The second repainted Constellation Class
Way back I posted on how I had a MicroMachines USS Stargazer miniature that I decided to paint up for ACTA Star Fleet. I was pretty happy with that result and so decided to troll eBay and buy a few more. In between painting the characters for our RPG group, I decided to quickly paint up the second of my Constellations.
I prefer the scale of the MicroMachines miniature to the Attack Wing version as I personally feel it is in the right proportions to the rest of my ACTA Federation fleet miniatures. Personally I feel the Attack Wing version to be too small and therefore out of scale.
From what I understand, the Constellations were a general workhorse ship designated as a light cruiser and were basically a replacement for the aging Constitution class vessels. Designed as an "all rounder" they were used in both deep space exploration and defensive patrol duties between 2285 and 2360's. By the 2360's these ships were being mothballed and slowly decommissioned. They were noted to be "overworked and underpowered" vessels, part of the weakness of being a jack-of-all-trades.
They did play a role in border conflicts with the Ferengi, Kzinti and Cardassians, seeing extensive action in particularly against the Cardassian during their war with the Federation. This puts this make of vessel in to a must have for any Federation fleet that goes up against the Cardassians in a replay of that conflict. So, naturally, I had to have more than just one.
With this one, I purposely left the identification number and name visible when I drybrushed to hull in White Scar. I also left the outer ring of windows unpainted in order to provide a differentiated colour scheme to the first ship of this class that I painted. So the two are easily discernible on the table top. The painting scheme is otherwise identical to the first one I painted.
I also did a highlight in White Scar around the top main hull in order to highlight the concentric circles of the deck plating on the upper hull. This provided a much nicer final effect in my opinion that my first attempt at this type of vessel.
I have two more left unpainted and I intend to only paint one more, leaving the other in its original yellowish colouring. I'll use that yellow version as a specialist Scout version of the Constellation and the other three as the workhorse version. Now, back to my other projects!
