This is a kitbash of my own design. It belongs in a fan fiction I am writing. This is the USS Scorpion. It may be familiar to some of you, as I built a version earlier using the 1/1600 scale 3-ship set, and built the USS B'Tain. This is, of course, the 1/1000 scale of the same class. I used aspects of different TOS time periods, showing that it was a ship that had received upgrades in many things. But not everything was, or needed to be, upgraded. For example the Impulse Engines. They worked just fine, so they were kept. Also, the Warp Nacelle End Caps. Those are a personal preference. I never liked the ones from the Production Version. They never made sense, and didn't look right. The ones I have here I have made into Aft Thrusters, complete with a 'Warning Yellow' around the exhaust nozzles. That makes more sense, and looks cooler than a pair of ping pong balls. The Bussards are the Production ones, showing that the ship received an upgrade to more efficient Collectors, attached to perfectly good nacelles. I'm sure that some aspects of the Warp Core was upgraded over time as well. But, those are inside the ship, so we don't see that.

The Torpedo System is a copy made from a Zoids Missile Pack. The dorsal is sheet styrene cut to shape and sandwiched together. I felt that the 3 upper grill work was probably the exhaust system, so I used pencil dust to dirty it up, showing a lot of use. The Deflector dish is attached to a strut that I made from a sewing pin, and a styrene tube. I made the styrene tube a little shorter than the pin, then I drilled a hole into the bottom of the Planetary Sensor and glued the the pin and tube into place and puttied the seams. There are products out there for this, but making it was just as easy for me, and saved me money (though not time). As a matter of fact, the Deflector's central system (the silver bit) is actually one of the Hydrogen Spikes placed through the kit's deflector dish.

I scratchbuilt the upper saucer phaser emplacements from styrene rod, as well as the Aft pair. I felt that they would be an upgrade to the ship (though personally, it bothers me that the Enterprise was a Heavy Cruiser, but only seemed to have one pair of guns! On the bottom of the saucer! Good thing Kirk's enemies were always beneath the saucer during a conflict. I'd hate to have seen the what the ship would have looked like after an encounter with a threat from anywhere else around the ship. He would've been toast).

The Bridge is from the 'First Pilot' as are the 'Saucer Clamp Locations' (I believe that is what some References have called them). The saucer windows are from the 2nd Pilot and Production versions. The Lower Saucer windows are a mix as well. Though I used access markings from the Production version to show that that area has been upgraded over time as well. For the ship's Forward Passive Sensors, they are the ones from the First Pilot, but I made the center circle slightly larger. I decided that I didn't want to stay with the 3 white circles that we are familiar with. Besides, many people have thought they were windows. I used blue on the outer ones because it would balance the look and they are a slightly different sensor system upgrade. And, it looks cool.

I also detailed, and lit the shuttlebay using some extra decals that happened to fit the actual design of a UFP starship (they are not exact since it apparently should be Red and Black, but this is a different design ship and Yellow stands out quite a bit, too. Besides, I didn't have anymore R&B ones left). I got the Yellow and Black rectangle from DLM's Decal sheet, and the two access hatches on either side of it in the floor I got from a spare sheet of JTGraphics. The Turntable warning area is a decal from the 1/530 scale marking for the shuttlepod access doors on the side of the 'E' kit. I've also included a bridge interior. I figured, why not. I like the muted blue glow it gives.

I also used JTGraphics 'Kitbasher decals' for the inboard warp engines. I always thought that they should be there, and that Gene might have done it if he had the budget. The pennant is one that I decided to use showing the markings that Starfleet uses between the TOS Era and the Movie Era. Also showing that this ship has been in service for many years. The ship's Name and Registry are 'cut and pasted' from JTGraphics sheets as well as the the kit's. Most of the ships markings are from the kit.

The paint job was my usual Testors Camouflage Gray base coat. The details were done in Testors Acrylic Light Ghost Gray and Dark Ghost Gray. The Deflector system is done in Testors Acrylic Silver and Tamiya Copper.

I don't really think the idea of weathering a starship that is supposed to have a Deflector System that pushes space dust and crap out of the way. The kind of weathering that I do is with carbon scoring from weapons use and damage. You can see scoring around the phaser emplacements, plus a few hits that got through the shields (including a hit to the aft bridge), and exhaust from the torpedo launch system. I have made an obvious turret with two emplacements on the lower saucer. The scoring shows the turrets firing arc. In a beauty shot, you can sort of see some of the carbon scoring damage on the back of the bridge.

Image: Bow low

Image: Stern

Image: Aft port quarter

Image: Dorsal

Image: Bow

Image: Bow on

Image: Forward port quarter

Image: Stern high

Image: Starboardside closeup

Image: Bridge

Image: Ventral saucer

Image: Hangar