After I got up close and personal during my review of the JJverse Klingon D4 Bird Of Prey, I began to wonder what the Romulans, more importantly, thier ships, would look like in this new universe. You can read my review of the Klingon JJverse BOP at THIS LINK. Eventually though, I shelved the thought and went on with my merry model making, until I came across a toy from a McDonald's Happy Meal. And from that tou was born this model of what I imagine the Romulan Bird Of Prey would look like.
The though process behind this look was that in the TOS universe and era, the Klingons and Romulans were known to share technology. That being said, it was feasable to me that the Romulan BOP might have a closer resemblance to the Klingon BOP.
In Universe Notes:
Romulan Lunala Class
JJverse Bird Of Prey
[Unknown Scale Scratchbuild]
Weapons: Rotating Dual Phaser Turret, Four Front Facing Claw Disruptors, Two Forward Facing and one rear Facing Torpedo Launcher
Defenses: Shields, Cloaking Device
The ship is about the same size as a Klingon D-4 Bird Of Prey and is believed to carry roughly the same amount of crew. The command module is located in the "head" at the front of the ship.
The ship is warp capable and able to travel around the primary Romulan system rather quickly. The warp nacelles are located under the wings and bear a strong resemblance to Starfleet technology. It is believed that some Starfleet technology was captured a one point and engineered into this ship design.
Like her Klingon cousin, this type of ship is heavily armed and used for border and planet patrols. the landing "feet" also serve as forward facing disruptor canons.
The top mounted gun turret provided a 360 degree range of firing capability.
There are also weapons mount points on the bottom of the wings for bombs.
The ship has variable geometry wings, much like her Klingon counterpart. This allows the ship to operate in space as well as a planets atmosphere. There are several stabalizers on the ship to give it more maneuverability a higher speeds when maneuvering on a planet.
The ship appears to have an over powered impulse engine which probably helps power its weapons and defensive systems.
The ship is also cloak capable, thus allowing it to be a rather deadly adversary.
Other than that, not a lot is know about this type of ship as thier sightings have been rare and in most cases brief.
Real Universe Notes:
This ship started life as a McDonalds Happy Meal toy that my daughter did not want.
As it sat in my car for two weeks, I kept imagining it as a potential starship. Since we have never seen a Romulan ship yet in the JJverse, and she sort of had that strange look that we are getting introduced to in those movies, I figured that I would run with the idea.
After I decided to run with the idea of it being a Romulan ship, I posted on a few model building FaceBook groups that I hang out at and asked for some classification name ideas. Eventually, I ended up going with the name Lunala which is actually what Pokemon that toy is representing.
I started the project by removing the wings, cutting off the head, trimming it down, and remounting it to look like a bridge module.
I have this really cool looking metallic green paint, that is sometimes referred to as Jade, that I always use for my Romulan ship builds. I sprayed down the entire model and let it dry overnight.
I actually let it dry for 24 hours. This is important because I learned long ago that the metallic paint needs to cure a bit longer than other enamels. Once the pain dried, I really liked the look of the old paint scheme sort of showing through, so I decided to leave it go a one coat.
The next step was to dig a ton of greebles out of my parts bin to fill the model in a bit more so that it looked more bird like and starship like. One thing that I decided to do was to use some spare nacelless from an NX kit as they had that slight angle that we see in the JJverse. I turned some tail pieces from a Cardassian ship into some claw-like blasters and mounted a bubble gun from a Space Battleship Yamato Cosmo Tiger model to the top. I then added some greebles to the tail to serve as engine parts.
Note: Sorry for the blurry images, in the next series of pictures. I didn't realize they were like that until it was too late to retake them. My camera was constantly focusing on my fingers.
The next two days was taken up by a lot of painting of those new greebles on the top and bottom of the model. I also panted the command module to have a more predatory bird like head look.
As the paint was drying on the extra parts, I noticed two things that I was not happy with and decided to address before I proceeded with the clean-up paint work. The first was the fact that there were two screw holes along the back of the ship. These are there to access the battery that powers the light inside the toy. Although I could have puttied these shut, it would then hinder my ability to access the battery in the future. I dug out two greebles and glued them over the holes. I should be able to easily remove them with an exact-o knife. The other issue was that one of the nacelles was mounted further forward than the other nacelle. My OCD got the best of me and I ripped it off and re-glued it on. And then I finished the model off with a bunch of touch-up painting.
And that is how I turned an ordinary McDonald's toy into a bad-ass Romulan starship.
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:
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