Skip to main content

U.S.S. Defiant, NX-74205 (1/420 scale model)

No attempt was made.

I was on a bit of a roll, I guess, in the 1990s with my starship modelling, starting with the re-fit Enterprise around 1992 and ending with the Voyager just a few years later, totaling five Star Trek ships and one Star Wars A-Wing. My momentum must have waned...or something...but I never got around to even starting the Defiant, which I must have bought soon after finishing the Voyager. I looked at it a couple of times in the next decade, fully intending to build it, but it didn't happen then, either.

All parts accounted for.

Although I have resumed my modelling hobby (even currently –albeit slowly– trying to resurrect my aforementioned Enterprise), I still don't feel like building this Defiant. I know a whole lot more about properly building models than I did decades ago and, as a result, I think I might be intimidated by the amount of work I might insist on putting into this kit. Back then, I'd have been happy to just assemble it and do a basic paint-and-decal job –like the rest of my 1990s ships– now, I'm afraid I'd want to go all-out.

Admittedly, assembly would be very easy (just look at that low parts count!), even if I had to putty up some seams due to fit issues. No worries there.
I've only lit one model so far (and plan to do more), but I think lighting this kit would be fairly easy since it's so big and open inside...and after market custom lighting kits for this ship are out there...

Sounds like I'm talking myself into building this, doesn't it?

Nice decals.

No, I think it's the intricate painting patterns required to make the ship look screen accurate that I have an aversion to. All that masking and so on –I'm just not that passionate about this ship. Of course, there are probably amazing after market decals to take care of most of the markings, but still: I'm just not feeling it.

Besides, I'd be making a ship that's been made excellently by some great modellers out there already, so I wouldn't be breaking any new ground (my same reason for not wanting to build a Millenium Falcon, despite liking its design a lot). Building models "box stock" doesn't have that much appeal to me (despite the few I've recently built like Threepio and the Y-Wing...and a few others I'll be building eventually).

And where would I put it?

I still like the look of the Defiant and the role it played on Deep Space Nine; she's a great ship! But I have no intention of building (but maybe selling?) this kit...I'll probably end up using the parts for kitbashing...somehow...










Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Axel Foley's Chevy Nova (1/25 scale model)

Multiple tributes, here. I remember first seeing  Beverly Hills Cop  on video at my friend Chris K's house, 'cause his family had a VCR and we'd watch tons of movies (and record music videos) together. The summer of 1984 was a special time for us (having created a strong bond in school since Grade 6 a few years before), going on biking adventures around the 'burbs and into the city, etc., and home video played an important role from then until I moved to the opposite end of Scarborough just before we started high school. We liked the movie a lot, both of us fans of Eddie Murphy from his  Saturday Night Live  days. I don't think I'd seen the movie since then (it would have been 1985, probably summer, since the movie came out in late 1984) and I became curious to see if it still held up. It did. It does. I found Murphy as charming as ever and the comedy (and even the action) holds up very well and its very re-watchable and very entertaining.  Beverly Hi...

Small Pond Arts Puppet Wagon (1/24 scale model)

I dreamed up the Small Pond Shipyard for my fanciful scratch-built sci-fi airship creations (which still only exist in sketch/Photoshop mock-up form (and boxes in my closet) for now), but more and more ideas kept coming ( this wind turbine , for example, will be part of a rather elaborate diorama I'll be working on this winter). But the Puppet Wagon was a sleeper surprise, to be sure. [Really, though, I don't know why I was so eager to build this right away since I was planning to slowly develop my modelling skills with simpler builds first and the work my way up to more complicated projects.] Not all parts were used/needed. Most of these ideas have come from watching modelling videos online, and when I saw a review of this sweet little Japanese "Ramen Shop" food truck by Aoshima (right-side drive!), my brain started making jokes about customizing it to the weird food truck ideas I'd been posting on Facebook. But the more I thought about what the co...

City of Angels

17" x 11", watercolour and digital, 1999 Ah, City of Angels . I thought I was getting cool film noir but got a cheesy musical instead (Google it if you must). Still, it was fun to make the poster and associated images, mostly because the research consisted of watching real films noir and buying a great book on movie posters of the genre. I made tons of sketches and a few digital mock-ups. For the final poster above, I made three separate watercolour paintings (one of the couple and one each of the two black and white heads) and composited them in Photoshop, where I also added the text. In true movie poster fashion, I wanted the actors names to be the top two names, but I lost that battle and had to use the characters' names instead. It looks fine, but it implies that "Kingsley and Stone" are the lead actors in the show. Oh, well...it's only community theatre... By making the "angel" above half black and white and half colour, th...