Manta Fighter

Return to
2001 Menu

I used-up the nose of two Airfix F-4 Phantoms on the Shiksaa and the main bodies on some cargo pods, leaving just the tail. So, I put the tails of one Phantom together, bottom-to-bottom. It left a hole in the center where the engines had been, just about the right size for the nose of an F-5. I left some of the fairing behind the cockpit attached to help blend it in to the rest of the fuselage. I put the rest atop a sheet of plasticard. To give the ship an excuse for having those fat wings sticking straight out, I let computer keyboard keys hang down to be gun mounts. F-5 wings stick out from the guns, and B-24 nacelles (yes, such a word existed before Star Trek) became exhausts for X-wing engines on this ship.

The back was flat, then, and the fairing from the cockpit stuck up a bit. My chief designer suggested I leave it flat, with maybe some detail parts, but I decided it needed... A tail-pod-thingy. I mated a drop-tank to a B-52 engine mount, and then onto the top of the fuselage, creating... A deformed Naboo fighter. Bugger.

At least I resisted painting it yellow and silver.

I was curious to see how difficult it would be to paint the fuselage somewhat like the ships in Homeworld. The paint scheme for capital ships is multi-colored, but with wide seam-like lines everywhere delineating, as it were, panels. I started with a baskcoat of dark brown. Three hours and a yard or so of architect's tape, I'd masked-off the seams. A coat of orange-brown followed. Like so many things in life, this was one thing I wanted to try. Once.