Blake’s 7 Liberator
Hello all.
This is my latest lockdown project, the ‘Liberator’ from the classic 1970s BBC series ‘Blake’s 7’. If your not familiar with it, Blake’s 7 followed the escapades of a group of freedom fighters opposing a dystopian galactic government. It was low budget and had pretty poor special effects (even for the 1970s), but made up for it with excellent scripts, interesting (and morally gray) characters and good (ish) acting.
The model was a 3D printed kit I found on eBay.
For reference I used photos of the original studio model (which was sold recently).
I removed a lot of the original kit surface detail as it was either out of scale or of very poor print quality and replaced it scratch build using thin plastic and and tubing.
My experience of 3D printed kits so far is that they are very good for the basic shape and large sub assemblies but when it comes to fine detail you are often better off just removing them and scratch building new ones.
As with previous 3D kits this one had a rough surface finish that required a lot of filling, sanding and heavy use of Mr Surfacer. I found that a lot of fillers have trouble adhering to the resin used in 3D printed kits. Even after degreasing and some light sanding several of the brands I used would not adhere that well. In the end I found that Tamiya putty works well.
Fit wise though, the kit was excellent.
Painting used Tamiya acrylics and MIG weathering washes.
It can be quite difficult to tell the colour of space ships and TV screen shots are often misleading. Again I fell back on sales photos of the actual studio model. The paint scheme used under shading with very dark gray with a base coat of on off white, then panelling in two shades of darker off white/light gray. No decals are supplied with the kit so all markings were masked and sprayed. Weathering was done using selected applications of MIGs starship streaking and wash.
The base incidentally comes with the kit and was hand painted.
Hope you enjoy it
Kind regards
Paul
I don’t know that TV series and obviously neither the space ship, but your model looks solid in just about everything
I remember Blake's 7. Darkest SF of its era with the gloomiest ending ever. Your well done model certainly looks the part of the Liberator.
Thanks for the tip about Tamiya putty sticking to 3D printed parts plastic. Will file that away till I need that one.
This a fantastic build, Paul!
Didn't know about Blake's 7, so I watched a bit in YouTube.
Low budget might it have been, but I loved watching. There was something "cult" about it.
Your representation of the Liberator is great!
Nicely done!
Great build. I remember watching the show way back when. It was dark but it was never meant to be a Buck Rogers type show. 3D printed kits do require more work but we probably would never have seen this otherwise.