These were really cool flying craft, sadly I think no longer produced. I made a few mods to this one as I remember.. Certainly the “Guardrails” were copper wire and craft beads. I also think I did the rear tail area scalloping with a Dremel rotary tool to fancy it up a bit.
Sorting through pictures and found these so up they go for a bit of “eye” candy. These stuck out since I was about to sell a bunch of RAFM “space 1889” figures and they got snapped up by one of the “dogs” (you guess who!) so we may see battles on Mars in the future! I painted these years ago for Chris S. London War-room as I recall and for “Space 1889” or any Victorian Sci Fi situation.
I think I might have been working on Star Trek DS9 at the time and used some “Klingon” lettering for the tail ID! The scalloping I added in the rear tail section now ties the original models scalloping in the front together and improves the look tremendously in my opinion.
There was another control station that never got added since I had misplaced it at the time. found it years later in a “bits” box… I should paint and ad it! I see negotiations in our future Chris…..
I just love the design, so retro 1930’s Flash Gordon! I could just see “Ming the Merciless” cruising over the planet Mongo in this!
This flying “gunboat” was by the same manufacturer but done for the earth-men’s or colonial powers. Again a very nicely done model. I wish I would have picked some of these up but it was one of those times when you think “oh I’ll get them down the road” but then they go “out of production! I guess this justifies our large lead mountains! Get it while you can. I remember buying a bunch of models for a line called “Maschinen Krieger“ once again because they looked cool and I had some grandiose plans to use them in a project that never happened. I bought them for around $6 to $15 apiece and perhaps 12-15 kits, 10+ years later I sold the now “rare” original kits for 10 times the purchase price (and all to one person in Australia) with people literally fighting to get them, go figure!
Looking at this model I realize I didn’t really finish it with as much detailing as I planned, I did add the smoke stack and a few flag receptacles. Perhaps Chris would like me to finish it out a bit more? Part of the smoke stack was from another project and not used but kept in the “bits” box…came in handy for this modification.
I think this would look great with some German WWI style Submarine type markings!
Being as the boat is very monotone I used the trick of a splash of color (red prop) in the rear to draw the viewers eyes along the entire model.
Great photos and narrative Bill. Beautiful work.
Dam Chris, your FAST! Lol! Did this while taking an CalState Dominguez Hills OSHA electrical class via ZOOM virtual meeting