Hello fans,

this is my first post / thread here on itch.io and the first entry for the 2021 PaperJams.

I am a hobby paper model designer from Germany and co-admin of www.zealot.com , an international paper modeling forum. I am a huge "Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers" fan so you can already guess my priorities. You can see some of my work at www.stevespaper.com , www.paperaviation.de and of course www.zealot.com (where I am known as "Revell-Fan" ;) ).

This time it is all about "Redline Racers", paper toys that are super-charged vehicles that compete in a fictional race full of wacky and over-powered cars. Since I am a huge "Battlestar Galactica" fan the topic was clear to me from the start: A four-wheeled vehicle with massive thrusters that will go from 0 to 100 in a flash: The notorious Colonial Viper Car!

The best part of this project: The Viper car really exists. It is a street legal car built by Dean Shorey, the master ride mechanic for Seabreeze Amusement Park in Rochester, NY. The base was an old small-block paired with a mail truck. It seats one person, has a cassette deck but no a/c and no bumpers.

A quick Google search provided me with a few nice pictures of the real thing which were quite handy for my design work in SketchUp:

The parts were then cleaned up, unfolded and textured in CorelDRAW. Stay tuned for the test build! :)

Beeindruckend. Bin mir sicher dass am Ende was gescheites raus kommt.

Thank you! :)

What a surprise to see a comment in German. This is my first thread on itch.io, so I thought the language to use was English. If you don't mind, I'd keep posting in English so that international fans may understand what I'm writing. ;)

Please excuse the late reply. I have a very busy job and am working on a few other projects at the same time. Now then. After successfully texturing the parts in CorelDRAW I have started the test build. Here come the first pictures! :-)

As you can see I was working very hard on this kit. The small size of some of the parts made it a bit challenging but with patience it can be done. ;)

I started with the nose and the cockpit. Unfortunately I worked so fast that I did not take any pics of the interior assembly but it is not all that different than the one from my 1/48 Colonial Viper kit. Basically you build a tub, put the seat into place and glue it to the nose piece whilst it is still open. Then you add the rear plate and close everything.

This closeup shows you the little detail I worked into the kit. It is still pretty basic but it helps to bring it to life. Since I have no pictures of the real dashboard I had to make up the detail myself. You see a retro-style steering wheel with a Galactica-style honk button. The cassette deck was important to me since this info was given in the description of the car. Usually that deck would be located on the bottom of the dashboard, however, if I had put it there it would have vanished completely. So I decided to put it right on top. I hope the original creator forgives me for that but heck - this vehicle is so wild that I think this will only add to its charm. :-D

The nose insert features re-used lights from my Landram model. Please note the license plate! :-D

The main thrusters are simple tubes with front and back inserts. It took a few attempts to size them correctly.

The wings are straight forward, too.

These are the parts for the fuselage.

Since the side thrusters are embraced by the fuselage it would have been impossible to add them without issues. So I decided to cut the mounts in halves and make a two-piece assembly. As a nice side effect the texture aligns exactly in this spot so that the seam line should become completely invisible in the end.

A future update will show you exactly what I mean.

What would a Colonial Viper car be without greeblies? I have added a lot of these for you to spruce up the kit.

I laminated them directly to the surface to save time. If you want to achieve a stronger 3D look feel free to thicken them up a bit by laminating them to additional layers of paper.

And these are particularly made for my dear friend Rhaven! :-D

The cannons are complete. I am now working on the wheels. Stay tuned! :-)

Wooooooooow! I can't wait to see how it looks finished!

Thank you! :)

The side mirrors are pretty small. Take your time to assemble them.

The wings and fin tend to bulge a bit. To make them keep their shape I added some scrap paper laminated together.

:)

Now we are getting serious! ;-)

This is the assembled fuselage.

The completed engine tubes. I made a mistake by attaching the inserts the wrong way. These pictures here show the intended configuration. Please note that the seam lines on the rear inserts and on the tubes must match.

The wings are attached to the side engine tubes. Then the tubes are put into the slots of the fuselage:

The fit is good and the parts are perfectly aligned:

The high engine is glued into place:

And the fin:

This last picture looks like a booster jet you could add on to any other RR car. XD

Now comes a major update! :)

The axles for the aft wheels are pre-shaped.

Just like the axles the rear wheels are not complete but cut in halves to make assembly easier. If I had left them complete you would have had to cut a hole into the fuselage and the engine tubes.

The aft wheels are glued into place. As you can see I attached the license plate as well. ;)

The front axle and front wheels however are complete.

To prevent the axle from shifting to the left or right two thin strips are glued to it.

Then the wheels are pushed over the axle and glued to it.

The hub cap hides the flaps.

Both vehicle halves are attached.

The mirrors are glued into place.

I'm now attaching several greeblies such as the lights.

Almost there..! :)

Here comes the final update before the reveal. Lots of greeblies have been added.

Some deco. ;)

Stay tuned for the finished vehicle! :)

Some quick pics on the bench

and in the box. ;)

Sorry for the wait but I was busy getting the instructions done. But here they come:

BEAUTY PICS!!!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

A revision was made on Jan 9th, 2022. The front lights were covered by the nose flaps. This mistake was corrected. Everyone who had downloaded the file before this date may choose to replace it. :)