A Viper on its own gets bored. With the Colonial Viper 7242 finished, it was only fair to give it something to chase: the Cylon Raider, the Cylons’ fighter. A crescent with two claws, which looks designed to unsettle anyone who stares at it too closely.
Black plastic, strange shapes
January 2017. The box holds only a few parts, but huge ones: the horseshoe-shaped main hull, the centre section, the wings and the details. Assembly itself is quick. The hard part comes later, because a Raider all in the same grey looks like a toy, and I wanted it to look like an alien war machine.
The tape war
May 2017. The trick for believable metal is not to use just one silver. You start with a metallic base over everything, then mask the panels that need to stay light and spray a second, darker shade on the rest. Then repeat. Every pass means hours of masking tape cut to size along the panel lines, and a few minutes of airbrush.
Peeling off the tape is the best moment in all of model-making. It’s the only present you unwrap already knowing what’s inside, and it still manages to surprise you.
Finished (taking my time)
Two years pass between the last work-in-progress photos and those of the finished model. Don’t ask me why: in a workshop with lots of open builds, sometimes a model just has to wait its turn. In 2019 the Raider is complete, with multi-tone metallics, dark details and the black centre section.
Now the Viper and the Raider share the same shelf. No casualties so far.