1/48 1999 Eagle - Tactical Edition

[Madhatter]

Hi everyone

I've been a bit quite on the forums lately and that's because I've been spending more time building and less time writing. I had to take a break from the relentless detailing of the Star Destroyer (which I will go back to because I want to see it done), and so for the past month or so, I have been away quietly building my 48th scale 199 Eagle. I've long loved the design of this ship and have dreamed of having a kit of this as a boy when I saw it in an old Airfix catalogue but just never bought one until a couple of years back when I saw one of these going relatively cheaply instead I clearly grabbed one.
Naturally, me being me, I also was never going to paint it like the show. Then I saw The Admiral's build (http://resinilluminati.com/showthread.php?t=17378 ) and it's inspiration from him that got me going on mine. So I naturally borrowed/stole his cockpit idea and subsequently made my own poorer copy.
However, it reinforced my previous desire for a non standard white Eagle, so I came up with the most obvious option: paint it in black! Everything looks good in black right?!
Painted in Tamiya NATO Black, flat black and German grey and something else to. The engine stuff is all painted in bare metal just because I thought it would look cool. That general concept is prevalent throughout this whole build really
I'm going to blow my own horn here and state that I am super happy with how this came out. Yes - after taking the photos I realised that there are some paint issues to fix that have alluded me prior to now but they are easily fixed and TBH, I'm not going to take another series of shots to show them fixed. It's been hard enough to get enough light to take even these pictures. Love Melbourne weather! At any rate, you'll get the idea from the following pics

and this is my rudimentary cockpit which I shamelessly stole from Bill. Thanks again mate!!

I can't paint faces to save myself, so I sprayed shaped pieces of masking tape silver followed by clear red and a mist of clear orange. It looks much better to me
The screens behind them are decals which I cut up and stuck onto the back wall with a  hole behind it where fiber optic stubs had been inserted into the side panels - all lit by a single SMD each side. The red cockpit glow is a standard but sanded 5mm LED. It looks good against the black.

Well, that was a fun build in so far as that I didn't have to make details for anything. Like I said, I'm super happy with this. I think it looks seriously cool, but that's just me
Anyways, thanks for stopping by and having a look.
Si

[Jim B]

Very cool special ops Eagle.  I like your take on it.

[Madhatter]

thanks Jim. It beats then traditional plain white for sure

[cobraman]

Looks good to me !

[Madhatter]

Thanks Ray

[Jim N]

Looks great.  I think the black looks really cool and the detailing is excellent.

[PappyD340]

Very nice!

[David G.]

Brilliant work on this Si! It somehow looks more real than the ones from the TV show.

Your version looks very much the way I would imagine one looking if the show were actually produced in 1999 instead of 1975.

David G.

[Madhatter]

thanks guys! If the show were to be remade, much better actors would be required - as well as a couple of design tweaks on the Eagle

[89AKurt]

Looks great.  Like the engines, you wrote bare metal, do you mean Alclad paint?

[Madhatter]

thanks Kurt. Yeah, the metal is Alclad. I couldn't justify spending a large amount of money on metal engine bells when Alclad will do a similar job

[mustang1989]

Saw this one over at LSP and still am in amazement at how this turned out Simon. Just one heckuva great build. Everything just "clicks". 

[Madhatter]

thanks Joe! I must admit, I am rather partial to it as well. I did consider Black with red trim but this just seemed to work better.

Glad to see some others from LSP here as well

[slusher]

Looks great!!

[Daddyfink]

That is Rad! I like the updated look of this classic bird!