As I mentioned in my Viper thread, one of my wife's kittens got in my office and on my work bench, knocked a bunch of stuff off and chewed the wires off from the Arduino to the thruster engine lights.
While regrouping I decided to add sound to the build, so why I am waiting for the sound FX board to get here I went ahead and started the base foundation painting on the Moebius 1/32 scale Cylon Raider!
I am sure everyone already knows that the camera and flash isn't always how something looks in person.
Okay... this isn't glued together or anything yet, just test fitting everything. I have to say, most of the big parts fit so snug and secure you really wouldn't have to glue them. Except for the small parts this almost could be a snap fit kit.
ALL paints are metallic, specifically Testers Model Master Metalizer line, buff-able of course
After the primer coat I sprayed a base coat of stainless steel which looks like a light gray shade. I painted the louvers Gun Metal and still have to paint the detail trim on the louvers. The rear engine covers were sprayed with a base of Gun Metal and then misted with Titanium. It lightened them up some but misting it on still let the Gun Metal show through so it is lighter than Gun Metal but darker than Titanium. I then spot misted the raised areas and some panels of the rest of the body with Titanium over the stainless to darken it up just a bit. I'm sure a lot of people would have kept the lighter shade, but I was reading that the actual studio model was a darker medium gray and the harsh lights made it look lighter on film. I have sort of a hybrid between a shooting model look and the on screen look. Because it's metallic it reflects light different than regular paint, so some angles and lighting it looks darker, and in other angles it looks lighter.
I was thinking about using an Arduino for the engines like I did with the Viper, but remembered what they taught me in the military- KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) and the two flickering blue LEDs I got from HDA will work just fine. All the lighting is going to be pretty basic, flickering LEDs for the engines, and amber lights for the front spots. The laser cannons will be controlled from a Adafruit Sound FX board with 2MB or memory and up to 11 triggers/buttons. I won't need anywhere near that many, just the engine cruising sound, some Cylon phrases (have to have "By Your Command" ) ! and then a button that activates the laser cannon sound. The laser cannons will be controlled by the Adafruit board and an MK103 light to sound board. I will not be installing the microphone on the MK103 and instead I will wire the audio output from the Adafruit board directly to the MK103. That way when the button for the laser cannons is pressed you will hear the sound clip and the cannons will fire in sync with the sound.
To power the LEDs I will be dropping the 9VDC to 3VDC via a buck converter. Everything else can run off either 9VDC or 5VDC. For the base I am using the 3D vacu-formed chrome Cylon head and the eyes will sequence back and forth just like on the show. For that I am using an Adafruit Trinket board and Adafruit NeoPixel addressable LED strips.
Not counting paint, here's the tally- $40 for the kit, $24 for the Adafruit Sound FX board, $8.95 for the MK103, $1.50 for the speaker, probably $1 worth of LEDs, $6.95 for the Trinket board, $17 for a roll of RGB addressable LED tape, and I think $1 for the buck converter. The base is an old recycled shadow box/picture frame, the Cylon is from the DVD box set, and then just some misc heat shrink, brass tubing, resistors and other stuff from my parts bin. Grand total of $100.40 when done
Without further ado... here are the pictures so far of just the initial painting. The first two are of course a front and side shot. The next two are comparing the size to a 537 scale Reliant, and the last two are the Raider sitting on top of a 1701 Refit 350 scale saucer!
Front and side shots
The next two shots are to give an idea of the size of this kit.
The first shot has a 537 scale Reliant main hull sitting on top of the Raider. The second shot is the Raider sitting on top of a 1701 Refit 350 scale saucer- it is basically the size of the saucer!
While regrouping I decided to add sound to the build, so why I am waiting for the sound FX board to get here I went ahead and started the base foundation painting on the Moebius 1/32 scale Cylon Raider!
I am sure everyone already knows that the camera and flash isn't always how something looks in person.
Okay... this isn't glued together or anything yet, just test fitting everything. I have to say, most of the big parts fit so snug and secure you really wouldn't have to glue them. Except for the small parts this almost could be a snap fit kit.
ALL paints are metallic, specifically Testers Model Master Metalizer line, buff-able of course
After the primer coat I sprayed a base coat of stainless steel which looks like a light gray shade. I painted the louvers Gun Metal and still have to paint the detail trim on the louvers. The rear engine covers were sprayed with a base of Gun Metal and then misted with Titanium. It lightened them up some but misting it on still let the Gun Metal show through so it is lighter than Gun Metal but darker than Titanium. I then spot misted the raised areas and some panels of the rest of the body with Titanium over the stainless to darken it up just a bit. I'm sure a lot of people would have kept the lighter shade, but I was reading that the actual studio model was a darker medium gray and the harsh lights made it look lighter on film. I have sort of a hybrid between a shooting model look and the on screen look. Because it's metallic it reflects light different than regular paint, so some angles and lighting it looks darker, and in other angles it looks lighter.
I was thinking about using an Arduino for the engines like I did with the Viper, but remembered what they taught me in the military- KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) and the two flickering blue LEDs I got from HDA will work just fine. All the lighting is going to be pretty basic, flickering LEDs for the engines, and amber lights for the front spots. The laser cannons will be controlled from a Adafruit Sound FX board with 2MB or memory and up to 11 triggers/buttons. I won't need anywhere near that many, just the engine cruising sound, some Cylon phrases (have to have "By Your Command" ) ! and then a button that activates the laser cannon sound. The laser cannons will be controlled by the Adafruit board and an MK103 light to sound board. I will not be installing the microphone on the MK103 and instead I will wire the audio output from the Adafruit board directly to the MK103. That way when the button for the laser cannons is pressed you will hear the sound clip and the cannons will fire in sync with the sound.
To power the LEDs I will be dropping the 9VDC to 3VDC via a buck converter. Everything else can run off either 9VDC or 5VDC. For the base I am using the 3D vacu-formed chrome Cylon head and the eyes will sequence back and forth just like on the show. For that I am using an Adafruit Trinket board and Adafruit NeoPixel addressable LED strips.
Not counting paint, here's the tally- $40 for the kit, $24 for the Adafruit Sound FX board, $8.95 for the MK103, $1.50 for the speaker, probably $1 worth of LEDs, $6.95 for the Trinket board, $17 for a roll of RGB addressable LED tape, and I think $1 for the buck converter. The base is an old recycled shadow box/picture frame, the Cylon is from the DVD box set, and then just some misc heat shrink, brass tubing, resistors and other stuff from my parts bin. Grand total of $100.40 when done
Without further ado... here are the pictures so far of just the initial painting. The first two are of course a front and side shot. The next two are comparing the size to a 537 scale Reliant, and the last two are the Raider sitting on top of a 1701 Refit 350 scale saucer!
Front and side shots
The next two shots are to give an idea of the size of this kit.
The first shot has a 537 scale Reliant main hull sitting on top of the Raider. The second shot is the Raider sitting on top of a 1701 Refit 350 scale saucer- it is basically the size of the saucer!
