OlCabour's Hangar

• The Galactica was covered with a light gray rather diluted to let appeared the underside preshading.

I want to reach a finish as it appears in the pilot of the serie. If it has not yet been attacked on all sides by the Cylons, it should nevertheless not look brand new, as it was its last flight before being retired. So it needs a very worn look. At the end of season 4, the Galactica is so messed up that it becomed a flying wreck (with a half-burnt armor) !

         Before | After

This is not really easy to distinguish on the photos below, but the preshading is there.

Then, the least interesting part of the painting stage : achieve lot's of panels in different shades of gray, using tens (hundreds ?) of small masks of tape tamiya, used and reused many times.

* First color : dark gray mixed with the base color.

Between the ribs and into the sides, I used stencils, made from plastic card.

The stencils

The central engine module is not in the same color as the main body. It received a very light gray sand filter. Before (left) | After (right)

* Second tone on the panels: a slightly bluish medium gray mixed with the base color as well.

Also on engines, there are a few sand gray panels.

* And the third tone of gray, brighter this time.

Phew, having handle small pieces of masking tape for more than a week, this is now starting to feel the end.

The red stripes are quickly realized. The gray panels acting themselves as preshading, and give me various shades of red panels (red paint is a poor covering color).

After let it drying for 24 hours, the Galactica has just received a light coat of klir, and a heaver one in the 3 areas that will receive decals.