Star Blazers

Here are some photos of my Star Blazers mini ships. Bandai released these box-scale kits in 1979, and they were widely available in the US in the ‘eighties. (Read more about them here: http://www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=167.)

The spaceship designs, especially the capital ships, are ‘way cool, and Bandai did a really nice job molding them. My only criticism is the peel-off stickers they had instead of decals. I threw them away and painted on whatever markings they were supposed to have, trying to be reasonably faithful to the original, while using light weathering techniques to give the surfaces some visual interest.

Here are some views of Kit No. 1, Space Battleship Yamato (Argo), along with the box art.

Here are some shots of Kit No. 5, Dessler's (Desslok's) battleship.
 





 


























Here's Kit No. 15, Gamilas (Gamilon) destroyer with mini space submarine. (I see how you could have spacecraft equivalents of surface warships, but a space submarine? Aren't they all space submarines?)

I put a bit more effort into the paint job on this one, as the ship's coloration depends on how the light hits it, an effect that is very pronounced with green. This makes it more visually interesting. Besides, my favorite color is green.

 Here's Kit No. 7, the Comet Empire Twin-deck Carrier of General Baruze (alternately referred to as Terpis or Bleak in Star Blazers). This one had peel-off stickers for the markings, including runways (light green stripes with black arrowheads). I had to mix paint to get an accurate green, then made masks for the markings.