by Gerhard Kreutzer

This is my interpretation of a Viper Mk VII. It's the Black Sun resin kit (1:72 scale), which is a real beauty (no bubbles, crisp detail, VERY little putty needed).

The pilot on the other hand is ugly, so I gave him a face (as I imagine a cockpit with atmosphere support) and a seatbelt to hide some of the badly sculpted overall he is wearing. The rest of his flaws are hidden by the canopy which is nice and clear but due to its curve and the resulting reflections makes it difficult to make out too many details of the inside.

As you can see I don't care for series continuity or screen accuracy as I used decals as I liked, representing a ship from the Battlestar Rycon (I liked the name) bearing markings from the Galactica (I liked the design), but hey, it's science fiction - everything is possible. The paint design is my own and I added a lot of "inscriptions" from a 1:72 Verlinden aircraft transfer sheet to give it a more realistic look.

The landing gear bays can be opened, and I originally chose to display the model in a hangar scene on its landing gear as part of a diorama. That means I glued the landing gear on the hangar floor. Its position allows the model to be placed on its gear with the gear pins fitting in the holes in the landing gear bays of the model. Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish the hangar for this contest, so the model can only be seen in flight mode with the support rod that uses one of the thrusters (that way there is no disturbing extra hole in the model and still it can be mounted safely).

There is no such thing as a real background story, it's simply a Viper Mk VII that I made look the way I liked (I always found the original gray design of the series boring).

Image: Left side

Image: Right/rear view

Image: Top

Image: Left/rear

Image: Underneath

Image: Extra stencils

Image: More

Image: Cockpit

Image: Front view

Image: Parts

Image: Converting the pilot, first steps

Image: Next

Image: Next

Image: Done

Image: Over the shoulder