Here
are some pictures of my Klingon Bird of Prey that I built over a decade ago.
The BoP first made its appearance in the opening scene of the movie Star Trek
III – The Search for Spock. With its ability to cloak and variable
geometry wing, the BoP became a fan favorite.
AMT/ERTL
released the BoP kit shortly after the release of Star Trek IV – The Voyage
Home. RC2’s website lists a re-release date of February 2011.
The
kit was fairly straight forward to build and provides two options for the wing
position, cruise and attack. I built mine in the attack configuration.
There were a number of undetailed regions over the craft where I added bits of
plastic card, strips and pieces from the parts bin. One of the most
noticeable areas was behind the wing hinges. Here I built it up to
resemble some sort of contoured venting. Also, at the right look angle,
one could see that the wing hinges were hollow. To rectify this, I took
rectangular pieces of card stock of similar thickness as the hinge plates and
glued them 90 degrees off the long axis in an alternating pattern to simulate
the lower hinge area.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The
instructions calls for the BoP to be painted in an overall Pale Green. I
felt that this was too bright and mixed Testor’s Model Master Pale Green and
Forest Green in a 50/50 ratio. I then took some of this base mixture and
made up two lighter shades by adding more Pale Green and three darker shades by
adding more Forest Green.
As
the panels of the BoP were raised, I painted the BoP in reverse order by
painting select panels before painting the base colour. I started with the
feather pattern on the bottom by painting the raised panels in MM Insignia Red.
Using Bare Metal Foil, I masked off the majority of the feather panels.
The unmasked feather panels were painted with different shades of red, masking
each shaded panel before proceeding to the next shade. I also painted a
couple of panels grey just to add variation. I repeated the process with
the feather pattern on the top of the wing using the darkest green as the main
feather colour and the other shades for the selected panels. In hindsight
I probably should have used Forest Green or another darker green for the
feathers as the pattern blended too much after weathering. At any rate, I
also painted/masked various panels on the craft’s fuselage and wings while
painting the upper feather pattern. Once all the selected panels were
painted and masked, I painted the BoP in the base green colour The wing
hinges were painted in Humbrol Gun Metal. and then removed all the masking.
After
decaling, final assembly and clear coating, I applied several black washes.
In certain areas, I applied further black washes and rust washes to give a
grimier look. I then drybrushed the BoP with several shades of grey, white
and matt aluminum, applying heavier drybrushing of aluminum on several select
panels to simulate heavier wear and in a couple of cases replaced, unpainted
panels. The hinges were weathered with black washes followed by
drybrushing of matt aluminum. After a final clear coat, I picked off the
small details such as windows and navigation lights. The final touch was
to hand paint HMS BOUNTY in Insignia Red as seen in The Voyage Home.
I
replaced the kit stand with a wooden base and brass tube painted black. I
picked up an aftermarket Klingon emblem and painted it in the early colours to
set off the base. I even built a plug for the stand hole, just in case I
wanted to hang it from the ceiling.
Enjoy
the model.
Bill Eggleton
Click on
images below to see larger images
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