night Runner, and the damaged ship would be empty. If something happened with the reactor, the ship would be jettisoned right before the reactor ejection. Good catch, though! I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

She'll probably have a pretty clean finish, except around the patches on the bow. I do have a surprise in store for the end of the build, though...

sotoolslinger · November 12, 2008, 05:16:20 AM

Well ..... I hate you now. You are just entirely too effin creative

I love this

jorel62 · November 12, 2008, 06:04:50 AM

WOW!!!! I can't wait to see this bird finished.

illithid00 · November 13, 2008, 09:57:54 PM

The work continues. I'm refining the parts for the communications and sensory arrays, along with adding more surface detail to make the whole ship look more busy.

I still need to figure out something to do with the holes that were for the guns on the original model, along with a lot of PSR around the bridge area.

The upper "prong" on the bow is an emergency docking hallway that burns through the hull of a ship to quickly evacuate the crew of a damaged ship to the Night Runner in case of catastrophe, like an impending reactor explosion.

Pics! Lots of these tonight, so I'll split them into two posts.