Backdating Moebius' Cylon Raider

[Grumpy Popeye]

As anyone who has bought the Moebius' Cylon Raider has discovered, the box art is a season 1-3 Raider and the kit itself is a season 4 Raider.

Being more of a fan of the earlier design, I decided to backdate the kit and light it.

Back dating:

For season 4 the Raider was revamped to look closer to the centurion, its face was leaned out and its scanner was changed to a V shape.

The first thing I did was to widen the "mouth" and to make a new grille by shingling strips of styrene. Once this was done the new grille was inserted and the rest of the S.4 details were covered over in Aves

You can still see hints of the original shape lurking under the surface;

Here you can see that the forehead was built up to be rounder,

A little bit of Aves later, and our boy now has a viewport!

Another change that was made was that the two wing bumps (the kit instructions call them the engines) have scalloped details. These were filled in. I' not sure if it's cannon or not, but I kinda like the outline of where the vents are located, so I may engrave the contour

My plan from here is to make a rubber mold of the front of the Raider's face, that way I can drill out the viewport, put the face back in the mold and restore the visor in clear resin (similar technique I used on the Serenity build)

Stay tuned!

 

[Mr.Engineer]

Whoa, that is nice! Are you doing Scar?

Anyway, if you plan on lighting it, my Lighting System is being sold at the SSM store. It has a 10-LED roving eye, twin semi-flicker white leds and a pair of red leds in case you want to scratch-build your own missile bay. However, I am not sure if it fits the new modification. Anyway, here's the linky:


Starship Modeler Store: 1/32 Robot Raider Lighting System v1.00

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

I would have loved to pick one of your light kits up, but I had already bought an 8 LED sequencer for this kit. As with so many things in my life, you kit came out just after I got mine in the mail :unsure

...too bad too, the flickering engines in yours rock! (plus two extra LEDS for the scanner!)

in the meantime, I got the gun mounts reworked, and the visor cut open, just waiting to have clear resin gobbed in it!

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

Another part of the raider that got a significant revamp were the engines. Originally there were three exhaust nozzles (only two of which were ever used) the redesign ditched the center nozzle which is replaced with a dome and the wing engines went from being cylindrical to triangular/ oval (triovgulal?)

Cards on the table; I'm poor. I don't have the cash on hand to go out and buy a donor kit, and I only have two jet aircraft in my stash right now and neither have exhaust cans that will fit the raider. What I do have is a grab bag of brass tubes, some styrene tube and lots of Aves!

Roughing out the shape:

stacked another tube on the outside, now it fits the back of the raider better. You can see I've started to use some Aves to taper the exhaust

 

[CB2001]

Interesting. Can't wait to see the end result.

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

Got the scanner assembled,

I did an "over under" for the wires, it would have been too crowded otherwise

and the fit? Perfect!

 

[CB2001]

Totally awesome. Can't wait to see the scanner light up.

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

Meanwhile at the other end...

I've completed the three engines and have test fit them. the center engine is glued in place, I needed to see how the parts all work together, and what work will have to be done to the belly. Turns out a lot!

The hole in the bottom is for the power jack

 

[CB2001]

Nice!

 

[AnubisGuard]

Beautiful! I, too, prefer the earlier raider design, so it's nice to see somebody tackle this.

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

Now I'm left with a poser;
One or three,
http://youtu.be/k5yXjEu5qNg

 

[CB2001]

Now I'm left with a poser;
One or three,
Moebius Cylon Raider season 1-3 modification - YouTube

Three. It looks closer to what you see in the shows, giving a more swooping appearance. Of course, that's just my opinion.

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

time for an update!

I'm about 90% done with the basic conversion,

next step will be to beat the hell out of it to turn it into Scar! :behave

You can see that the lower part of the main fuselage has been extensively reworked, and the power jack is blended into the hull,

now with a coat of Mr Surfacer to blend it all together,

Looking at reference pics, I can see that I need to round out the edges of the missile bays, but that is an easy enough fix!

 

[CB2001]

Looking even more awesome.

 

[space rat]

Looking Fantastic! :love I think 3 looks more like the show.:thumbsup

 

[brandomack]

Great job BOBO!

BTW when will you be released from purgatory over there? Give me a shout on your way back to the island, we can do lunch and talk models and props.

B

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

IF everything goes as planned, I should be getting sent back to Victoria next summer. Then it's "pay off the 20K living in Quebec has cost me":facepalm

Thank goodness I won't have to do it again!

Lunch sounds great Brandomack, your Anubis helmet is inspiring!

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

Don't you hate it when work gets in the way of a project?!

Here we go, all the convertification (new word, just made it up, tell your friends) is complete. I left all the Season 4 panel lines, I kinda like the way they busy up the fuselage!

Heeeeeere's Johnny!

the underside, you can see I rounded off the corners of the missile bay doors,

and now, with loads of damage, and paint!

first two colors,

His name is Scar. If you see him don't run. You run, you die!

 

[Jsimon999]

Tremendous job. Never really appreciated how cool the new design the raider is until seeing a model kit. (I like the 3 light scan. Looks more menacing and alive to me.)

By the way, you mentioned "Aves". What is that? Also, how did you create such a realistic looking crack "scar" for him??

:thumbsup
Jon

 

[Grumpy Popeye]

Aves- Aves Apoxie Sculpt; is a two part putty that has become extremely popular with modelers due to the fact it is easy to use, water soluble, dries rock hard (can even be machined) and doesn't shrink. A lot of figure modelers will use this to build up details on their armatures and the guys on Starship Modeler rave about the stuff!

More details on the Aves site,
Apoxie® Sculpt

Here's where I bought mine,
Starship Modeler Store: Apoxie Sculpt: 1 lb. (Natural)

Unusually fast shipping to everywhere except Canada. Any mail Canada Post gets hold of gets sat on! (I did see a pic of a parcel that CP skewered with a forklift tine! So at least they're flexible on how they defile your mail!)

As for the scars, I based what I did off of Doug Drexler's blog image;
Scar «

I drew the scars in using a mechanical pencil, then scraped them in using a dental pic. Again, the Aves handles being worked with extremely well!