1/1000 Year of Hell Voyager build (commission)

My breakdown of the Polar Lights 1/1000 scale U.S.S. Voyager model kit, built as a representation of the ship's appearance in the 2-part episode "Year of Hell".

This project was an exciting one to take on, and I am very glad I was reached out to do it. It is composed entirely of techniques and skills I had never attempted before.

Firstly I started planning. In order to properly create the exposed interiors, I knew I wanted to actually construct the interiors. Supplies such as styrene sheets, styrene strips, photoetch, and Greenstrawberry resin greeblies were purchased. The photoetch used for the damaged areas are for the 1/1000 scale Enterprise Refit to recreate the damage inflicted by the Reliant. I only wanted the pieces that go behind the holes for areas where the main hull was blown away, but it has not reached the decks yet.

Since this is something I had never attempted myself, I took inspiration from other people's takes on damaged ships and studied how the CGI model looked in the show. Below are some of those inspiration images, credits unknown.

I also worked with the client to determine which of the damaged areas seen on screen are the most important to them. It is important that the model appears as their internal idea of what the Year of Hell Voyager looks like, and the best way to do that is hit the major notes. Of course the major areas on the saucer were selected, including the phaser conduit blowout on Deck 5. Another area of interest was the slight damage of the nacelle. The port nacelle was called out to be offline in the episodes, but that will be addressed later. Most of these the client liked the concept of, like the damaged landing pad and a hit to the deflector array.

In addition to the supplies required for the damaged areas, the ship itself had to look nice in its undamaged form for authenticity. Greenstrawberry and Paragrafix photoetch designed specifically for this kit were bought. These provide details for the bridge, secondary deflector, transporter emitters, and windows (of which I did not use). In addition to paints, this is what was purchased for the build.

Speaking of paint, colors had to be chosen. I rarely like out-of-bottle colors, and being loyal to Tamiya does not help. Therefore a ton of mixing and testing was to be had. My eye for color is continually developing, but I have become quite familiar to how Tamiya colors mix.

A decision had to be made for going with the baby blue studio model look, or the grey on-screen look. I tried to go for an in-between. Fortunately for me, the final product was blue in person and grey on camera, just like the studio model. How about that!

The hull was mixed with about 20 parts white, 3 parts Sky Blue, 12 or more parts Sky Grey (depending on taste) and I believe I added a part or 2 of ocean grey 2 for darkness. The phasers are a concrete tan/grey on the studio model. To replicate this I started with 10 parts buff, added 5 parts Sky Grey for desaturation, and 2 parts white for further desaturation and lightness.

The deflector and RCS color was quite interesting. It is a rich orange color that can only be compared to the Enterprise D's desaturated brown color. I did a lot of mixing to get this right, even taking the opinion of my fiancée. In the end I decided on 4 parts orange and 10 parts light brown for desaturation.

Panel colors were mixed with a lightened sky grey, and a medium blue with some sky grey and white. Exact mixtures were not recorded.

Now that supplies and colors were decided, I needed to practice some damage techniques before I take a rotary to the plastic. I had a spare Revell Kelvin Enterprise saucer laying around to experiment on. I needed to practice holes and craters in the hole, especially directional. Burn streaks I was already familiar with.

This was done with a ball grinder for the divots and a sanding drum for the lines. A black Tamiya panel liner was used to fill in the grooves. Dark grey was lightly sprayed around the damage. Silver from Tamiya's weathering masters was drybrushed over the highlights. This technique ended up being used all over the Voyager.

Since I am creating damaged areas that are installed from behind, I constructed this kit a little out of order than what would normally be considered. Usually you would lightblock (spray black paint on the interior except for where you want light to conduct), illuminate by installing LEDs and routing wires, assemble, and then paint/decals.

I wanted this model to look like the damage was applied over a stock/clean ship. So my process was lightblock, paint/decal, damage, illuminate, and assemble as the last step. This will make more sense as I go.

For the lighting, I created an Arduino sketch to cycle between damage "modes" and program a nacelle flicker effect. Firstly the Voyager is completely damaged, just fire. Then power is restored, windows and systems come online but the port nacelle is damaged. Then fires are put out. And finally the nacelle is repaired.

Preliminary photoetch was glued onto the hull for added details. Paragrafix supplies pieces that clean up the impulse engine grilles. I removed the plastic on the kit parts. The photoetch part wraps around the impulse engine (this was installed after the nacelle was assembled as it wraps around the 2 kit halves). Transporter emitters and other relevant details were placed in their respective areas all attached with CA glue. The tiny secondary deflector from Greenstrawberry was a welcome addition. It provides much more detail than the kit part and wasn't too difficult to assemble.

Even though I said lighting was the 2nd to last step, it was beneficial to fully light up and assemble the nacelles. No damage beyond surface scrapes would be applied, so I did not have to worry about installing anything from behind. It also helps with seam work due to the smooth surface where the seamlines would be, and installation. The nacelle has 2 clips that simply push into the shuttlebay landing deck. These clips also facilitate articulation of the nacelles, which I wanted to preserve.

Lighting was easy, with a strip of white LED tape for the blue chiller grille, a 3mm red led pointing forward for the bussard collectors, and a 3mm red LED pointed backwards for the impulse engine. Some carving is required for this. .25mm fiber optics were also attached, extended away from the plastic for painting. These will be routed into the secondary hull for illumination.

The nacelles were also the first to receive paint. I used Aztek Dummy masks to help with masking clear parts and painting the complex curves of the panels. The original studio model did not have a traditional "Aztec" panelling pattern on the hull. Instead, for visual interest, airbrushed streaks and panel fading were added. I tried to replicate this the best I could using a lighter mixture of the hull color. These can be more easily seen on the grey panels on the original model, but they exist everywhere.

Once I was completely confident in my colors and lighting, it was time to move on to the main hull. Aztek Dummy provides window masks for this model, with plenty of spares. The size is very small, so many of the cuts were not complete. In addition to the exterior window masks, interior masks were provided as well. These exist so that the majority of the lightblocking can occur on the interior, and you only have to worry about the windows and seams on the exterior.

Painting can now begin! A healthy few layers of grey Tamiya Fine Surface primer was applied. I then discovered I missed a couple transporter emitters and applied them where they belong. I must say, a nice coat of primer is the 2nd sexiest look a model can have. First being the finished product of course. Primer makes all of the details visible, and this newer Polar Lights kit gets it right.

Time to detail! The first picture shows the slightly bluer color of the hull (top saucer) compared to the straight grey of the primer (bottom saucer). The faded panels are all over the studio model so I spent a good amount of time getting them right. I did them in stages because it would be impossible to do them all at once. The masking tape needed to create the hard edges of the fading would overlap with other panels that need the same detail. To contrast the light fading, dark streaks were sprayed following the model's panel lines

After that, its standard Voyager details with the sensor palettes, secondary deflector, phaser strips, and other miscellaneous colors.

The kit decals for the transporter emitters are definitely not great. They are almost the same color as the deflectors. A custom color was mixed for these.

As you can tell by the last image, the window masks could finally be removed! The light conducting material these "transparent" kits are molded in are great for this scale. It provides natural light diffusion which provides even lighting throughout the model.

The same painting techniques were applied to the rest of the model

Once the entire model was painted, it was time to decal. All decals were applied as if the model were complete. This is so damage, streaks, and burns go through the decals authentically. Firstly, a gloss coat was applied. This ensures the only thing the decals have to conform to is the details of the model, not the texture of the paint.

Once all decals dried, another gloss coat was applied to make the texture of the decals uniform to the rest of the model. Some grey panel liner was applied on the models panel lines and wiped clean. Then a clear flat coat was sprayed over the entire model to seal it in and give the model the desired overall look.

To procrastinate on destroying such a beautiful model, I turned my attention to the display base. This is important for lighting the model anyway. Paragrafix provides decorations for your model's base in almost all of their sets so I took advantage of this. I painted black over the pieces and sanded them so the black only stayed in the recessed areas. They were then glued to the base and installed with the barrel plug for power and the pushbutton to cycle the model's damage modes.

*sigh* I guess its time to face this. Knowing that the final result will be worth it, I planned the holes in the hull with pencil. I traced the lines with a dremel and a micro drill bit to place many dots. The plastic remaining between the holes was cut with a hobby knife (be careful!). The holes were cleaned up with the same knife to remove the extra connecting material.

The plastic of the model is quite thick, so to help with the scale I came from behind with a drum sander bit on a dremel and thinned the plastic. This helps with the illusion and prevents you from seeing the full thickness of the plastic. The first picture is a hole where this was not done yet. The middle picture shows the carved material, and the last picture shows the final product.

Now it was time to construct the interiors. I have had no scratch-building experience prior to this so it was quite a challenge creating shapes that fit with the internal shape of the hull.

Once the "box" was constructed, decks and hallways were added. Then comes the details. Just adding random bits of rubble didn't seem right. I added strips of styrene to represent fallen struts and bulkheads. Fallen floor panels were added, and some thin styrene in random shapes was added to the edge of the visible deck to make it appear like bent metal flooring. Since this area exposes what would be behind the sensor palette and secondary deflector, greeblies from the Greenstrawberry sets were added. I included 30 gauge wire as fallen conduits. Thinning the material around the holes left melted chunks of plastic. I decided to sprinkle these chunks around. I took a small ball bit to the floors of this interior for damage texture. Around the opening of the hole I added small bits of copper mesh to the edges as if there was a grid layer between the outer hull and the interior.

Texture to the rim of the hole was created using the described techniques above.

The damaged room was primed and painted primarily black. To add depth and color, Tamiya weathering master was used. Rust, Sand, and Silver were used to highlight details and provide more damage-related colors than just boring black. The rim of the hole was also drybrushed with the weathering master silver.

Holes for 3mm flickering orange LEDs were drilled from behind in places where the light can bounce around (where black paint didn't reach) and in places where the LED cannot be seen directly from most angles.

For the smaller holes, the photoetch for the 1/1000 scale refit was used. They were painted black and drybrushed with the weathering silver. On one hole I glued wires spanning across the hole representing exposed conduits. On a larger hole I added a large amount of the copper mesh. All of these things are to create continuity on how the ship is constructed. Each layer is in the same order across holes, decks and overhead beams follow the ships panel lines.

The largest holes in the hull followed the same philosophy as the first. Everything is epoxied into place.

The code for the flickering nacelle was finalized before the Arduino is inaccessible.

Onto wiring! Navigation lights that are illuminated with fiber optics were lit with 3mm LEDs. A resin printed part made by Justin Pang made this very easy. 10 fiber optic lights were routed through the shuttlebay landing pad and curved toward where the LEDs would be installed. Somehow, Articulating the nacelles is still possible! LED tape was used for the rest of the lighting. Light leaks were treated as-needed, and decals that could not be added before were added now, such as the ones applied right at the seam of the saucer halves.

When the model was assembled, I remembered I saved part of the original drilled-away hull. This piece would be later sent to my client along with the model.

Now, the model is not complete with just the holes in various places. This ship was royally messed up by the Krenim by the time Janeway was ready to risk it all. My client had to send the Kylo Ren "MORE" gif to get the model to what it needed to be. And I'm glad they did. The first 2 pictures were what I thought was complete. Damage was made from thinned black paint and some places of dark grey. Blemishes were made with the same dremel and weathering techniques.

Watch this model in action and in physical form! Final images can be viewed here. Please let me know your thoughts!