Building Monogram's Kazon Cruiser From Star Trek Voyager

By Stuart Beatson

The Kazon were the Klingons of the delta quadrant and were designed to be the archenemy of the starship Voyager. They were in constant pursuit of Voyager for it's technology i.e. transporters and replicators, which the Kazon lacked. Rather than being intimidating they mostly came off as annoying and by the beginning of the third season of the show were gone. The Kazon Cruiser the principal ship in which Kazon caused so much trouble for Voyager is the subject of this article.

The ship would have to be one of the most unique designs in the Star Trek universe, and looked like it would be a lot of fun to build.

The build up started with the main hull assembly, the two halves of the hull were glued together without too much drama, however the warp core inserts which fitted into large gaps in the hull walls, were badly fitting and required quite a bit of plastic to be cut away and filler to be used in order for the joint to be a flush and smooth. The bottom part of the hull assembly was then glued on and the small gaps present were filled.

Next came the various scoops, covers, lumps and bumps which were attached to the top of the main hull, all of these went on with out to much trouble. A littler filler was required however this kit seemed to be bucking the trend of Sci-Fi kits and not causing the builder to have a nervous break down, in order to have a decent looking finish.

I was, however, premature in this assessment as I tackled the next part of the build which was the ships wings. The wings are attached to the front and back of the main hull. The back wings come in two parts, an upper and lower assembly. Theses upper and lower parts have a couple of recesses, which are to represent the part of the warp drive.. What I found when I glued these assemblies together was a very ordinary fit which left a obvious join line in the recesses. This join line was quite difficult to eliminate, it took quite a bit of carving and filler to eliminate the join line, and was the most time consuming part of the whole build.

Once satisfied with the front and back wings they were attached to the main hull and any gaps, of which there were a few were attended to. Then came the prominent front hull assembly, which was built up and attached. This was fairly straightforward and caused no real hassles. I then painted the whole ship in Testors chocolate brown.

Next came the deflector assembly of which there are two, one for each side of the forward hull. I then attached the deflector assembly and gave the model another coat of the chocolate brown.

I tried to look for some references and even watched a couple of episodes featuring the ships. Any information on the colours used on the Kazon ships is vague. Most of what I found seemed to contradict so I decided to give the ship a personal touch and used colours which I though looked right, and not follow the kit colour references.

I painted Tamiya's flat earth over the brown concentrating on the pronounce lumps and bumps on the hull. Then came coats of Testors Acryl Dark Tan and Gunze Tan. Each successive lighter colour was concentrated on highlighting the shape of the overall ship. The final stage was to dry brush in Testors Tan, which is a couple of shades lighter than the Gunze Tan, this helped to bring out all the detail especially on the ships underside.

The Glow of the warp engines was simulated with Gunze Fluorescent Orange. I was not sure how this would come out, but it looks better than I could have hoped and really simulates the glow of the engines.

I then picked out various panels on the ship with a variety of colours including Gunze IJA Green, Gunze Violet and Tamiya Hull Red. After giving the whole model a coat of flat clear it was time to fit the decals. This is when I found that I had lost the decal sheet. As this is a Star Trek kit there are not many aftermarket suppliers for decals and none from what I can see for the Kazon Cruiser. I had to make my own decals from some spare decal sheets that I had for a missile set. The yellow strips were cut up to look like windows and put on. I am fairly happy with the result although I would have preferred the kits decals.

The stand that came with the kit was assembled and painted black and it was done.

As Sci-Fi kits go this was not a bad build but having built other kits from this manufacturer there is a distinct difference in the quality of fit and detail between the Monogram aircraft kits and the Sci-Fi kits that they produced. I guess I suppose that I should be grateful that these ships are even kitted at all.

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