Studio Scale Cylon Raider

dbhs

Here's my V2 Raider that I finished building about a year ago. It's been on hold and I'm working on the painting now. Below are a couple of pics of the paint as of tonight. The full build diary is on my site here: dbhs modeler home and shows the tweaks I made to adjust it to match the raider shown previously on the Cloudster site. I'll be using that particular studio model as a guide for the finish and weathering.

Bondo Fett

If you built that from scratch then you are a pimp.

dbhs

LOL - I'm a user, not a pusher.

This is the Mike Salzo V2 resin kit that came out a while back.

darth_myeek

Great work Dbhs! Still loving your concept raider. Can't wait to see the battle damaged raider completed.

mslz22

Looks fantastic, can't wait to see the weathering, it will really make the details "pop"....been a long time since i saw one of these built up...
mike

Ghadrack

/shame Mine's still in the box

Thanks for posting, your pics are great and motivational!

dbhs

Thanks for the feedback, guys. This one's been a blast to put work on. With it on the home stretch I'm trying to not let my enthusiasm to finish it cause me to rush and make any stupid mistakes.

MooCriket

Love it. Have always loved that design. Very well done!

steveo

she's a beauty. great job. can't wait to see her all painted up.

dbhs

Thanks guys.....
Ok, now we're getting to the really fun part. (been waiting to get to this point)

Tucked away in an obscure drawer at work I found a stash of vintage Chartpak graphic tape exactly like the stuff used to do the Cylon insignias on the studio Raiders. As luck would have it the glue on the tape was petrified and useless but I was able to find some new Chartpak tape in nearly the same color. I saved a sample of the old stuff for reference and the new tape is just a slightly darker shade of green. The decals that came with the kit are almost an exact match for the vintage tape, BTW. Props to the kit makers !!

I decided to go ahead with using the new tape for the insignias to get it just a little closer to replicating the original studio model. The insignia is on there slightly crooked intentionally. I scaled the images of the original in AutoCAD and made a template to get the size and placement as accurate as I could. It took a while to get this one on in just the right place. Will do the other side tomorrow night.

Thanks for looking.

dbhs

Insignias done on both sides.


Masking for the ghosted-in insignia on the main hull.


The graphic tape is stiff enough to not want to stick where the surface is curved up so I painted the insignia on the damaged wing.



Here's an update with the medium gray details painted in.





And with the damaged wing attached.



I love the scowled expression on this thing.



And with the soda can for scale.



I like the see-through effect on the damaged wing.

Muzza

nice job well done

darth_myeek

Me too, & Wow that's looking great!!

Devin

Beautiful work on an impressive kit. I especially love the tape insignia detail; that's something I would have never thought of doing.

dbhs

Thanks for the feedback, guys.
Looking like a busy week coming up so I doubt I'll get to the main weathering soon. Maybe a little time to start painting the details in the damaged wing if I get a chance.

Hedjii72

That's like, the coolest thing ever.

wook22

Holy crap! Gorgeous. This was one of my favorite ships when I was a kid... nice work.

morphosis

incredible!

dbhs

Thank you very much for the comments.

Just a little weathering going on so far. Getting it dirty feels so good.

eagle1

Man, that is beautiful!. The detail will really pop when youv'e applied all the weathering. I guess the tricky part is knowing when to stop & not over-do it?.
Awesome work Bro, looking forward to seeing her looking dirty!.
Stu

ralphee

Never really loved the BSG stuff, dont know why, but this Raider is one ship i do like, way more than the Vipers, and you have done one hell of a job here, that really is wonderful.....love that wing tip damage, excellent.

lee

clancampbell

Incredible work! The Raider is one of those ships that is actually a better design than some Star Wars stuff...(Hey...don't hate me, im a SW Nut!!!)

Just fantastic!

yodakiller1138

Can you perhaps show us how you wired the lights in more detail? I've got the kit , but it didn't have instructions for that.

dbhs

Thanks guys. This is one of my favorites (if not most favorite) as well. Maybe that's why it's taking so long....just enjoying working on it. It's fun to see it close to being finished now.

On the lighting. I found some more pics that I didn't put on my site with some more detail on the lighting. I uploaded them here with some explanation below.

A. A little hard to see here. I never took a picture of the holes drilled for the engine lights. I remember tracing the line around the engine bell reflectors that came with the kit to get the opening right (a little smaller than the flange of the reflector. I dremelled out the opening first to get it right. This also got the opening through the resin and into the foam. After that I drilled out the foam with a 1/2" drill bit. My drill bit wasn't quite long enough so i had to stab through the foam with something else to get the opening up to the bay at the front.

B. Here's the bay where I assembled the wires. The tricky part here was the side holes to meet up with those from the back and fishing the wires through. Also, FYI, when drilling these the side of the chuck from the drill is going to want to scrape against the engine on the opposite side. Cover that up with a few layers of masking tape to protect it. The hole from the cockpit is easy enough.

C-D. I wanted a particular look for the front lights and the only way I could do this was to turn some clear plastic to the shape I wanted. I used some clear plastic push pins (for bulletin boards) for this. Put the metal pin in the drill chuck and turned it with some metal files and sanding sticks to shape it. Then pulled the metal pin out. These are glued onto the end of some 1.5mm fiber optic connected to the LEDs. There's some orange lighting gels in there too to get the color. Then black electrical tape over the lights for light blocking.

E. Here's the bay before sealing it up. Scrap tubes hot glued in to keep it organized. The center wire is fished through the hole into the stand pipe.

Hope this helps.

Attached Thumbnails

         

dbhs

Hey guys.....

My available time and motivation has kept me from this for a while but getting bits done here and there. I got the second pass of weathering finished now. I'm really liking the overall look of this now and need to touch up some details here and there with a 3rd pass.

Thanks for the comments and thanks for looking.