by Kenneth Gogan

This entry is a vintage (long discontinued) 1978 monogram Battlestar Galactica model kit. I purchased this model at a yard sale for just $2.00, and it was already assembled (poorly). I thought it would make a good candidate to customize with more accurate detail and transform into the Battlestar Pegasus (my personal favorite).

I began by putting the model in the freezer for four days so that the glue would get brittle and the plastic would get more rigid. For the most part the model came completely apart rather easily except for the engine halves, which took a lot more care to separate (too much glue). I then cut out the middle of the centre landing bay arms with a dremel tool to look more like the original film miniature. I then boxed it in with pieces of styrene, added some piping and tank track greeblies. Notches were cut into the outer cone shaped sections of the front of both landing bays and then more greeblies were added for more detail. The open end of the front of the landing bays were closed off and detail was added there as well.

Attention was then turned to the rear engines where I cut out the areas where engine exhaust escapes with a dremel tool. I then added metal window screen by gluing it on the inside back of the engine to provide more detail. The terrible engine droop, common on these vintage Battlestars, was next addressed. I cut a relief cut on the bottom and sides where the engine meets the mid section and pride it up and inserted a styrene wedge to hold the engine bodylines parallel with the landing bay's bodylines. May greeblies were added here as well.

The nose and triangular sections located on the left and right rear of the head section were tossed into the trash and were custom rebuilt with more tank and battleship pieces. Label maker pieces and electronic diodes can be found as detail on this model as well. All kit-bashed tank and battleship greeblies were Italeri 1/72 scale. Roughly an extra 150 pieces including bent copper piping can be found all over this ship, as well as battleship antiaircraft gun turrets for added visual armament. There have been eyebrows and piping added to the top of the cubby holes on the left and right side of the rear of the head section. Lines were scribed and penciled in throughout this model.

Forced-perspective landing bay decals were added to the rear of the landing bays. Holes were drilled out along the length of the landing bays to simulate the launch tube openings.

Tiny holes were drilled in the proper locations to accept fiber optic strands for simulating lighted porthole windows. In total 90 fiber optic strands were used illuminated by two separate bright while LED lights. Two bundles of three super bright white lights encased in a reflective covered cardboard box to reflect all the light outward through the engine openings. The red light in the centre of the engines is the same white light passing through clear red plastic glued to the backside of the engines. The wires run downward through aluminum and styrene tubes that are also part of a custom display stand. The base is the top half of a Cylon base star, which houses the two battery packs, accessible via several screws that secure the two saucer sections together. Two micro switches are disguised into the detail on top of the base star. One switch turns on the fiber optic lights, the other switches on the engine lights. All the lighting is not a kit and is all scratch built.

The red circle on the top center section, the Pegasus name, and the forced-perspective landing bay decals are from J.T Graphics. All other markings are hand painted. Acryl acrylic paints were used to paint the model the main color is a custom mix of three different colors: camouflage grey, light grey, and metallic grey. Three coats of gloss clear were applied to aid in the application of the decals. The washes to bring out the detail of the model were made by watering down the custom mixed base color with rubbing alcohol and adding a few drops of interior black to darken the tint. Further heavy weathering and oil staining was achieved with Tamiya's pastel weathering kit. Three coats of flat clear were applied to seal the deal and knock off the glossy sheen.

Overall this was not an easy scale to put this amount of detail in to, but I welcomed the challenge and it was also an inexpensive “guinea pig” to attempt such a dramatic “facelift”. The end result, I feel, is much more visually appealing then the original subject that I began with. The display stand is also much sturdier and more visually appealing.

Image: Right/rear view

Image: Upper left/rear

Image: Engines lit

Image: Fly past

Image: Detail

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Image: Name

Image: Detail

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Image: Detail

Image: Under the bow

Image: Midship

Image: Underneath

Image: More

Image: Detail

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Image: Left/front

Image: Bow