1/72 Moonraker shuttle with boosters

This is a commision that i have been building for a while now. Its HUMUNGOUS. Its the Monogram 1/72 kit and it lit with 1 LED in the cockpit and 1 in each booster. I got the tank and boosters assembled today and fitted them all together. This is one of the most impressive models i have ever built , but is also fairly bad fitting. Its a bit of a filler magnet! It is to be painted up as a Moonraker shuttle. Heres some photos so far


And here is something in the same scale to give you an idea of size. The Airfix 1/72 Nimrod.

Work progressed well today. Im really pleased with this , it actually quite like the colour scheme.I did some basic weathering , but i will do a little more once the matt is on

Very nice.

Can't wait for mine!

Out of interest - where did you get the decals? And why '8'?

I'm unfamiliar with the Nimrod - any chance of a pic with, say, a soda can for scale?

Eagle said:

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Very nice.

Can't wait for mine!

Out of interest - where did you get the decals? And why '8'?

I'm unfamiliar with the Nimrod - any chance of a pic with, say, a soda can for scale?

The decals are the Jbot ones , which you may want to get. The stripe was hand painted with my own mixture. I only chose 8 because he told me to use whatever number i wanted , and 8 was the only one that didn't disintigrate!

She's a beaut! Love seeing another's take on this subject. After doing two, (2.5 actually!) I got a bit burned out, but seeing yours make me want to get back into it. Did you go straight black on the undersid and around the nose?

PHArchivist said:

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She's a beaut! Love seeing another's take on this subject. After doing two, (2.5 actually!) I got a bit burned out, but seeing yours make me want to get back into it. Did you go straight black on the undersid and around the nose?

No i used the trusty old Nato black with an overspray of my dirt colour mix. I used straight black on the tail fin

Cool. The brown over-coat is hard to see in pics, but it makes a big difference in person, doesn't it?

My theory (or guess is more like it) is that the originals had it more of a deep chocolate brown to offset if from the black space back-drop. Maybe.

I still think that's a hilarious scene in Moonraker, where they launch about twenty shuttles one-after-another.

Go ask NASA to launch two shuttles in the same month and see how they react...

Can anyone make high quality decals? I have the Drax artwork in vector format but not the means to make them. Also, anyone know what font 'MOONRAKER' is in?

Eagle said:

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Also, anyone know what font 'MOONRAKER' is in?

I believe I used either Ariel Bold, or Ariel Black, 13 point IIRC.

Arial is Microsoft's knockoff of Helvetica... if you can get Helvetica I'd use that one.

- k

True! Most people think Arial and Helvetica are the same thing, but there are important differences.



Plus, Arial wasn't around when Moonraker was made.

A little dullcoat to get that gloss off the white will do wonders for scale, also.

I've got one of the 1/72 stacks (in sections) in the garage- I think I may go Moonraker on it, also. Maybe take it a step further and make the shuttle look like it'd been through a long service life like what's left of the real fleet. Of course that would mean that Bond had failed in his mission

You're right... the fit of those big tank halves sucked. Actually, the kit had a lot of superdetail potential, but the fit of the big pieces was a pain in the rear. On the external tank, it was so bad that made a mold of part of the tank insulation and then I smeared the tank over with filler along the bad seams (a lot of that) then pressed the mold onto the stll soft filler. Worked pretty good at blending it together.

R2B9 said:

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A little dullcoat to get that gloss off the white will do wonders for scale, also.

I've got one of the 1/72 stacks (in sections) in the garage- I think I may go Moonraker on it, also. Maybe take it a step further and make the shuttle look like it'd been through a long service life like what's left of the real fleet. Of course that would mean that Bond had failed in his mission

You're right... the fit of those big tank halves sucked. Actually, the kit had a lot of superdetail potential, but the fit of the big pieces was a pain in the rear. On the external tank, it was so bad that made a mold of part of the tank insulation and then I smeared the tank over with filler along the bad seams (a lot of that) then pressed the mold onto the stll soft filler. Worked pretty good at blending it together.

Yup the Matt cote is next. Another hectic 8 hours today. I managed to get the tank and boosters finished , includeing the LEDs and the bossters and the battery and switch hidden under one of the boosters nose cones. Nearly finished now.

Nicely done. Looking forward to seeing the finished commission. PHArchivist, looks like your Moonrakers are getting some sister ships added

mb1k said:

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Nicely done. Looking forward to seeing the finished commission. PHArchivist, looks like your Moonrakers are getting some sister ships added

Totally! Love seeing other takes on this subject! I'm just now building/painting yet another, but this one is SMALL...! Don't recall the scale but it's only 6.5 inches long.

She is a beauty!!!

Updates?

mb1k said:

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Updates?

Heres the last picture that i took of it

Looks great, right down to the correct scalloped RCC panels.

mb1k said:

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Looks great, right down to the correct scalloped RCC panels.

Thanks. I have to deliver it on Wednesday , so i have a few touch ups to do and then i will photograph it tomorrow. I have to say , its been a huge amount of work. The Monogram kit is a bit crappy.
Saying that though, the Revell one im doing for a customer is a real pig. Bad joins and raised detail. That will be the last shuttle kit I take on.

I know, I know. Old thread. Holy resurrected thread Batman!

But I am resurrecting it to make it easier to look up as seeing this monster has me wanting to pull out one of my own Monogram shuttle stack kits to make a Moonraker with ET and SRBs. I did one as Atlantis from STS-117, so I've got a pretty good handle on what it needs. Can I do it in a month before the Right Stuff group build begins?

As such, I have a question for PHArchivist and Gunpowder, what shade of orange did you guys use on your respective Moonrakers? I'm considering Floquil Reefer Orange for mine, but I was curious if you guys went with a Heller based shade since Derek Meddings and his miniature effects guys likely went with that color?

BTW, one thing that helps with the fit of the ET halves is if you chop out the back wall of the ET. When Monogram molded the two halves, they stuck one inside the other in the box, so the aft wall is sort of bulged out on one of the halves and it results in the seam problems. If you attack those back walls with a Dremel to let the tank halves flex how they need to, the seam is a lot better. Since the aft ET tank structure covers up those walls anyway, they won't be seen.

As for the rough texture, Krylon texture paint works well to cover up the filled and sanded tank seams and give it a rough structure like that of the plastic.



Of course, the Moonraker studio models have smooth ETs (painted flat white) so I am likely going to try and sand that detail off (keeping a dust buster nearby to suck up all the styrene dust). I may also wrap the intertank with a styrene sheet to make it look like an oversized Airfix tank (which appears to have been the 3D reference for the studio model builds).

That is amazing work. Very inspiring.

Thanks for the updates!!!

Makes me want to dig out my old unfinished 1/144 kit on launch pad.

D6

JMChladek said:

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As such, I have a question for PHArchivist and Gunpowder, what shade of orange did you guys use on your respective Moonrakers? I'm considering Floquil Reefer Orange for mine, but I was curious if you guys went with a Heller based shade since Derek Meddings and his miniature effects guys likely went with that color?

check out this grab from the blu-ray:



The colour seems like a mustardy yellow colour.

I mixed my own with Tamiya yellow and kept adding a little red and hull red (which helped dull down the brightness) until it looked about right...

I have a bunch of 1920x1080 grabs which I'll post links to for reference...