Craig Wheeler’s Defiant

This is the AMT Plastic Model Kit of Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s Defiant. There are not a lot of pieces, and the fit is reasonably good, except around the nacelles. Those areas had some large gaps and required some putty to fill. Because of it’s design, I assembled it in it’s entirety, and then sanded the seams, then painted everything from there. I used my airbrushed in most cases with respect to painting the paneling. I paint using Testors Model Master enamel paints. I hand mixed the hull color as a form of “light gray” For all the paneling, I only used two or three colors out of the bottle. The rest were hand mixed to achieve a subtle blend that varied from the “root” colors.

The single most valuable source of reference for photographs of the studio model of the Defiant came from the book called Star Trek Mechanics, Volume 4. If you can get your hands on this, I highly recommend it. It is soft bound and written completely in Japanese. But, as I say, The photographs of virtually every Star Trek studio model is what makes this a gold mine. This aided me in my painting scheme for my model of the Defiant.

I then sprayed on several coats of gloss prior to decaling, then followed that with dullcote. I then weathered the ship with dry-brushing in selected areas. This is where it’s all a matter of taste. (Then again, all of modeling is a matter of personal taste). Hope you enjoy.

Craig Wheeler