| Scale: 1/3700 (close enough to 1/4105 scale to make me happy, tho!) Background Story Prior the First Cylon War, the Colonial Fleet didn't exist. Each Colony had a myriad design of ships with which to patrol it's own space, each being different from the other. There were no standard ship types with the exception of the Saggitarron Colony. They employed a cruiser with the lead ship being the Defender. This became the standard for all ships of the small Saggitarron fleet. With the start of the uprising of their servants, the Colonies quickly joined together under their common enemy. They pooled their resources and designed large ships which they called battlestars with which to project the budding Colonial Fleet's military might. These ships were most impressive and could field a large number of fighters, but at the same time, it was decided that these ships needed some sort of escort, or Fleet support. With the sucess of the Defender-class of cruisers, it was decided to adopt that design, improving upong it. The ships of the former Saggittaron Fleet were quickly upgraded with the latest in technologies and weapons and more were produced. Over four dozen of these ships were built, in all, with two being assigned to each battlestar as an escort. Each of the Twelve Colonies was also assigned a pair of Defenders, along with smaller support ships in the form of destroyers, interdictors and corvettes. As more and more battlestars were built following the signing of the Armistice, the Defenders were eventually phased out of operational use. More than half were scrapped while some were purchased by various civilian and corporate concerns. Those found in civilian use were often converted to become armed transports, their vast hangar, cargo and crew spaces serving to protect cargo going to various mining outposts and small colony groups that had started budding off of the Colonies themselves. Pirates were generally reticent to attack one of these ships, which were still more than capable of defending their cargo and ensuring those who were in need received their goods.
The Design
This is Fantastic Plastics Defender-class ship in 1/3700 scale. It's based off of a fan-produced design by Todd Boyce, made initially for a table-top Role-Playing Game (RPG) in which he played fairly regularly. One of the fine folks at Zoic Studios, being fans of TOS BSG and ship design, saw this design online while trying to come up with "fill ships" with which to flesh out the Rag Tag Fugitive Fleet for the new Battlestar Galactica, built a CGI model and added it. We initially see the design in the first episode of Season One, entitled "33" - albiet from an aft view where we really can't make out much detail. We later see it appear in some long shots, most notably next to the U.S.S. Sulaco from the movie "Aliens" in the First Season episode "Flesh and Bone". It shows up most prominently in the last episode of Season Two, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part Two", shown over New Caprica as the RTF jumps away from the Cylon Fleet that just appeared overhead.
The Model
Mastered by Alfred Wong and produced by Fantastic Plastic, this is one of my favorite designs that has appeared on "Nu-Galactica", though it wasn't always so. The kit is pretty easy to build, being pretty straight forward. Parts fit was very nice, requiring minimal clean up or adjustment to get things aligned properly. Nice castings. I did the intitial build per the instructions. However, I added a few minor detailing pieces here and there, most notably the guns. The main six gun emplacements were from an auction I won from Bam Bam Productions and appear to be castings taken from the Diamond Select NuGalactica. They're cast as one large sheet with 8 guns on each sheet. I had to sand the sheets down so that they'd be thinner, then carefully cut out the guns. The barrels never did cast all that well, apparently, so I had to cut what was left of those off, then replace them with Evergreen tube stock. I added a single gun turret to the bottom of the hangar pod, in the aft section. It just made sense to me that this area would be covered by some sort of gun or missile emplacement, so I added a spare gun turret from the BamBam Productions Cygnus kit, also in 1/3700 scale. The kit comes with twice the number of them that you need, so I figured I was alright here. I think that all the guns turned out looking better than I had originally thought. On the engine housings, I added some detail pieces from 1/700 scale warships. I forget what they were originally supposed to be, but thought that would make good antennas - either for communciations or as sensors. I put two on each of the outboard surfaces. I also added some small detail pieces that appear on the Original Series Battlestar Galactica, just below and somewhat behind the name plate. I thought that these would give it a better sense of scale, as I want it to be the same size as the Revell-Monogram and Timeslip Creations model kits. The base color is Tamiya spray can AS-7 Neutral Gray (USAAF). I used a variety of other colors to bring out some of the detail, forgoing the standard "mono-color with a wash" look that the Big G herself usually gets. I tried to keep from using just shades of gray, but didn't want to add bunches of bright colors, at the same time. The piping on the hull is Testors Aluminum, Steel or engine exhaust. It received a series of washes in an attempt to make the panel lines and other detail snap out. At one point during painting, I accidentally dropped the model, breaking off both of the engine sections. I glued them back on as carefully as I could, but my patience was short so I didn't do as good a job as I could have. I might go back and rebuild this one day. |