A Beautiful “Stylized” 1:100 N1 Moon Rocket

Guy from Illinois sent me photos of his beautiful “stylized” version of the N1. He did an exceptional build and is obviously an expert modeler. Here’s the information he sent me on his build process:

Paint is all acrylic air brush with a gray I matched to recent Soyuz photos. I use good ‘ol dope sanding sealer and a lot of sanding to get a very smooth finish on 3D printed parts. I then use extra fine lacquer primer before acrylic air brush for the final color coat. I typically dull coat scale rockets as well but the satin sheen of the colored paint was perfect and left it as is. The Gray color is Federal Standard FS 36081. It is called Sea Plane Gray in Vallejo ModelAir airbrush acrylic paint and for brush acrylic on details I used ModelMaster Euro 1 Gray. Variants of gray are so subtle, it is hard to photograph exactly so hopefully it comes across in the photos I sent. I was originally planning on using FS 36118 (Gunship Gray) but after studying as many old color N1 photos as I could find and color balancing them as best I could in Photoshop and then after great deliberations and contemplation, I decided on the Sea Plane Gray because it was a bit warmer and has a VERY subtle hint of green, like Soyuz.

.”alsoAs you can see, I also embellished it with some decals. I just thought it needed something. Although not true to scale since the original does not appear to have any markings, I got this idea from an artist rendering of the N1 on the pad that I found on the internet. I make my own custom decals in PhotoShop and print them with a high res 6-ink Epson ink jet printer.

I made one small modification to the airframe. I installed a 29mm motor mount tube that was about an inch longer so I could use a G80. I also seriously considered adding an ejection charge baffle but a BT50 stuffer tube is tricky for baffles to function properly, so didn’t do it in the end. I also needed to add some nose weight to balance it for the larger motor. I believe I believe I used a bit over 80 gms. My first flight will be with an F67 as you recommend though.

I was also super impressed with the Orange and White Spherachutes that you suggested and I ordered a 48”er for this one. I love a good chute!  It’s a bit of a tight fit with a DinoChute nomex deployment bag in the BT70, but I will figure out something. Hope to fly it soon and I’m sure I’ll post the flight video on Twitter and NAR Facebook page. Thanks again for this very cool and enjoyable build! 

Guy also shared his N1 decals with us in both PDF format and in PNG format. These files can be printed 4″ x 6″ on ink jet decal paper.

Thank you Guy for sharing with us your incredible build!