by John Douglass

I've found that the most inspirational spaceship pictures are usually the ones that are too small to see details clearly, like the panels in the earlier Star Wars comics, or where the picture is big and has tiny backgroud ships. Which is the case of the tiny RagTag Fleet ship seen in the upper right corner at the end of the begining credits of the original series. It looks for all the world like a Hephaestus Foundry Ship with a couple of skinny arms hanging down and out. So that's the one I chose to build.

I was additionally inspired by a printer toner tube that looked to be already built on a superstructure. An old yogurt container (newer ones, alas, are vinyl, not styrene) is the ventral not-very-cylindical tube, which needed more bracing to get it mounted level. The ventral docking arms are more printer parts that snuggly fit in the ventral grid. In keeping with the RTF rapid-building protocol, almost all the detail parts are from a pair of 1/48 Tiger tanks. These were kits I'd hoarded for years because the details were too good to use all at once. Now, it's use'em or lose'em.

Paint was enamel Model Master Tan and Floquil Yellow. Future Floor Polish glossed it up enough for decals, which were chosen for their civilian-business look - Hey, not being military, this ship had to appear on an investor's brochure - and subsequent military identification. More Future with a few drops of black ink blended the colors together. A dry-brushjing of light gray highlighted some details and further blended the colors. A few more drops of ink in the Future was great for smoke on the landing pad. Model Master Acryl Flat was almost enough flat atop all the glossy Future.

Image: Left/front view

Image: Left/rear

Image: Bottom

Image: Top/right

Image: Right/rear

Image: Top/front

Image: Left/front again

Image: Before paint: top

Image: Right side

Image: Bottom

Image: Primed