{"id":460,"date":"2011-02-23T09:08:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T14:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devinjpoore.com\/?p=460"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:37:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T22:37:27","slug":"viper-pilot-and-inital-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devinjpoore.com\/?p=460","title":{"rendered":"Viper: Pilot and Inital Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A few photos before I take a break.\u00a0 It’s time for the yearly Altered Fluid<\/a> Writer’s Retreat, so I’ll be sequestered in a house in Connecticut for the next 5 days with nothing to do but write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pilot in the kit is a decently cast resin figure.\u00a0 There’s a little clean-up needed, but no major mold lines, so it didn’t take long to prep the piece.\u00a0 The flight suits in Battlestar are this funky metallic green color, for which there exists no store-bought match.\u00a0 I pulled out a few bottles of Vallejo acrylic that I thought looked close, and started mixing on my test pallet.\u00a0 Six tries later I had a good result (and only 5 failed attempts is pretty good).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colors:
Russian Green (894), 3 parts
Medium Olive (850), 2 parts
Bronze (998), 2 parts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks great in person, very close to the on-screen appearance, but in the photos the metallic doesn’t show up very well.\u00a0 Further work needs to be done on the figure, such as shading and highlighting, applying the flight patch decals, dullcoating, and hopefully I can find some way to replicate the insignia on the top of the helmet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I continue to work on the pilot, I started major assembly.\u00a0 Fuselage halves are glued together, with the cockpit sandwiched inside.\u00a0 In order to avoid problems with seams, I started at the nose and worked back, gluing and clamping, waiting, then moving further back.\u00a0 The fuselage just forward of the cockpit was an odd angle that wouldn’t accept clamps, so I glued it and watched The Colbert Report <\/em>while I held the pieces together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One new detail in the cockpit are the oxygen hoses at the rear of the seat.\u00a0 Made from old guitar string.<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n\t\t