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Hi everyone Well, the time has come – it’s time to step out and do my first WIP here on BMF I’ve only ever shown finished products here, so I figured I may as well embarrass myself a bit more by doing a WIP thread. For this blog/thread, it’s the Moebius BSG Galactica kit. I can hear the collective groan now - "another one?!?!?!?" So yeah, I do realise there’s more than a fair abundance of this particular subject out there on the net – each one as good if not better than the next – so I hope I can do something just that little bit different and at least try to make this one interesting Forthis build, I actually want to remain as true to the on screen ship as I possibly can without completely altering it - which is something new for me (I usually like my WIF's) However, the contradiction here is that I have never actually sat down and watched this show I loved the original series and have very fond memories of it. I had the Monogram kit of this once, back when I was living in London. Although I did a terrible job on it, I just loved the ship and still think the side hangar pods are one of the coolest design features I seen on any star ship since. It was very original in its day. So when this new series came out – I got excited!! I saw the TV ads building up to the series start and I was all geared for it. Oh yeah, nothing was going to stop me watching it…. Then I got a hernia the day before and the following night, I was in hospital getting my insides put back into my abdominal wall – so I missed it. I have just never found the time nor the inclination since then to watch it. However, I still retained the respect for the design of the new Galactica and when Moebius released this kit, I bought one. It’s been sitting in my drawer for a while now and it’s about time to start it. Unlike the Venator, there is a great deal of references for the Galactica. I (like everyone else) have access to a great set of computer renders and plenty of screen grabs courtesy of YouTube, plus I’m waiting on a friend who has kindly offered me some extra renders that aren’t on the net (no – I have no idea what they are or where he got them from), so getting things accurate shouldn’t be too much of a challenge – at least I hope so. It’s a great chance to test out my scratch building skills In saying that though, I do intend to add some of my own bits and bobs to it that may not be present on the screen ship, but will still hopefully enhance the ship in some way. This ship will be lit with a combo of SMD LEDs, LEDs and fiber optics. I've never worked with SMD's before, so this will definitely be trial and error So, moving right along, to kicks things off with, I’m going to start with the alligator head. Looking at the renders - and even Moebius’ own box art - the side armor plates are completely wrong: not only are they all raised and wayyy to thick they are also the wrong shape. A lot of you will already know the pitfalls in this kit (not that there are many), so I won’t go into too much detail. Before I took to it with the file - ignore the black marks - they are no longer there: After a bit of filing to get it flush with the ribs and some digging with a scriber to give a bit more depth and to stop it looking too molded on. Although it is a bit hard to tell until they get washed, each rib and that lateral pipe that runs along from the rear toward the fron has had the sides deepened where it meets the main surface. Iam yet to start the main plating up top: I am waiting on my new Mission Tools 2mm chisel to arrive in the mail hopefully in the next few days. With it, I’ll cut flush the edges of the existing top panels and then hollow out the space between the plating and the ribs, again, giving the appearance that the plating sits on top as opposed to just molded there. I’ll end up doing this over the entire ship. At the very front of the ship, where the plating sort of curls over the front is the wrong size and too thick. It needed filing back The one on the left hand side of the picture is the un-altered one: It looks a little better now that it's also thinner – just some minor tidying up to do: Ignore the little its of plastic still stuck to the surface - there is still more tidying up to do. Some of the details is a bit....mmmm....wrong. I think I will end up sanding of the existing detail and making my own I am still learning to build more accurately, so I'm more than grateful for any good tips and hints that you think may help. If you have any constructive criticism/feedback/suggestions, if something just looks plain wrong or you even just want to say Hi, please do post a line. Well, that’s all I’ve actually done for the moment, but I will be back again soon. Thanks for stopping by! MH