Ships of the fleet

[peter noble]

I'm just re-reading a couple of articles that appeared in the now defunct Sci-Fi & Fantasy models on the miniatures from BSG.

Here's some facts:

The Big G is 76 inches long and 30 3/4 inches wide and 11 1/2 inches tall. It weighs between 50-60 lbs and cost between $25,000-$50,000.

It's made of plexiglass over a wooden frame with a metal rod running down its full length. It can be mounted for filming five ways – from the front, back, top, bottom and right side only. It has two fans in the engine section to keep the lights from overheating. Over 200 fibre optic lights are built into the model, the colour of which is a light battleship grey with red areas/markings.

The Vipers are15 1/2 inches long, 8 inches wide and 6 inches tall without their landing gear. Seven models were built in total at a scale of 1/24th. Three of them were fitted with freon jets to simulate the turbo exhaust. Some of them have fibre optics int he guns plus small quartz lights for the engines. The models could be mounted from the front, top, bottom and rear, some also had side mounts.

The ships were made from high density foam around 1/8th to 1/4 of an inch thick. The colour scheme is a light/medium grey with a dark wash for weathering. The stripes are redish-orange.

The Cylon Raider is 17 inches wide, 12 3/4 inches long and 3 1/2 inches deep making it 1/35 scale. It has the same mounting points as the Viper. and was also made of foam. Only four ships were made for the show. The overall colour is a dark grey with panther grey weathering applied with an airbrush.

Some models featured four small quartz lights in each engine plus fibre optics in the front under the cockpit and also in the gun bays.

The Basestar was 36 inches in diameter and made of plexiglass with epoxy castings detailing its surfaces. It was lit totally with fibre optics and could be mounted for filming from the top, bottom and one side.

Between 60-75 models were bult for the show.

Peter

[smilingassassin]

What I find disappointing about the series is that the humans got their butts kicked early in the series so we never got to see enough variations on the Battlestar concept, there was after all 12 battlestars for all 12 colony's correct? Would they all be identical and would there be smaller ships to support them besides the Vipers and standard shuttles? I think if the new mini series ever becomes a full on series they can take care of this somewhat, but to get all the classes in they would have to go to a series prior to the original series timeline such as the first war with the cylons.
:cool:

[shiningstar]

In the opening sequence of Saga of a star world they show a number
of the Battle stars grouped together. THey looked pretty much all
alike as far as I could tell.

By the way Smiling assassin. I love your NICK NAME! I only ever knew
of ONE other person by that name ...... one of the best foot ball players
the Dallas Cowboys ever had .....Harvey Martin.

The players on the other teams would quake in their shoes because
instead of growling or taunting them ....... he just smiled and they knew
they just knew that he was going to kick their Collective rear ends.

by the way .........

Wdlcome to the club.

[smilingassassin]

Thanx shining....I originally came up with the name with a buddy of mine one day as we were playing a boxing game on his playstation. He made his own boxer and he used to use him all the time. Then one day as his boxer made his ring entrance I heard him explain...."oooo look there he is ...the smiling assassin!" I nearly died of laughter I thought it was so cool. So i then used it as my online gaming nick...and it kinda stuck with my clan mates.
Now everytime I get online peaple have tons of comments on my name....like Smile! or why the "smiling" assassin. I just tell them I enjoy my work!
I did find a cool link through this site to a bunch of pics of cool variations to the galactica. does anyone here remember the T.V. series "space above and beyond"? It kinda ripped off some ideas from BG/TOS but they had a few more ship types, and I loved the nickname they gave their fighters, "hammerheads", damn nasty sharks! I personally liked the newest mini series remake of BG. I found it as advertised....way more up to date...and darker too.

[Senmut]

Yes, it would have been nice to see other types of ships, but in a continuation. NOT the dreck Moore is puking up! :upchuck:

[shiningstar]

I simply have to agree with Senmut on this one.
Some of the ships that were shown could have been done
far, far better by someone simply going to the local hobby
shop picking up 5 model ships and mish mashing them
together any old way.

[repcisg]

You guys are way ahead of me here.

The Battlestars shown in TOS were all the same model, even Pegasus (they just changed the name plates). So what you saw of the fleet was just multiple images of the same model. It was built to a scale of 1/960 which would make the real thing 6080 feet long. As for how many Battlestars - take your best shot, I have counted 24 in the fleet at Cimtar. The production crew, including Larson, never considered it an important issue. During the Pilot and in the series a total of seven Battlestar names were used. Everything beyond that is just fanfic.

On the published stuff only the Larson books are close to Cannon, every thing else is made up by the authors and is in no way related to the actual show. Ever hear of a publishing group called Space Waste? Well they dreamed up the 12 Battlestars idea, I think their name says it all. Seems Universal will sell a publishing license to any one with the money.

[Titon]

Interesting tidbit time.

Does anyone know why they only showed the Galactica from one side?

:)

[bsg1fan1975]

I agree Senmut!

[shiningstar]

I have no idea Titon and I usually notice things like that.
That was NOT one of the things I noticed. I'll keep a lookout
for that in the future.

[jewels]

Interesting tidbit time.

Does anyone know why they only showed the Galactica from one side?

:)
Yes, the right and left hand landing bays were not entirely symetrical (i thought I remember it having to do with the angles of the arms that the bays are attached to, so they had to watch the shooting angles so you couldn't detect the defect in the model.

[shiningstar]

Yes, the right and left hand landing bays were not entirely symetrical (i thought I remember it having to do with the angles of the arms that the bays are attached to, so they had to watch the shooting angles so you couldn't detect the defect in the model.


WOW! I didn't know that! That is soooooooooo neat! :salute:

[jewels]

Let's see if I remembered right, shiningstar... Hmmmm. Titon still seems to be under the influence of that shot someone bought him in another thread....

Titon?? Yo...Titon?? Did I get it sorta right?

[repcisg]

Good memory Jewels!

The right bay warped shortly after the model was finished.

[Titon]

Yes, the right and left hand landing bays were not entirely symetrical (i thought I remember it having to do with the angles of the arms that the bays are attached to, so they had to watch the shooting angles so you couldn't detect the defect in the model.

Give that girl a mushie.

It's to bad that happened. Another interesting thing is the right landing bay had alot of different details than the left.

But i'll show you that once i finish the model.

;)

[thomas7g]

I don't see what's the big deal. Just shoot the model and flip the image. All you have to do is put on the name "GALACTICA" on backwards and the model would shoot fine. BTW- They did that for the dock scene in Titanic. All the lettering for that scene was shot in a mirror image. As was the hair and clothing. Also the original Enterprise model was never completed on the port side. (until just recently)

Though its not as if we make aircraft carriers symetrical in real life either...

[jewels]

Give that girl a mushie.

It's to bad that happened. Another interesting thing is the right landing bay had alot of different details than the left.

But i'll show you that once i finish the model.

;)
NOW, we're talking! Can't wait, but of course I will. :)

Oh, Titon or Repcisg: did it warp because of the lighting in it? or rather the heat from the lighting?

[braxiss]

:salute: i thought i new alot about bsg, but after spending time here i'm just a small fish in a very very big pond.

[jewels]

Welcome, braxiss. Hope you enjoy your time here. If you run into a Cafe thread watch out for anything passed off as yellow koolaid and we're not really sure what's in the blue koolaid. Oh, yea, and Muffit's beavers are never up to anything good, but they are humorous. ;)

[Sept17th]

An interesting thread with bearly a mention of the mini-series and no one got a bloody nose. I really look forward to Titon's further explaination on the landing bay details.

[Titon]

Oh there's lot's of things i could tell ya Jon.
:)

[jewels]

But then Mark would have to kill him! hehehee

[jewels]

OH, was it the lighting that made the right bay warp?? Anyone??

[repcisg]

The model was made of wood and Plexiglas, the hull, bay arms were made of wood with a Plexiglas skin. With the Bays made primarily of Plexiglas. Wood expands and contracts with heat and moisture while Plexiglas will expand and contract in response to temperature only. It is most likely the right bay flexed more than the left in the heat and humidity of the studio.

[Muffit]

Interesting tidbit time.

Does anyone know why they only showed the Galactica from one side?

:)

Ha, that's great Don! I always noticed but it never really sank in till you just mentioned it. One other thing, the Pegasus must've been a modified set of frames or something if they used the same model for both. The closeups clearly show black panel boundaries which do not appear on the Big G (at least not noticeably).

Neat subject! :)
:muffit:

[repcisg]

Some of the parts on the Big G are removable, like the name plate, so it could be used to represent other Battlestars.

[shiningstar]

Thanks for the information repcisg! :)