I guess everyone is familiar with this kit. Way below average quality nowadays, although the decals are quite good, in the most part. I wanted it to be more faithful to the 6ft studio model, so I took the long road of designing custom upgrade parts and additional decals.
Replacements: 3d printed engine pylons, new consistent phaser strips on the whole ship, 3d printed impulse engines, 3d printed torpedo launcher section, epoxy cast deflector with 3d printed deflector dish
Shape fixes: removed all panel lines, added a recess with windows in front of the captain's yacht, reshaped neck's side transitions and general profile towards the front, rear torpedo launcher, saucer impulse engine openings symmetry fixes...
I also reworked the nacelles completely. Front is a translucent epoxy cast, yellow coils section is 3d printed and plugs into the front of the main nacelle body (which is also reshaped to be rounder at sides). Warp grille is a translucent 3d print. The nacelle could be lit however I left no space in the pylons for wiring to do that; I'll do it on the next one.
Paints/finish: Besides tons of spray putty/can paints while fixing the shape, I used Tamiya primer and Mr. Color 117 light blue as base color. In hindsight, I would probably chose something with more blue in it. 95%ish of the kit is covered in aztec decals. Some are quite tricky to apply/do not fit well/should be split into multiple pieces. Some areas are missing the aztecs, like the transitional piece between the nacelle and the pylon; these were brush painted. The base color was then applied in a thin layer over the aztecs to tone them down, as they have too much contrast out of the box. Vallejo varnishes went under and on top of the decals. Deflector has a custom orange mix (it is opaque) with copper for the dish. Nacelle's tips/bussards are covered with transparent red and some transparent black around the edges.
I used plenty of additional home made decals too. Added rows of windows all around the saucer and engineering edges, on the sides and rear of neck section, on pylons... One wouldn't believe just how much windows they left out, with the amount of windows that's there already out of the box! Also new rcs thruster decals, impulse engine grille, some other random pieces.
There's a 5mm blue LED for the deflector - it's anchored in an internal frame that connects the mounting hole to the neck/saucer part for extra stiffness. The stand is nothing special but is more solid than the original kit stand, so I could handle the ship more confidently while working on it.
Overall - you can build this kit really quickly but it'll show, or invest a lot of time and skill to turn it into what it should be. It's nowhere near the "new" Polar lights kits. Only recommended for the biggest fans.
Upgrade parts
Warp coils
