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Finishing the Head
Last time I started detailing the head of the starship. This time, I’ll show you the results in a nearly completed head. In the universe of my novels, Alliance starships all have removable heads where the bridge is located. I don’t think this is completely unique to my universe, but it is a noticeable feature of the starships.
The GCU Sokol is a mid-war main battleship, or battlewagon. It has lots of main gun ports and plenty of anti-starfighter guns. The model is showcasing what a typical warship from the Starstrikers era would look like. This is the peak of the thousand year long war with the Votainion Empire.
The first Sokol, was one of the very first warships the fledgling Alliance was able to launch. It was much smaller and had a more limited range and far less powerful weapons. If you compare the SS Sokol to the GCU Sokol, you will begin to see just how robust the military grew in a few hundred years of fighting.
A while back I took the new Sokol to work and compared it to the old one. The scale of these two warships is identical.
That little green ship is a Votainion Interceptor. You may recall that from the Starstrikers novel. It is also the same scale as the other two ships, approximately 1/700.
Okay, on to the completed GCU Sokol head. I’ll start off with this pic of the whole model on its new base.
I glued some balsa blocks to the base board. It’s a temporary setup that will allow me to work on the model without marking up the keel.
This view of the port bow shows the newly added details to that side of the head. I decided to part out an old Russian BMP kit that I had built and use it for this build. The old kit came apart mostly in tact and the head was the first piece of the Sokol to use parts from the BMP. I decided to go with the deck layers along the sides just like I will do with the main superstructure. This makes the model more interesting to look at and gives it a certain weight.
This close up shows off the bow and the heavily armored bridge. I’ll add port holes later and that will lend a sense of scale. I decided to have two top side laser turrets each with its own tub and fire control sensor domes. I think the round domes are my homage to the Star Destroyers from Star Wars.
Wherever possible, I try and maintain a symmetry with the details. But in some places, I only had one part and decided to infer that the second part had been torn apart to access the machinery inside. So while the outer appearance might be different, if you imagine what the part would look like without its skin, the details make sense.
The BMP kit’s treads were made from individual tread plates. I plan on using them as the life boat hatches for the whole model. You can see a few of them on the finished head section.
This view shows off the lower bow details. I think this part of the head turned out quite nicely.
This side view shows off the details quite nicely and gives you a nice look at the new neck pieces and the front of the main body. If you look closely you can see one of the bottom laser turrets.
Finally, a look at the top of the head. You can see the two side facing turrets and one front facing gun. I still have to decide on what to do about panel lines. I have scored some parts of the bottom but I’m not sure I will continue with that. I didn’t get a picture of the bottom, but I’ll have one next time.