Okay, take 2 on this ( the computer ate my first attempt at a post ).
At long last, here's the WIP pics I promised!
The first bit of customizing was scribing panel lines on the bay doors before assembly and on the rest of the main body after subassemblies were put together. Unfortunately, the glow-in-the-dark plastic didn't show this well in the pics so I'll jest let the lines become apparent as the project progresses.
After assembling the main body of the kit with the bay installed, I added the first "scratchbuilding" with some I-beams in the bay and styrene pieces labeled as having a "channel" cross section give the door interiors some detail. While this leaves the interior sides a bit bare, there are some details there I hope can be made clearer with paint and wash later.
As far as "in-story" reasons for the bay, I had the idea that after the Reavers have finished off whoever is on the ship they ram, they can use the bay to capture any escape pods that might have thought they got away.
To give the ship that "flying harpoon" look as well as have something like the spiny bits we see on some Reaver ships, I added "barbs" to the nose cone and other parts of the ship. I uysed more of the "channel" styrene to set the bases of these, and cut the barbs themselves from strip styrene.
Since this thing is supposed to be a spacegoing battering ram, I figured some extra I-beams and random raised plates would add detail to the nose and give it a more reinforced look. The sail also has some "channel" pieces to add to the effect.
Next the engines from the Podracer. I just stuck these into place with some Tamiya 2-part putty. You can also see the nose cone in test-fit position with some of the barbs in place.
Apparently I'll have to split this up into multiple posts because of the pictures. More in a sec...