Superjedi's Bad Azz Models Battlestar Valkyrie

superjedi

Sr Member
Merry Christmas to me! :)
This was a model I got for a present a few days ago. It's the Bad Azz Models resin Battlestar Valkyrie kit. I had a blast building this!
The given scale is 1/2500, and the kit is extremely well-molded in a nice white resin. It comes with a couple of lengths of tiny styrene rod to make the gun barrels, and a piece of thin wire for piping/antenna detail.
It also comes with a sheet of 4 decals. Two landing deck decals for the flight pods, and two ridiculously tiny, yet perfectly printed ship names for the pod exteriors.

As with my "Big G," I got into it so much that I didn't even take any in progress pictures. But here she is complete.

IMG_0311.jpg


Overall, the kit is right around 10" long, and it's packed with an incredible amount of detail.
Construction is pretty straightforward. The main hull is one piece, the head is two pieces (upper and lower), each flight pod is two parts (upper and lower), the engines are separate parts and they all attach to a center engine block, which is glued to the aft end of the fuselage.
The small engine "flaps" are tiny separate pieces, as are each of the many gun turrets.

Here's a shot of the center hull section, to see some of the detail going on here.

IMG_0336.jpg


Another close pic of the starboard flight pod. This decal is soooo small!!

IMG_0334.jpg


There was barely any clean up to do, just some less-than-paper thin flash around a couple of seams. Once I had removed the flash and washed all the parts, I began painting in subassemblies to make detail painting easier.
I chose Testors Gull Gray as a base coat. I knew that further weathering would darken it up considerably.
The Gull Gray basecoat was given a shoe polish wash (per Cylon75's excellent method!), buffed with steel wool, and allowed to dry. After that, I went back with some contrasting gray acrylics and a very fine 000 paint brush and painted some panels in slightly different tones. I also "cheated" some extra panel lines here and there into the paint job.
For the red detailing, I used Polly Scale Rock Island Maroon, a darkish red.

Here's a close shot of the head which shows some of the paneling work.

IMG_0332.jpg


After all that, I did the shoe polish wash again, just to darken everything up a bit more. I wanted the overall tone to be close to the Galactica's armor plating.

The guns and engine flaps went on after all the major painting and assembly was complete. The guns were given a base coat of Polly Scale CSX Gray and then given a black acrylic wash after I attached them to the hull.

Making those gun barrels was a real bugger! My eyeballs really got a workout during that process. . . :confused

IMG_0348.jpg


I didn't even put on all the guns that came with the kit! There are several really tiny ones, even smaller than the ones I used. I'm still considering whether I want to put them on or not.

All in all, a really nice offering and a great addition to my growing BSG fleet. Here are a couple of shots of the Valkyrie in formation with her big sister.

IMG_0327.jpg


IMG_0338.jpg


IMG_0345.jpg


I still plan to make a group display once I get a few more rag tag fleet ships, so the Val will remain perched on a plastic cup until then. :lol

Thanks for looking, and hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year!
 
VERY nice Eric...your modelling/ painting skills are getting better and better and better and better... :):thumbsup

Markus
 
Great model. Do you have the link for where you bought it or any of the manufacturers info? Also, is it in scale with the galactica? It looks close if it isn't.

Thanks!
 
Hi Superjedi,

They have some fine detail for small scale kits. Fantastic paint job and weathering.

Could you explain what you mean by shoe polish wash? What real shoe polish? I have never heard anyone mention this before. Does it give like a grainy highlight or something?

While I got you! if you dont mind an off topic question as well. How did you get the bolsa parts on your falcon smooth enought to paint with no grain showing. I am having trouble.

Again nice build

Ozzy
 
>SNIPPERS!<

Could you explain what you mean by shoe polish wash? What real shoe polish? I have never heard anyone mention this before. Does it give like a grainy highlight or something?
If it's the same thing I did, he likely used a liquid shoe polish. Here's what I did on the above Timeslip Creations Valkyrie model: You get the model's base coat on, detail it so that it's pretty much prestine. And then you use the applicator to apply the shoe polish, doing so fairly liberally. Let the polish set for a few minutes, then wipe it off w/a rag or paper towel. Basically, you get it in to the recesses, let it start to "set", then wipe it off. Gets the details to pop out. Makes for a great form of weathering that's fairly cheap and simple.

I wanna give credit where it's due, tho. I learned this technique from cylon75. :)
 
Wow. I haven't even thought about this for awhile, but you know... I'm thinking I'm going t have to get one of these. Great work on the weathering BTW!

Merry Christmas to me! :)
This was a model I got for a present a few days ago. It's the Bad Azz Models resin Battlestar Valkyrie kit. I had a blast building this!
The given scale is 1/2500, and the kit is extremely well-molded in a nice white resin. It comes with a couple of lengths of tiny styrene rod to make the gun barrels, and a piece of thin wire for piping/antenna detail.
It also comes with a sheet of 4 decals. Two landing deck decals for the flight pods, and two ridiculously tiny, yet perfectly printed ship names for the pod exteriors.

As with my "Big G," I got into it so much that I didn't even take any in progress pictures. But here she is complete.


Overall, the kit is right around 10" long, and it's packed with an incredible amount of detail.
Construction is pretty straightforward. The main hull is one piece, the head is two pieces (upper and lower), each flight pod is two parts (upper and lower), the engines are separate parts and they all attach to a center engine block, which is glued to the aft end of the fuselage.
The small engine "flaps" are tiny separate pieces, as are each of the many gun turrets.

Here's a shot of the center hull section, to see some of the detail going on here.


Another close pic of the starboard flight pod. This decal is soooo small!!


There was barely any clean up to do, just some less-than-paper thin flash around a couple of seams. Once I had removed the flash and washed all the parts, I began painting in subassemblies to make detail painting easier.
I chose Testors Gull Gray as a base coat. I knew that further weathering would darken it up considerably.
The Gull Gray basecoat was given a shoe polish wash (per Cylon75's excellent method!), buffed with steel wool, and allowed to dry. After that, I went back with some contrasting gray acrylics and a very fine 000 paint brush and painted some panels in slightly different tones. I also "cheated" some extra panel lines here and there into the paint job.
For the red detailing, I used Polly Scale Rock Island Maroon, a darkish red.

Here's a close shot of the head which shows some of the paneling work.


After all that, I did the shoe polish wash again, just to darken everything up a bit more. I wanted the overall tone to be close to the Galactica's armor plating.

The guns and engine flaps went on after all the major painting and assembly was complete. The guns were given a base coat of Polly Scale CSX Gray and then given a black acrylic wash after I attached them to the hull.

Making those gun barrels was a real bugger! My eyeballs really got a workout during that process. . . :confused


I didn't even put on all the guns that came with the kit! There are several really tiny ones, even smaller than the ones I used. I'm still considering whether I want to put them on or not.

All in all, a really nice offering and a great addition to my growing BSG fleet. Here are a couple of shots of the Valkyrie in formation with her big sister.


I still plan to make a group display once I get a few more rag tag fleet ships, so the Val will remain perched on a plastic cup until then. :lol

Thanks for looking, and hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If it's the same thing I did, he likely used a liquid shoe polish. Here's what I did on the above Timeslip Creations Valkyrie model: You get the model's base coat on, detail it so that it's pretty much prestine. And then you use the applicator to apply the shoe polish, doing so fairly liberally. Let the polish set for a few minutes, then wipe it off w/a rag or paper towel. Basically, you get it in to the recesses, let it start to "set", then wipe it off. Gets the details to pop out. Makes for a great form of weathering that's fairly cheap and simple.

I wanna give credit where it's due, tho. I learned this technique from cylon75. :)

Thanks for the explanation, I can see that in the model now. I think its that and the panels that have been painted slightly different colours that give it scale beyond its size. I think from a painting point of view its harder to achive what SJ has acheived here than, it is on larger models. I am no expert but it seems that way to me.

Again Awsome build Superjedi, yours to Grifworks

Ozzy
 
Just so there's no confusion, I'd like to clarify that the pic of my Valkyrie build is of the Timeslip Creations kit, not the BadAzz kit. The BadAzz kit is awesome and as Eric mentions, easy as heck to build. I owned one a while back, but sold it because it's not to-scale w/the rest of my TNS/TOS RTF ships, which is 1/4105 scale. The BadAzz kit is around 11" long at 1/2500 scale, IIRC, the Timeslip kit is right about 6".
 
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