Battle Damaged Batwing

PeteVenkman

Well-Known Member
Hello all, here is another project I have going on the side when I need to take a breather from my TOS bridge build. Apologies for the long-winded intro, this kit has a 20+ year history.

I originally bought this model back when it first came out, in 1990 if I remember correctly, while I was in high school. At the time I thought that this was the coolest Bat-plane ever designed, and I still do. I remember that I wanted to take my time building this so it would look it's best. My modelling kung-fu was less impressive at that time, in those days I hardly even painted my kits. I just slapped them together and threw the decals on in one day builds that I was happy with. But this one I wanted to be different and so I slowly started to assemble it.

By the time I graduated in '91 and moved out on my own the kit sat about 2/3rds completed and was forgotten about. I moved on and learned to play music. I spent my days busking and my nights playing with bands and pushed all thoughts of toys and models out of my mind. After all, that was kids stuff, right? Music, drawing and women were all that mattered to me.

Ka is a wheel. Around '97 I got bitten by the building and collecting bug in a bad way. It started out innocently enough, a couple of the 'new' Power of the Force action figures (an R2-D2 and C-3PO) and grew from there. Little did I realize I had stared down the path of the beam to my own Dark Tower. A path that has brought me here. In 2001 I discovered Proptopia and ASAP. That's when I knew building was going to part of my life forever.

It was around that time that I found this kit buried in my Dad's garage while I was back East visiting my folks. It was in a box that was under a pile of other boxes of my stuff stored away. Instant nostalgia. I brought it back to Vancouver with intentions of finally 'building it right'. Everything survived the journey accept the canopy. Canopy's are my bane, I almost always buggered them up. I didn't know about such wonderful things as Micro Krystal Klear then. Needless to say I was somewhat deflated by this. But I couldn't just chuck out this artifact of my youth so I decided to make an omelette out of this broken egg. "I'll make a battle damaged version, like after the Joker shot it" I thought. And it was in that moment that I took my first step in customizing a build and not just building it out of the box. And even though I had gained some experience in building by then I was still making all kinds of amateur mistakes. I used epoxy to glue the kit together. I used it right over the paint, no sanding. In a way that was for the best as I would find out later.

About a year later the tab at the top of the support on the stand (the part that mounts the model) snapped off. I thought, "Well that's that. I can't repair that." and it went into a box and was forgotten. Up until a few weeks ago. While cleaning out a closet I stumbled across this kit once again and realized I still loved it, though it now lay in several pieces as the epoxy had let go. "Now," I thought, "I can fix this."

This kit was never about screen accuracy, it was always about pushing my self and my skills further. And has been the kit where I have taken several first steps including, as simple as it is, making my own support for a stand.

I began with Krystal Klear. Time to re-attach that busted canopy. Remember, this canopy didn't survive the cross country trek and was reassembled using regular modle glue. I told you I didn't know what I was doing then. So it is a bit messy/foggy.

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And while I had the canopy off I thought I'd get a shot or two of my panicked Batman who I posed ripping out the box with the ejection button on it. It's totally made up and not from any reference. The part is self is taken form a BTTF II Delorean kit...I think. (I can't remember exactly what I stole that part from.) In my head I thought it would make a better 'story' to have Bats doing 'something' other than just sitting there. Things are shot up and not working and Batman is trying to get out of the plane before it crashes is the impression I'm going for.

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Batman looking good and scared and bloodied...
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Good shot of the damage from Joker's gun
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Dry fit.
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Now on to the stand. First I removed the original support and sanded the paint off the bat. Then I filled and sanded the original hole.

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I then used some textured paint to create a new surface. The gloss black I used originally was fine but I wanted to try something new. I like the results very much.

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A new hole was drilled and a collar inserted and JB Welded into place.

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I did the same for the Batwing...

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And that is where I am at with this. I just have to re-glue everything together with, hopefully, minimal clean up needed. I don't want to have to repaint the whole kit. As long as it holds together and can sit on a shelf I'll be happy to finally leave this kit alone.

One point of interest...In lieu of using the decals I painted all the markings and lights by hand with glow in the dark paint.
 
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Thank you guys. One thing this kit taught me is "Never give up. Never Surrender."

@brandomack. We should go for another beer sometime if schedules permit and you are game.
 
Alright, update time! I got it all together and finished up. I thought a long time about seaming this up but decided against it. I didn't want to have to repaint the entire model as I still rather like the over all look. If this were a brand new build I'd put the effort into it, but to be honest I'm happy just seeing it in one piece again. I really love this kit. And the stand is a total success!:thumbsup












 
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