by Carlos Santos

I love the Homeworld PC games. They are fun to play, and the ship designs are a great source of inspiration. I was browsing through some of the Homeworld 2 concept art when I came across a sketch by Rob Cunningham of a tanker ship. I took the basic outline of the tanker and combined it with another ship (the Bishop personnel transports) and came up with a similar look for a cargo transport. I decided early on that I'd use yellow as the accent color, and not the main color. Many of the ships in the Homeworld universe use yellows as accent colors/safety colors.

So I sat down and started to draw. When I was satisfied with the humble beginnings of my ship I drafted it on the computer. I also did various color studies to see what I liked the best, and while in construction I also worked on the decals which I did myself.

The ship is built from plain ol' styrene of various thicknesses and patterns. I used various kit details to add some life here and there. Notable were parts from a Pro-Shop X-Wing, 1/200 "Man In Space" set, as well as model railroad parts, and other miscellaneous junk in the parts box.

The proximity antennae at the front of the ship are aluminum parts left-over from a broken printer. The main engines are parts from a Starfury kit that had a wee accident.

The model was primed and painted with various Testors and Tamiya acrylics. The teal color is 2 shades mixed from one Testors bottle. Some details were airbrushed through vinyl masks that I cut at work from scrap material. The model was gloss-coated for decal application. Once finished, I sprayed it down with Model Master acrylic matt finish. I build a simple base from scrap MDF and 1/2" acrylic rod. I built as an accent to this a small Mobile Refinery to give The Star Of Isis a sense of scale.

I had quite a bit of fun building my contest entry and was glad to find some inspiration for another scratchbuild in my collection. My goal was basically to capture the look of a Homeworld-type ship, and I feel I succeeded in that.

Image: From above

Image: Underneath

Image: Under the stern

Image: Port side detail

Image: Port side