First Model being built

I have decided to start getting back into model building by building the old AMT D’deridex Romulan Warbird.  Unfortunately I have not seen a recent repop of this kit, but you can still find them on the popular auction sites.

My plan is to build and light this model.  If you search the web there are a few good tutorials on building this beast. An example can be found here.

I am planning on making some modifications as I put together this model.  Some of them screen accurate and others because I think it looks cool.

First, making part of this model more screen accurate.  One of the biggest glaring inaccuracies of the model is the cargo bay areas.  On the AMT model, the bay doors are in the roof and there are no details below the bay openings.

The image below is from Christie’s Auction and you can see the obvious inconsistency.

While researching this ship, I also found the follow image by Andrew Probert.

Of special note is what he says about the Shuttle Bay and the Impulse Engines in the top part of the image, and in the bottom image you can see open Cargo Bays.

I will add the slit for the Impulse Engines when I work on that part.  But lets talk about the Shuttle Bay.  We area talking about this part here at the back.

On thing jumps out at me about the Shuttle Bay, is the fact it is undersized.  I saw a comment someplace were it was said the Shuttle Bay was an after thought, hence why its small.

If you compare the spacing of the lights on the ship that represent the space between decks, the Cargo Bay Openings are about eight decks high, yet the Shuttle Bay is barely one deck. Naturally it depends on how you define the spacing between decks. But I think when you see even the smallest shuttle bay on the Next Generation Enterprise, its at least two decks in height. So I will remodel this one to be about two decks as well.  Make it stand out better that's for sure.

One last thing, I am also a gamer.  One of the games I like playing is Star Trek Online, they have this warbird in game as well.  But something they have done is added strobes to the warbird.  Now this is nowhere accurate but is sure looks cool.  So yup I am going to add them as well.

So, with all that said, its time to actually start on this model.  I will cut the molding tabs off, give it a good washing and start planning the Suttlebay changes.