Sunday 12 December 2010

Fleet Scale Sci-Fi: Progress Update


A quick progress report on the Fleet Scale Sci-Fi/Battlestar Galactica ships; as you can see above, I couldn't resist having a look at the Irregular Miniatures' DYC8 'Pre-' Battlestar miniature, and in addition have added a new contender for a proto-Battlestar in the shape of an interloper from Brigade Models.

I was thinking along the lines of a pre-Cylon War early Colonial vessel, perhaps we might call it an Attack-star, which served as a prototype for the larger and more capable early Battlestar, which then developed into the classic BSG era 'Galactica' et al.
Rootling around in some recent purchases from Brigade, I remembered the new Pacfed Faction Barramundi Class Destroyer (SFS-730) that I had bought, which had some nice carrier pod style booms - this, with the addition of a small Drive section made from some scrap, will fit the bill:


The Irregular mini needed quite a lot of cleaning up, before I could be let loose with the paintbrush; both the Bow and the Drive section were pretty rough, as you might have seen in the photos in my previous post, and the longitudinal axis of the hull has a raised mould line, but I left this as is, rather than file away any of the detail in this area.

I also decided to remove the gun-like projections present either side of the nose - they seemed a bit unbalanced to me, and I think she scrubs up rather well without them - the detail elsewhere, and in particular the panelling visible on hull and carrier bays is very good.


Paint-scheme wise, the early Battlestar that I am calling the 'Olympia', began with a base coat of Coat d'Arms flat black, followed by a rough dry-brush of Vallejo neutral grey, then another dry-brush of the grey mixed with white, then a lighter dry brush with just white.
This has seen the addition of various white panel detailing, and I'm going to go on to add some areas in red, as well of course complete the detailing of the bridge windows and various other greeblies overall. So far, so good, anyway!

Moving on, I dug out the GZG candidates for the fighter craft, as you can see below, to whit the ORC faction FT1201 fighter as the Cylon, and the New Israeli FT1501 fighter as the Colonial Viper:


These are pretty much the best stand-ins you can find as 'not' BSG products, outside of the Studio Bergstrom ranges, and if you're UK based, certainly save on the postal charges from the 'States....
As with all Fleet-scale craft of course, the proportions of these are way off in actual size terms, as you can see when posed next to the Olympia below:


However, they will obviously be on stands or bases as representative squadrons, or even fighter wings, rather than individual craft, so will definitely do the job.
Much more to do with all of these, naturally, but thought I'd share the progress so far....


7 comments:

  1. Hi SoS,

    I like the work on the Irregular ship - as you say she does scrub up very well - and are those white panels painted or strips of thin plastic card for relief?

    I like the fighters as well - I doubt if you could get anything closer than that!

    Any thoughts on rules at at all?

    All the best,

    DC

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  2. Nice clean-up on the Irregular fig, sometimes their flash drives me nuts. If you're interested, there's some justification for calling the earlier "-star" ships, Gunstars; at least according to some original series canon. I have no idea what the new series has as options. I think Warstars were also known, but larger than Gunstars and possibly Battlestars.

    I'm going to use Silent Death for fighter actions in the BSG universe (original series), and either Full Thrust, Starmada, or Colonial Battlefleet for fleet actions. Going by its name, CB might be the best option.

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  3. Hi DC, thanks for the comment - playing around with these ships has rather pushed my other projects to the side - (sigh) but I'm enjoying it all the same!

    The panels are the model's own - flat lined on in white after the various dry brush thrashings make them 'pop' in these photos - final detailing on the Battlestar 'Olympia' is now under way, so stay tuned for more soon....

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  4. As to rules, no, that's a long way off yet, although I do have a download of G.O.B.S. lying around somewhere - generic and fun - but I've just realised I don't even have a star-mat/cloth or black surface to play with these on! :-(

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  5. @ CJR, Hiya, thanks for the informative comment - Gunstar, it is then - I'm toying with either the name "Nova' or Albion', and am currently thinking about the paint-job - I think it needs to be quite different from the later vessels- maybe a blue or white, to show her early credentials.

    Top stuff on the rules suggestions, have to go and have a good look at all of those.....I feel project creep coming on.....!

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  6. It's not project creep until you have Battlestars in 3 different scales! I have Studio Bergstrom's tiny BSG, about 1" long, his 3" or so long version, and then Ravenstar's 5" or so long one. I'm going with the latter for most games since the rest of the ragtag fleet is that scale; the other two BSG's are best for really epic sized battles.

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  7. Amen to that! I've already caught myself perusing various manufacturer's catalogues looking for more ship options....

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