Ive had a old Monogram BSG Colonial Viper kit for a few years now. Wanted to get started on this…this will be my first model I build and use my new air brush and compressor on and first ive built in almost 20 years(got a Jagd Panther kit and a M48 tank kit also in the wings but wanted to get back into this with a easy kit and practice some airbrushing and weathering on a cheap kit first).
The worst thing with this kit is well it basically has no cockpit…if I was still doing models like i was in my Teenage years id have plenty of jet/airplane cockpit leftovers to “fabricate” something…unfortunately I dont have ANYTHING any more…and that cheesy no glass “canopy” just looks horrid…I guess I could just do it with that on but is there any alternatives out there for a cockpit/canopy for this thing that wont break the bank??
There used to be resin stuff for it. But, Monogram re-released a 30th Anniversary kit that addressed the old kits flaws; like canopy and cockpit. You might be better off holding onto the old one and getting the remake off Ebay or through some supplier; I think they’re still current.
I will probably just build it them with the “junk” cockpit the box is ruined anyways…good test bed for some weathering and painting I guess…didnt realize it was the old model till i got it …I didnt even realizt it till i opened the box started test fitting and saw it and at first i could not even figure out what part it was…i looked and said…hmm this looks like a cockpit without the glass…then i looked for the cockpit and canopy that I FIGURED(lol) would be in there then when i saw none I was like…how cant they just at least include a cockpit and glass canopy and NO pilot but even for that time frame to do a junk cockpit/canopy like that was just horrible…
I got mine from starship modeler. It is a MMI kit. there is a single and duel cockpit kit. I had the single, I got the duel. I am also scratching a landing gear kit for my duel cockpit viper. am taking the specks off the original blueprints from 79. there used to be a MMI kit for landing gear, but MMI has gone the way of the original t.v. series. as for breaking the bank, if you want it long enough, you can rob banks and get one.
I was afraid of that(the company that made the kit going bye bye) as when I looked I could no longer find it. Oh well as I said I will just do it with the junk cockpit/canopy type deal and use it as a weathering/painting learning experience to try to get down some stuff to use on my Jagd Panther …
I saw that just yesterday when i was getting ready to start on the Viper…when I saw the price of just the cockpit/canopy I gave up on that idea…I paid $12-15 for the entire kit I could not see paying $25 for just a very small part of it…next time i will just be more intelligent and look to see what kit im getting…so far i got a Jagd Panther kit that SHOULD have Zimmerit and didnt so im adding on that kit now and a Viper that should have had a cockpit and didnt lol…oh well live and learn I guess.
You do realize that except for a handful of German armor kits issued in the last few years, zimmerit was rarely added to kits by the manufacturer. If you wanted it, you had to add it yourself. Italeri tried to add it to their Tiger and Panther kits in the 1990s and were thoroughly ridiculed for the attempt.
Besides, adding it to a vehicle that required it is easier than removing it from the kit that didn’t.
I thought of another option. If you don’t want to bother with AM parts but are willing to have something in-canon from the movie/show, you could always have the cockpit part covered in sheet styrene to show a Viper from the scene where they were minesweeping in the Nova of Madagon. It would also be an excuse to weather the heck out of it.
The kit doesn’t go to waste or get sent to storage til you need spare parts, it’s a low-cost solution, and you get a chance to familiarize yourself with the quirks of the kit to prepare you for the really nice one you’d want to build later.
Glad I could help. I know that I’ve gotten a few things on eBay that weren’t quite as advertised or lost/ruined parts that ended up causing me to have to abandon an idea here and there, so I’m used to trying to find some kind of way to salvage something if possible. Such experiences are also why I’m a big fan of the idea of getting “spares” if the kit’s not too expensive, and holding on to whatever parts of a botched project that seem like they might be useful someday.
I guess it was more me just not realizing that it didnt have a cockpit than anything goofy happening…I just figured ALL models had a cockpit and pilot lol…
You have to remember that these kits came out just before the TV show Battlestar Galactica came out in the late 70s. The Viper and Raider were more toys that fired rubber band powered missiles that detailed scale models. If I remember correctly, the canopy was solid and included black decals to be windows.
Other Monogram kits based on sci-fi TV shows, like Buck Rogers’ Starfighter and Draconian Marauder (they at least had clear plastic windows) didn’t have much in the way of cockpits either. I remember the Marauder just having a red clear window and no cockpit either.
yup thats the model I got basically solid plastic cockpit that you could paint or put the decals that came with the kit on the windows…has a rubber band missile shooter but i left it out. as I said I just didnt even think about it when i got it…even a clear cockpit/canopy would have been fine I really dont care if it had a pilot or not to be honest…but its 90% built now I just gotta paint and detail it I still have not attached the engine or front part as I will paint those separately then put them together…just seems easier to do it that way. Then im debating if im gonna use the decals and go “original” or mask it off and paint on my own “stripes” and such…I tend top prefer the dark red/maroon color of the stripes/markings in the new series over the orange ones of the old series…just depends on how ambitious I want to get I guess…
In case you go with the “orange” look, I found that the Testors “Russian Marker Red” is an exact match.
Personally, the “red or orange” option seems to be best determined by what base color you’re using, IMHO. The orange seems to look better on a gray base color, giving the impression of being more worn and faded than the intense red would. The red ( usually, I think of Insignia Red as being a good one ) provides a nice contrast if you use a white or very light “cool” gray base color.
I like the way you think! Mine was the old version with the rubber band missile launcher