TOS Galactica Mega Build

[Ekuth]

*waves to the crowd*

Howdy, howdy. For those of you unfamiliar with my work of insanity in progress, and for those of you who haven't seen it in a while, I'm moving the build thread over here from the "other" site.

I'm replicating it post by post with pics, so bear with me. Feel free to comment along the way!

First, some history.

What you're going to see here is Gearz TOS Galactica, enlarged by 200%. The model he produced was so excellent that I wanted to see how well the textures would hold up when done on a gigantic scale. Plus, who doesn't want a near-studio-scale model of the Galactica?

The original model may be found at: http://jleslie48.com/bg/index.html

So, I decided to build one... and thus began an odyessey of idiocity, frustration and expense that I don't care to calculate.

Enjoy.

Ekuth

[Ekuth]

Well, after seeing all the fantastic Galactica work going on here, I decided to bring the Giganta Galactica out of mothballs and get back to work on her.

I'll be posting pics as I go along.

Most of what I had already done had suffered the ravages of cramped closet space, cats and kids. Fortunately, the more critical parts (the landing bays and engines) were able to be salvaged.

I've been tearing apart what I had built of the old girl, removing the LED wiring and rebuilding what was lost. I've also decided that since I'm going to be doing this, I'm going to go the super-detail route and see how far I can stretch the bounds of papercraft. To start, I'll be using what I have so far as an underlying base and then layering on top of that to produce the greebles.

Today's work consisted of salvaging the nose section.

Side view. The top of the hull is unattached at this point, as I am still working on the lighting. Will be glued in place once that is done and then the layering of hull plating will begin.



Close up of one of the "insert" areas of the nose. I'm pleased with the strength of the lighting. Placement is everything!



You can see the nose took a real beating along the seam lines there. We'll be fixing that up later. Damn cats!



Underside of the nose is in fairly good shape. Trench needs a little work, and the hull plating will definately help cover those bleedthrough areas.



Next up:

Finishing the lighting placement, affixing the bridge and upper observation deck, and starting the hull plating.

Stay tuned!

[Ekuth]

Progress so far for today:

Finished lighting interior, closed up the top and back of nose. Main part of the hull plating installed on upper face of nose. Bridge installed and have begun the installation of greebling.

Basically, I'm doing all the raised structures on the top part using the following method: I'll print out a base plate to build on. I then take a narrow "I-beam" strip and glue it around the periphery of the base plate part I'm working on. Once that's done, I cut out the roof of the section from another printing of the deck and secure it to the top of the beam.

I'll be using this technique extensively throughout the ship, as it seems to be working well.

Pics:

Top view of the current section I'm working on. You can see a completed building section in front of the area where I'm installing the I-beam wall. You can see how I follow the contour of the part.



This side view illustrates the process more clearly.



Close up of the I-beam. What I do to create this is to remove a long strip from the back of another print out of the nose area. That way I get matching coloration as well as texture. A bit of a pain to bend, but not too bad.



Top view of the hull plating I've installed on the top of the nose section. I'm dealing with the top first and will then move on to the sides before finishing up with the bottom of the nose and trench area. You can see the completed bridge has been installed. I'm pleased with the 3d effect that layering the hull plating is giving to the overall look of the ship.



Further on up the nose section. I was originally planning to light this area as well, but after looking at reference shots, decided against it. This is before application of the building areas behind the piece. I'll be cutting those out and applying them shortly.



So, there we have it. Break time! I'll post more as I go. Have to keep reminding myself to take pics.

[Ekuth]

Here's the completed assembly. The cylinders on top were made by taking another printout of that area and forming them into half-tubes.

I had to make them in three pieces, each of a graduated size slightly smaller than the last. That way they matched the overall look of the texture.

Still debating on how I'm going to do the very small pipework...

Pics:

Completed assembly, front view:



Rear view:



Front view, showing closeup of the connecting pipework, which are simply rolled cylinders (albeit very small rolled cylinders...) glued in place.



Finally, attached to the upper deck of the nose piece. You can see how each piece adds to the look of the deck. The old girl's starting to look good, I think!

[Ekuth]

Not alot done today, was time to take Christmas down and pack it away.

Hopefully, I'll be able to accomplish more tomorrow. Still, I got some more greeble work done.

Pics:

First, we have a shot of a greeble that's been staring at me for a few days making me wonder... How the heck am I gonna do that? Well, I managed, as you can see. The rounded part on the front gave me some pause, but I'm pleased with the solution I came up with. Solution: Take one 10mm bead, cut in half, cover with paper texture using standard weight paper. The glue gave some stretchability to the paper and I was able to form it to the shape of the bead, giving me the round part I was looking for. I still have to finish the "track" leading to the whole greeble.



Next up, shot of the bridge, lighted. Area is still a work in progress, but it's coming along. Will be more greebles on top of this area shortly. You can see I have some light bleed issues along the sides of the piece that will be dealt with when I move down to the sides.



Shot of the bridge from above, showing some of that nasty pipework I was pondering. Decided to go with the peel-a-part ribbon cable (old IDE drive cable revived!) for these and they look great, I think. I know, mixed media, but I just couldn't do it any other way.



Top shot of the back of the nose, showing the two "round nose barrel" greebles referenced in picture one above. You can see more of the fine pipework between the cylinders in back and off to the right rear corner.



Close up shot of the fine pipework in the right rear corner of the nose. The part just to the bottom still needs layering, but you can see it really does the trick!



Well, that's all for tonight. Minor changes, minor parts, but they add up. Hope you can see the progress from previous posts.

Thanks for the praise, and stay tuned for more details!

(couldn't resist)

[Ekuth]

Although it may not look like much, I actually got a fair bit accomplished today. With a few small exceptions, I can say with pride:

The top of the nose is DONE!

I figured out a way to do the dome greeble on top of the bridge, and I think it came out pretty darn well. I finished the build up of the "track" area in back of the "round nose barrels". Most of the rest of my time was spent doing edge-color touch ups over the entire surface, and doing the final tweaking of the bridge face. Getting those windows to look just so has been a struggle. Compare the pics below to the ones above to see what I mean.

Finally, I took care of the light bleeding along the edges with the judicious application of filler paint (two parts acrylic to one part white glue).

That allowed me to begin the plating on the right side of the ship, as shown below. This will be fun, as there are several spots where the greebles from the top of the nose will continue down the sides...

Pics:

First up, a good look at the "track" area I was referring to above. You can see the layering really adds to the depth of this piece as a whole. To the right corner above the insert area on the side of the nose you can see where the greebles will be wrapping down the edge to the sides of the ship. I'm looking forward to doing this part.



Next, top view of the "observation dome" greeble on the top back of the bridge structure. I followed the reference pics closely for the construction and coloration of this piece, hence the white edging on the "fins". Nope, I didn't forget to edge color, it's supposed to be that way.



Shot looking aft from the front of the nose, giving us a better look at both the bridge and the "observation dome". You can see where I've applied my filler paint to the left side of the nose in preparation for deck plating application.



A look at the right side of the nose, showing where I have begun the hull plating. Note the color difference between the new plating and the underlying base hull. I had originally used a clear spray coat sealant on the base hull (old hull) and it darkened things considerably. I won't be making that mistake again!



Well, that's all for this evening, but at least I'm making progress. Top of the nose is finished, now on to the sides!!!

[jagolden01]

Ekuth, beautiful build of a beautiful ship! Thanks for moving it over here and doing a the legacy work so we can see it all.
Can you tell us where to find Gearz TOS Galactica?

[Ekuth]

I finished the outside hull plating on the right side of the nose, matching the top to the side to my satisfaction. Which means I drove myself nuts trying to get as seamless a join as possible... very tough to do with the way this model is put together.

I can absolutely guarantee that there will be no light leakage though...

I had to remove/reshape a bulge area on the left side of the top of the nose, slicing through 4 layers in the process. I did get it smoothed out, though.

Work is proceeding apace on greebling the right side of the nose... mostly I have concentrated on laying the pipework before I move on to the larger connecting greebles, like the tanks and cylinders on top of the indent area near the back of the nose. Pipework is far from complete in that area, but I need to take a break for today. Eyes are too tired to glue properly, and when you hit that point, it's best to put it down and walk away...

Pics:

First shot shows the start of the pipework above the indent area in the rear of the nose. Obviously still alot to do here, including creation of the large tank that intersects the pipework... I point with pride to the nearly smooth seam where the top and side hull plating meet. This area suffered from severe "gaposis" and it took several application of filler before the plating met well.



Front part of the nose, where you can see some of the pipework wrapping around from the top of the nose. Tricky seamwork here, too. In this pic it looks like the side and top bulge a bit, but this is just optical illusion, as you can see below.



Same view from the front of the nose. You can see the "bulge" effect is in fact caused by the texture and shadow. Note that the bottom "railing" near the lighted band is not matched up as of yet... but I have plans for that area, and you'll see my solution shortly.



Midship seam line and pipework. I'm loving how the pipework and greebles wrap over the edge and really tie the piece together.



A little clearer shot of the challenges that await me at the rear indent area. You can strongly see the color differences between the original decking and the new plating I'm putting on. I'll be replacing the decking inside here shortly. As you can see, there's a wealth of larger pipework greebling to be done to really bring this area up to snuff.



Hope you guys are enjoying the build thread. Suggestions, comments and criticisms are always welcome.

More soon!

[Ekuth]

Okay, on to today's work:

Did not get alot accomplished today, but did get some work done.

Replaced the deck plating on the inside of the "insert" section.
Did the majority of the detail pipework above this area and created the major "tank/cylinder" greeble.

Pics:

Front to back view of the pipework and "tank/cylinder" greeble. Was going to use my bead technique for the ends of the tank/cylinder, but it just didn't look right. Decided to go with a banded layer technique, placing thin strips inside each previous layer; starting from the middle working out. Once these were done, capped the ends and finished with an open faced "pipe connector". I'm pleased with how it turned out.



Back to front view of the same. Still TONS of work to do in this whole area, and then on to the inside of the "indent" area. Not sure how much actual greebling I'll be doing in there, as the texture alone gives a really good effect as is. Definately some, though.



That's all for now. More soon.

[Ekuth]

Thanks, jagolden!

Gearz' galactica may be found here:

http://jleslie48.com/bg/index.html

It's a great build, and I know Gearz still wants it distributed, so no worries there.