manglegrat

[LDD-MOC] Battlestar Galactica

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After finishing up the in-the-brick Pegasus, I finally dusted off (virtually) the LDD design I had started on for a version of the Galactica scaled to it. All 100% my own work, this time! :wub:

I originally designed the sidepods (based on the top half of the Pegasus ones) pretty quickly, but then got so hung-up on the curves and ribs for the engines that I got stuck in a rut and gave up on it. When I came back to it I started at the front and worked my way back. When I got to the engines I used some of the artistic license I had learned to apply to do the missing plating/ribs, and that allowed me to push through to the end result below.

She currently weighs-in at a svelte-for-her-age 3087 bricks, and according to LDCad she's 65L x 11H x 25W in bricks (not technically long enough to be a real SHIP, but hey) or ~51cm long by 10cm high by 20cm wide. Pegasus is 54cm long x 13cm high x 26cm wide - and generally a lot bulkier - in comparison.

I've still to design a stand, or sticker sheet (need some for the engine nozzles for sure - can't texture them out fully with Lego at this scale), but those can come as I gather the bricks. May need to build this one before I get to the @mortesv Nebulon... 

So here she is - the grand old lady herself:

38017186484_e6697dce52_c.jpg

The pods slide in and out on rails, and kinda recess into the bodywork (as much as I could with Lego, anyway). They're a real PITA to move around in LDD... :wink:

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And here's a view of the underside and engines (the 4 technic 32530 pieces in the middle are placeholders for connecting the stand) with the pods retracted to show how they integrate with the main body:

26958249969_cdf50e28c6_c.jpg

There's another underside shot (front perspective) plus my reference image in my Flickr album. I may go & fire up my old Mac to do a 360 render now...

Any feedback, comments or suggestions are welcome! :blush:

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Very cool. You've gotten the engines and primary hull pretty much spot on, and the landing bay pods look good when viewed from above. I especially like that you added the retraction function for the pods.... very nice. 

Looking at some of the source images online, the bow section here looks like it's got a slightly narrower central section, with wider side curves when viewed from the front. I love what you've done with the underside of the bow, though... that part you totally nailed.

 

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Thanks! :classic: Yeah, I agree it's a little chunkier at the nose than the reference, and possibly a bit taller than would be strictly accurate - though I like the way the curves continue from top to sides at the current angle.

I won't really know how it compares to Pegasus until I have them side to side... Kinda like this: :look:

24879687278_56aeb635a3_c.jpg

Here's the size comparison study I started off scaling the sidepods to:

24879690888_6d1fa6e42f_c.jpg

Galactica could be shortened by 2-4 studs (2 in the body & sidepods, another 1 or 2 in the engine section) but I think the head's just about in the right proportions (with a bit of artistic license applied). I feel like I want to drop the top engines down at least plate or two as well though, possibly a full brick...

Having said that, I do like it as it is, but maybe (just like the Pegasus) there's a V2.0 in my near future! I have some free time coming up... :wink:

Edited by manglegrat

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That Pegasus design is magnificent... another that I'll add to my list of builds in the future. 

I swear, Lego is likely going to send me bankrupt and to divorce court :tongue:

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2 hours ago, Captain_Quinn said:

That Pegasus design is magnificent... another that I'll add to my list of builds in the future. 

I swear, Lego is likely going to send me bankrupt and to divorce court :tongue:

Hey, thanks! :blush: Major credit to CK-MCMLXXXI, of course!

Tell me about it... I want to build this one next, then the MortesV Nebulon B, and I'm gonna get one of the new UCS MFs (can't not). Dangerous hobby, this!

Not to tempt you too much, but if you really wanted to, then everything you'd need to build that version of the Pegasus (except 3810 Lego bricks, buckets of patience and a wee bit of reinforcement that's not in the "panels off" file for some hinge bricks at the bottom/rear) could be found here, with a friendly parts list here. Just sayin'... :wink:

Edited by manglegrat

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1 hour ago, manglegrat said:

Not to tempt you too much, but if you really wanted to, then everything you'd need to build that version of the Pegasus (except 3810 Lego bricks, buckets of patience and a wee bit of reinforcement that's not in the "panels off" file for some hinge bricks at the bottom/rear) could be found here, with a friendly parts list here. Just sayin'... :wink:

Might squeeze that into post xmas-pre new years down time... :grin:

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Today, I shortened the top engines by one brick and lowered them by one plate, and redesigned the middle-engine section (top & bottom) to make it a bit slimmer vertically and rework it to be buildable in DBG (some parts I used in v1 aren't available).

I couldn't bring myself to hack into the body or sidepods apart to shorten it more. :laugh:

Then I rendered up a couple more useful angles for a size comparison to compare to the reference I quoted above - it ain't perfect but I'm happier with the length now, will probably leave it as-is and work on a stand & stickers next:

24923107418_4bcbd0d698_c.jpg

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Had to revert to using BlueRender again - Busufl keeps crashing with array out-of-bounds errors. :angry: I may convert the LXF file to LDraw and try POV-ray to get some better renders...

Aaand, here's a POV-Ray render - not too bad for a first go:

24924840648_ccedf736bd_c.jpg

Edited by manglegrat
Adding POV-Ray render

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Aaaand here she is on a stand - which is pretty much identical to the Pegasus one:

38806403032_72877aaf58_c.jpg

I added a small splash of new dark red colour to be more like the reference shots - though most of the red bits are easier to see on the underside!

It'll be interesting to see if there's enough clutch power in the sliding rails to keep the sidepods in or out at that angle... I may need to come up with a locking mechanism to overcome gravity. :classic:

360:

T5H_X7ALGLYzZRVE_XjrX9no5pxRSEHU61AqUoVy

Edited by manglegrat
changed pic

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I think the red really helps make the bow section look more accurate.  Doing a Battlestar is on my eventual to do list.  Nice work!

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Thanks, Ryan! There's not too many examples of Lego Battlestars out there, so the more the merrier. :laugh:

El Barto has done some excellent ones (on Flickr) but they're quite a bit bigger... though I found an excellent tiny one today.

For the splash of red & gold of the ringed Colonial logo on the 4x4 dish on the back, I'm wondering whether a sticker printed out on my clear laser printer sheets would conform to the curves (probably not without a risky application of heat) or maybe I'll need to change up the design to flatten it using a 2x2 round tile & the new quarter-round 2x2 tiles on a 4x4 round plate... Something for me to experiment with in-the-brick. :wink:

Edited by manglegrat

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Drafted up a couple of versions of a UCS plaque - one using Adama's nickname for her (The Grand Old Lady), and one using the crew's (The Bucket). Not sure which one I'll use yet... If I have it next to Pegasus then the latter would be better - The Beast & The Bucket together. Any opinions? :wink:

24075642027_70c070a4f4_c.jpg

Or:

25071377878_a3df2fabb8_c.jpg

Edited by manglegrat

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Wow, those are 2 really, really great models. I gotta say I like your version of the Pegasus a lot. The Galactica is good, but there was something bugging me about it and I finally figured it out and decided to comment. The "gator head" on the ship has it's geometry slightly wrong when compared to references. The top of the "gator head" on Galactica narrows too much on your model as it slopes down to the nose. If there is any way to widen the "flat" area on top of your model to more closely match the reference pics I think it will go along way to making it look "right". Either way 2 amazing models and I hope you can make the changes to Galactica.

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2 hours ago, Evil Porkchop said:

Wow, those are 2 really, really great models. I gotta say I like your version of the Pegasus a lot. The Galactica is good, but there was something bugging me about it and I finally figured it out and decided to comment. The "gator head" on the ship has it's geometry slightly wrong when compared to references. The top of the "gator head" on Galactica narrows too much on your model as it slopes down to the nose. If there is any way to widen the "flat" area on top of your model to more closely match the reference pics I think it will go along way to making it look "right". Either way 2 amazing models and I hope you can make the changes to Galactica.

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Appreciate it. :classic::thumbup:

I think I understand what you're suggesting. There may be a few relatively easy ways to widen the "bridge" of the nose a bit to try to line up with your suggestion - without doing a render I tried just a (very) quick tweak and LDD screenshot:

38306263154_5a1b4180e5.jpg

Is that sort of thing what you're getting at? A bit wider, a bit longer, ends closer to the bottom part of the nose...

I'm sure there are smoother ways to do the curves and angles between the top and side plates, just wanted to check I understood where you were going. :classic:

Edited by manglegrat

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Just now, manglegrat said:

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Appreciate it. :classic::thumbup:

I think I understand what you're suggesting. There may be a few relatively easy ways to widen the "bridge" of the nose a bit to try to line up with your suggestion - without doing a render I tried just a (very) quick tweak and LDD screenshot:

38306263154_5a1b4180e5_b.jpg

Is that sort of thing what you're getting at? A bit wider, a bit longer, ends closer to the bottom part of the nose...

I'm sure there are smoother ways to do the curves and angles between the top and side plates, just wanted to check I understood where you were going. :classic:

That's pretty close.

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11 minutes ago, Evil Porkchop said:

That's pretty close.

Might not be easy to imagine what it'll look like from various angles from just one image, but here's a slightly "smoother" transition between sides and top from the front-on - thoughts? It's definitely something I can play with a bit more once I'm building it in the brick. :classic:

38986303502_a4286236b9.jpg

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17 minutes ago, manglegrat said:

Might not be easy to imagine what it'll look like from various angles from just one image, but here's a slightly "smoother" transition between sides and top from the front-on - thoughts? It's definitely something I can play with a bit more once I'm building it in the brick. :classic:

38986303502_a4286236b9.jpg

Again, just my opinion. But the "nose" needs to be maybe 1 stud thinner/lower (maybe just make it slope a bit more if possible, if that makes sense) and the top should be 1 stud wider on each side (if possible). The head on view looks better than I expected!

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18 hours ago, Evil Porkchop said:

Again, just my opinion. But the "nose" needs to be maybe 1 stud thinner/lower (maybe just make it slope a bit more if possible, if that makes sense) and the top should be 1 stud wider on each side (if possible). The head on view looks better than I expected!

Yeah, I see what you're saying but the only issue with just dropping the angle on the middle section (it's on hinges so that part is easily doable) is that you then have to redesign the sides as well to keep the three sections closely integrated, and it could be tricky to get all the angles to mesh together as closely as they currently do (which is still a bit gappy, to be fair).

It's possible that a very effective and tight-fitting taper could be achieved, but redoing the front end entirely is a bigger revisit than I was intending at this point. At least, not in LDD - it's a pain in the butt to do compound angles/rotations in LDD! Call me lazy... :blush:

Once I've built it in the brick and validated the structure I'll publish the LXF files (and sticker files) on Bricksafe and you can give 'er. :wink: 

My BL orders are in, but the holiday shipping rush will probably delay the build until January...

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People like u that can basically build this stuff up out of their head amaze me. I'm a huge BSG fan and may have to try my hand at these once u publish the dikes.

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Thanks! :blush:

I'm constantly amazed by the frequency of new MOCs from some of the posters on here, but for me it has taken ages, persistence and practice - and occasional inspiration - to do the (very) few MOCs I've done, and all are based on something that already exists that I can copy from, rather than being totally original. The original creations I see here and on Flickr groups every day just blow me away.

It's a fun journey, though - well worth it. I've learned a lot from looking at other MOCs and techniques that other more creative folks have used first, as well as some official TLG sets.

But hey, even if all I ever built was unshareable junk I'm still enjoying the process and mental creative exercise. Otherwise, I'd just be surfing the internet at night all the time - rather than just half the time... :wink:

Bear with me and once I've got 'er built the files are all yours - any anyone else who's interested! :classic:

Edited by manglegrat

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17 minutes ago, Sillybats75 said:

You most definitely put me down for instructions for this one. A real beauty! 

Thanks! :blush:

I won't be doing full instructions like some of those awesome guys who know how to use BluePrint and LPub (too lazy to rebuild my files to leverage that software properly), but I'm expecting to use the auto-generated instructions coming from split-up LXF files of the final model in the renders above to build this in-the-brick myself using the LDD-generated instructions.

If those work for me, then I'll release those files (plus the sticker sheets) through my BrickSafe account.

Bear with me - just have to wait for 2 more BL orders (though one is coming from Poland so might be slow over the holidays)... :wink:

I'll post as-built pics and file links here when I'm done! :laugh:

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22 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

If you have a full LXF I wouldnt mind giving it a crack to make instructions. 

Once I've validated the build in the brick, yeah, sure you can have a go at it.

I'm not convinced the way the head side-plates are secured (at a single point only) is solid enough, and the lack of a locking mechanism for the sliding side pods makes me a bit worried they'll move out of alignment on the stand just under gravity - though there may be enough clutch between the 1x8 door rail plates and grooved 1x4 bricks they slide on...

I want to test those out in real life and find out what (if anything) needs to be tweaked and made more robust before releasing the files. There's probably a lot more internal parts that don't need to be LBG as well, but I'm less concerned about that aspect. :classic:

12 hours ago, Davdup said:

Awesome work! Would definitely look great along with my Cylon Raider and Viper MkII! :)

Thanks! Do you mean the big ones or the small ones? :wink: This and Pegasus would make a great set with your two big ones, for sure. To be closer to-scale though, your small ones'd have to be just smaller than a 1x1 tile... :laugh: 

When's the next set of pics of your big-scale Raider coming out? :sweet:

Edited by manglegrat
wording

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