Chimera Class

NOTE:  You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.

What happens when you are an avid kitbasher and see a picture of a weird ship that people are making fun of?  Well, if you are me, you accept the challenge and try to build your own.

What you see above is not only the picture that inspired me to build, but also a similar angled shot of my finished project.


This ship exists in both the Prime as well as the Mirror Universes and as you will soon read, serve two very different, yet somewhat similar purposes in both of them.

USS Chimera (NX-401) / ISS Chimera (NX-401)

Chimera Class 

Planetary Observation / Planetary Blockade Vessel

1:2500 Scale AMT Kitbash

 

 

 

 

Prime Universe Notes:

The USS Chimera (NX-401) is a one of a kind Chimera Class starship that was designed to serve as a Planetary Observation vessel.

The ship is capable of multi-vector operations, where the port and starboard saucers are able to separate and operate independently of the main part of the ship.

 

The saucers are capable of reattaching without the need for a starbase.  The underside of these saucers, as well as the underside of the secondary hull of the main ship, are covered with quite a bit of high end sensor equipment.

 

With the ship being able to separate, it can cover and study a much larger area of a planet’s surface.

Because of her ungainly size and odd shape, she is only capable of a maximum speed of warp 7.  The ship also has a large rear facing shuttle bay on the bottom of the engineering hull which houses quite an assortment of shuttlecraft.

The ship was built sometime after the Battle of Wolf 359 and served up to and during the beginning of the Dominion War.  At that time, she was deployed and involved in a planetary study near the Cardassian borders.  She was ambushed and attacked by a joint Cardassian and Dominion task force and destroyed with all hands lost.

Mirror Universe Notes:

The USS ISS Chimera (NX-401) is a one of a kind Chimera Class starship that was designed to serve as a Planetary Blockade Vessel.

The ship is capable of multi-vector operations, where the port and starboard saucers are able to separate and operate independently of the main part of the ship.  The saucers are capable of reattaching without the need for a starbase.  The underside of these saucers, as well as the underside of the secondary hull of the main ship, contain multiple photon torpedo launchers.  The saucer sections essentially become mobile weapons platforms.  With the ship being able to separate, it can cover and “protect” a much larger area of a planet’s surface.

Because of her ungainly size and odd shape, she is only capable of a maximum speed of warp 7.  The ship also has a large rear facing shuttle bay on the bottom of the engineering hull which houses quite an assortment of shuttles and fighters.

The ship served the Terran Empire for a while but was eventually overwhelmed by a Klingon task force that wished to free up a world that was being held hostage by the ISS Cheron.  The ship was destroyed and all hand were presumed lost.

Real World Notes:

The idea to build this model stemmed from a picture that I saw in a Star Trek Models Facebook page.

From what I've been told, that ship is the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-I) and is called a Gemini Class.  I loved the strange look of that ship so much that I decided to make my own variant.  I also loved the fact that this build will make people scratch their head and make comments.

The final motivation to build it though came when we decided to host a contest called "Spring Cleaning Kitbash Build Contest" over at the Kitbasher's Corner FaceBook group page.  Nothing gives a better excuse to reveal some sort of monstrous creation than a kitbash contest.

For the longest time, I had a 1:2500 scale Galaxy class model sitting around that had been built sometime back in the early 90's.  I never bothered to paint it, or put it on display because it was larger than what I liked to showcase in my collection.  I eventually snapped the saucer section, neck and nacelles off so that I could better store it for parts.  The challenge then became one of what could be done with those large parts.

The first step of this project was to decide that I am NOT going to attempt to make mine look exactly like that picture.  That was easy enough.  But before I built it, I really had to sit down and decided on WHY Starfleet, or anyone for that matter would build such a beast.  Once that was out of the way, I was able to more easily justify certain build decisions for my model.

Using a dremmel, scissors and an exacto knife, I started by separating the parts that I needed, and then I continued to trim back on parts to make them piece together better.  At this point, the primary hull, and one of the saucers has been assembled.

 

 

 

The next day saw me spending quite a bit of time cutting down tiny shims to use to fill in the gaps under the main control "tower".  I also did some digging through my parts bins to find just the right pieces to serve as the Chimera's "wings", which will serve as the nacelle struts.  I really wanted something to give the ship's back a bat-like wing look.

 

The next day involved adding some shims to the engineering struts system to level off everything.  I also assembled the second of the two saucer sections.  I didn't like how close the nacelles were going to be to each other, so I cut some styrene and spread them out.  I think this will ultimately give me the look that I am envisioning.

At this point, I had hit a weekend, and it was rather busy as far as non-model building projects go.  I still managed to find some time with the Chimera  and moved the project along a tiny bit.  I used some sculpting putty to fill in lots of gaps, particularly where the engineering section mounts to the secondary hull.  An interesting side story occurred while waiting for the putty to harden.  I had allowed the engineering section to stay put so that I wouldn't mess up the shape of the putty.  Apparently, sculpting putty will bond to certain plastic materials as it dries and as a result, I did not need to glue on the completed engineering section.  After the putty hardened and was trimmed and cleaned up, I then applied two coats of the base color paint vie rattle can to all of the parts.

 

 

 

I have never been very good with spray paint cans, however, this model fared the best of all those I've spray painted during my model building career.  That being said, I still had to scrape off a little excess paint from the spray process.  I then touched up the areas that needed more paint.  Once all that dried, I then started the finer detail painting process on the nacelles and saucers.  As I gazed at my new engineering section, I decided that I needed to construct an impulse engine for the main section of the ship.  I did some more digging in my greebles boxes and found a couple of parts that looked good, stuck them on and started detailing them as well.

 

 

The next time I started back up on this model, I continued with detailing and touching up the nacelles, saucers and main hull.  The shuttle bays for this will be on the bottom rear of the secondary hull.  I put a lot of effort into, and I really like how my deflector dish turned out.

 

 

I spent the next day working on the underside of both saucers and the primary hull.  In the prime universe, the three components are going to have a lot of sensor equipment mounted on thier bottoms, hence all the gold and copper paint.  I believe that I am done with the nacelles now that I did some touch-up work on them.

 

With only 8 days left for the contest, I decided to make life difficult for myself and redo a major part of the model.  Something about the main bridge was just not sitting well for me.  I dug out a third saucer and did some eyeing up and have decided to replace the pointed beak of the ship with an actual saucer, thus giving the ship three full "heads".  So, using my trusty dremmel, I sawed out the old command bridge piece, cut the model down so that the new saucer would sit level, and then glued on the new saucer.  This process left some serious gaps that then required more putty work.  In order to expedite the build, I taped over the areas that were already detailed and spray painted the new parts and green putty.  I am thinking that this new look is going to be much better.

 

 

At this point in the build, I had all night to sit and stare at this new configuration, and I can say that I definately like it with the new look.  I painted the details on the new command saucer and then mounted the nacelles and secondary saucers to the secondary hull.  The cement is still a bit bendy on all the joins, so I'll need to let this sit overnight for it to really set before continuing with the painting.

 

 

I am getting into the home stretch on this build.  I finished all the detail and touch up work on the top of the model and then I clear-coated the top.  I will let this set for the night.

 

My final day of work on the model saw me finishing the detailing of the bottom and touching-up a few mistakes.  I decided to make one other change at this point and adjusted the paint to show only one LARGE shuttle bay rather than the two smaller ones.  I then clear coated the bottom of the model.  I will let it all dry overnight and will be ready for the final photoshoot in the morning.

 

This was one of those projects that had me wondering if it would turn out OK.  As I worked on it, I continued to wonder.  But in the end, I have to say that I am super pleased with how it all came together.  I have also found that with the right backstory, Trek fans will forgive almost every weird looking design that you throw at them.  The reaction to this build has been very well received and that made me happy with the build as well.

As always, I hope you found this article useful and informative.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment below.

So for now, "Live long and prosper!!!"



Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:

The Model
Work In Progress