Assault-Carrier SJS Sobol

The first Wing Commander game had a Fralthi Cruiser that was arrowhead-shaped, with a notched-nose, a raised aft-neck that led to a large engine module and two huge downward-swept wings. That was the precursor to this ship. That, and the ships pictured in the Renegade Legion Leviathan Capital Ship Briefing. Their ships have fins much like mine here. I like fins. They add shape, direction, and drama, and can rescue a mediocre design, or enhance a good one. AWonderfest Bronze Award Winner.

I started with two huge wedges, layed flat (on one side, that is), to which I added a lot of stuff in the middle. As usual, it is mostly Evergreen stock. The top is more wedges, but with the center left open. The centerline cylinder is a flower water holder. Hint: Buy your lover lots of single roses - then keep the container on the end of the stem. Everybody wins!

Painting it was fun. The obligatory initial coat of Future Floor Wax protect the plasic from the subsequent coat of paint, Krylon Sandible Primer. I then airbrushed the ship light-gray, as I knew the next coat, the yellow, would not cover that well, and a dark base-coat would make for a very dull yellow. I then sprayed the yellow on all the sections I was going to want yellow, trying not to "tsk, tsk" too much about all the yellow over-spray. I followed all this with another coat of Future because I use enamel paint, and sometimes the nect voat of paint can either "lift" or dissolve the previous coat unless there's an acrylic barrier - the Future Floor Wax .

To round the corners of the yellow sections applied removable dots - about 1/4-inch ones. Then, between the dots, I applied Scotch Magic Transparent tape (for it's crisp edge), and over the rest of the yellow, masking tape (for it's width). With the yellow sections thus protected I sprayed around them with the previous Light Gray color. I painted the odd panel here and there with other shades of light gray just to make it interesting.

The markingings were fun, too. The lettering is from Archer Fine Transfers, a sheet of "alien markings" (email me if you want to see what they look like). The skull is a character in one of the easily-available free fonts, modified slightly to mimic somewhat the shape of the ship, then scaled-up in Wordpad and printed on to the back side of frisket paper, cut out, and applied to the ship as a mask.

The real SJS Sobol