This kit came out early and caught a lot of people off guard, and I do know there was a lot of anticipation for this one.
Firstly we were already informed by Round 2 much earlier that there will be no changes made to the original mold, hence whatever inaccuracies that existed on the earlier opaque kit's design will also be manifested on this clear kit. Second, this kit's original intent was to facilitate lighting. There are 2 ways to go about this, you could mask the numerous windows or paint the whole darn thing and then use a sharp hobby knife to scrap off the window areas. Of course the latter only works for the patient professional, the rest of us are either going to use too much strenght or figure out a way to screw that up.
Which means you're still going to need to correct all those inaccurate parts such as the secondary bridge and neck area, the captain's yatch, etc, etc. At least with the opaque kit and being plastic, its easier to correct these. Clear parts are brittle and one wrong move would result in a crack from hell. Very hard to repair.
And here's the bombshell - its selling at almost USD$60 market rate. I almost dropped off my chair when I found that out. A normal AMT opaque kit at 1/1400 scale such as the Enterprise E is only going for about USD$30.
I still have 3 of the original opaque kits with me unbuilt, and mint in the box (MIB), and 2 of these comes with the Fiber Optic lighting set. I guess when I'm ready to work on these, I'll just depend on Don's Light and Magic to supply me with the accurate parts. Definitely giving this clear version a skip. Its going to be too tedious and frustrating to work on and I'm not even touching on the level of care you need to give just handling the parts. But if you feel ready to handle this clear version, by all means do give it a shot. Just hope with the USD$60 price tag, its worth it.
The only plus points I can find are all those new decals included with this kit. But Acreation Model's version are even better with options for the TV series or the big screen. But if you plan to do a cut away version using the clear parts as base .... AHA .. I would love to do a review on that one.
A special Thanks to Roguepink for giving us a first hand view of this kit at the Starship Modeler Forum. The images highlighted here belongs to him.
If you're interested, Starship Modeler is selling this kit at USD$49.95. You save $10 if you shop there.
Firstly we were already informed by Round 2 much earlier that there will be no changes made to the original mold, hence whatever inaccuracies that existed on the earlier opaque kit's design will also be manifested on this clear kit. Second, this kit's original intent was to facilitate lighting. There are 2 ways to go about this, you could mask the numerous windows or paint the whole darn thing and then use a sharp hobby knife to scrap off the window areas. Of course the latter only works for the patient professional, the rest of us are either going to use too much strenght or figure out a way to screw that up.
Which means you're still going to need to correct all those inaccurate parts such as the secondary bridge and neck area, the captain's yatch, etc, etc. At least with the opaque kit and being plastic, its easier to correct these. Clear parts are brittle and one wrong move would result in a crack from hell. Very hard to repair.
And here's the bombshell - its selling at almost USD$60 market rate. I almost dropped off my chair when I found that out. A normal AMT opaque kit at 1/1400 scale such as the Enterprise E is only going for about USD$30.
I still have 3 of the original opaque kits with me unbuilt, and mint in the box (MIB), and 2 of these comes with the Fiber Optic lighting set. I guess when I'm ready to work on these, I'll just depend on Don's Light and Magic to supply me with the accurate parts. Definitely giving this clear version a skip. Its going to be too tedious and frustrating to work on and I'm not even touching on the level of care you need to give just handling the parts. But if you feel ready to handle this clear version, by all means do give it a shot. Just hope with the USD$60 price tag, its worth it.
The only plus points I can find are all those new decals included with this kit. But Acreation Model's version are even better with options for the TV series or the big screen. But if you plan to do a cut away version using the clear parts as base .... AHA .. I would love to do a review on that one.
A special Thanks to Roguepink for giving us a first hand view of this kit at the Starship Modeler Forum. The images highlighted here belongs to him.
If you're interested, Starship Modeler is selling this kit at USD$49.95. You save $10 if you shop there.
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