Battlestar Galactica - Mk III Mercury class

[Thom216]

Now this is not a new build. I last worked on it almost this same time last year but stalled at the paint stage. But now that I am writing a fanfic for it, where this is the hero ship, I have found my interest repiqued. (Is that a word?)

 

So just to catch people up, I sectioned the head to lower its profile, as well as reworked the flight pods. The Mercury class has over/under flight decks, but the lower deck is smaller than the upper and I wanted them to be the same size. So I broke out a second kit and cut and sliced until I had what I wanted, as well as double-deck launchers for the Vipers.

 

Obligatory box art.

 

The 'splosion of parts!

!

 

And the first cuts done to the head. The top piece will be saved and cut up to give the new top matching detail with the rest of the hull.

 

The cut-outs at the back of the head piece have been cut out and joined with the ones near the front.

 

And then added some plastic and greebles to cover the join.

 

And then laid the new skin, cut from blank styrene.

 

I had also narrowed the head a bit, which required a section of the mid-deck to be cut out and then squeezed closed.

 

And then it was back to the top, cutting up the old piece and laying the sections down on the new styrene, along with the greeble parts. The black pieces are from an old X-wing model and the blue is from a TIE Fighter. The white piece is just a misc part from the parts bin.

 

And then a check with the main hull to see how it looks.

 

With that looking good, I moved onto the struts and flight pods, making the first cuts.

 

A test fit with the doubled launch decks sandwiched in between the flight decks.

 

The gaping holes from the cut off struts filled with styrene, with misc PE from the Paragraphics PE set added on.

 

Since this is going to be the Galactica in my fanfic I wanted to keep the same registry, so I used the decals from the actual Galactica kit. They are not long enough though to span the whole distance, but seeing as the bay is not lit, no one will see that the middle has been cut so the ends meet with the ends of the flight decks.

 

The kit comes with the bays closed off by strengtheners which are really unnecessary. Those were cut out with a dremel and then the Paragraphics wall PE were folded and added.

 

They were then closed up and the PE nameplate added over where the molded name Pegasus had been scraped off.

In the series, those insets under the name are filled with greebles, but in the mini-movie Razor they were actually auxiliary landing decks for Raptors and Vipers. Liking the latter a lot better, I made some decks and doors with blank styrene. Excess decals from the landing decks will be placed in all four. The arm PE has also been added, since the kit parts are simply blank in those areas.

 

After that it was onto the stern, where the FTL housing is. I've never liked all the piping they had running into it, so those were deleted and inside it is yet another part from a TIE fighter.

 

All greebled up.

 

The sides of the bottom of the head piece, too wide after it had been narrowed, were shaved and then thin styrene was used to skin it before being sanded smooth.

 

A quick test fit of parts.

 

All work now done on the flight pods.

 

The dark grey pieces near the bottom are tank treads, used here as armored cargo doors. More will be spread around the hull.

 

Blank styrene used to break up the smooth sides of the head. The white line near the top of the head will be replaced with half-round styrene.

 

And starting to locate where the extra guns will sit. For a massive battlestar, I always thought the Pegasus was lightly armed, so she'll have six turrets atop each flight pod as well as those that go in between the decks. And on the head.

 

Then I took a misc part from a SD gundam kit to serve as a sensor array on the top, kind of like an AWAC system.

 

The top of the head was then glued onto the main hull.

 

Then it was onto the guns. I'm using the kit guns for the most part, but there were some others that I bought off of Shapeways, such as the quad guns and the two others that will go under the bow.

 

Finally the lower jaw was glued on.

 

I used some gear legs as greebles for the back of the head, sanded flat.

 

One of the drives set fitted.

 

The quad guns have been pinned rather than to have them simply butt-joined to the hull. The blurry silver part is the landing pad from a 1/72 X-Wing.

 

And a final set of test pics before the painting starts.

 

And that's where she's at right now. OR was, as I just finished putting a first coat of Tamiya Neutral Gray on the upper surfaces of the main hull. It might be faster with a spray can, cause there is a lot of real estate to cover with an airbrush!

 

Pretty soon she'll be able to join the Colonial Fourth Fleet in time for the Battle of Cimtar!

Edited March 4, 2018 by Thom216

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Excellent looking battlestar !

[Thom216]

Thank you very much. Glad to be back and laying some paint down. Started with neutral gray, and it's taking a while with an airbrush over all that real estate! After that, I'll mask for two different tones of gray, then hand paint more tones after to help break up the color.

 

 

One think I wish Mobieus had done, or the CG creators for the show, was to have had a more patchwork look to the hull plating like the Galactica. 

 

Being able to paint all those sections helps to break up the monotone.

 

And while I have it out, I figured I'd finally finish armoring the bottom of my Jupiter class. Dymo tape going down for armor plate!

[Hunter Rose]

Love all the mods you've done, they look very fitting and are very tidy

[rockpopandchips]

Oh very nice!

[Will Vale]

I really like the thought you've put in to choosing and placing all the nurnies, it's cool that you know what a lot of them do.

 

Will

[Thom216]

Almost done with the paint now.

 

I ended up going over the lighter panels with nato black and then neutral gray again, though keeping it still a different shade. I also masked for the red accents.

 

I need to clean some edges up, but it looks pretty close to final detail paint and decals!

 

[Thom216]

An update before final pics. I'm in the decal process now, but here are some 'get to there' pics.

 

The major sub assemblies are done. The flight decks and engines.

 

The spine, with the PE emblem sanded clear of paint. I'd have a devil of a time painting that white and they don't supply decal for it. It does come off with a nice gold sheen to it.

 

And the main hull and 'head.' The main color is a base of Tamiya Neutral Gray with varying other shades added over a preshade. I then colored varying panels by brush. The trenches were over painted with Tamiya clear/smoke to darken them up and break up the color of the broadside. It was also added to the top detail and into the insert bays on the head.

 

Should have more pics of the completed model up soon!

[Thom216]

Well, she's done now...

 

After about a year sitting on the shelf, about a week of painting (between work) and picking through the decal collection, she's finished.

 

The last bit of painting was with the guns, all 70-sum of them...

 

And first look at something no Cylon ever wants to see coming at them!

 

 

[Mikey-1980]

Outstanding build!