Project log: Scratch building an Omega destroyer

[Anthallas]

Hi.

I have been building my own miniatures for some time now. At the space front I have already built a Narn G'Quan:

The base is standard GW fantasy battle base, 20mm. So the ship would be something close to fleet action scale. Additionally, I cast my models into resin, so I can produce as many as I want, for personal use. Only problem with this iconic Narn ship is the round "wings", that require some amount of scratch building and greenstuffing even after the cast.

Anyway, the next project would be to build an Omega Destroyer, that would accomplish the following:

1. To be at scale compared to the G'Quan
2. To be clearly and undistiputable a Babylon 5 Omega destroyer with reasonable detail considering the scale.
3. Built so that a molds can be made of it for futher reproduction.


First order of business would be to establish a size for each vessel. So, if you have any reliable sources which state the lenght of an Omega or G'Quan, I would be happy to know.


To be continued

 

[Anthallas]

reserved

 

[Foxmeister]

This chart may help, but I couldn't say how accurate it is.

http://conservationreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/spaceship-size-comparison-chart.gif

I'v "url'd" it rather than "img'd" it because it is quite large.

Regards,

Dave

 

[McKickaha]

Always good to see another scratch builder's work.

Nice job on the G'Quan especially in such a small scale. Must admit I make a point of never building existing canon designs, (3rd excepted), for many reasons, so in one aspect thats easier since I never have to worry over exact scaling acoss ships although I do scale to power, e.g.raid to raid, not as easy as it sounds, Sharlin war scale for instance. (Much more design constrained in "Deep Black & quite rightly so)

One site that may be useful for you is;

http://www.merzo.net/index.html

Jeff Russel has created a site which cross-scales ships from many fictional universes. On reminding myself this morning he does have an Omega & a G'Quan shown. Some of his images are dimensioned some not but they are all displayed in his derived relative scales.

I disagree with a few of his ships, notably his huge Corvan for instance, but his Omega and G'Quan seem logical. having said that I would also do some broad searching on the internet to confirm across other sites and I know there are many sites out there with dimensions, problem is always accuracy so depnds how deep you want to go. Jeff Russel is thus as good as any.

Mongoose did produce deck plans for the G'Quan, I believe, which presumably show some overall dimensions, however I don't own a copy of these & I don't think they produced Omega plans.

Look forward to seeing future progress on your project.

 

[Anthallas]

Thanks for the site, Kickaha.

I am not too obsessed with the scale, expecially since my figures will be so small otherwise. B5tech.com says that Omega would be ~1700m and G'Quan ~1400. Since those sounds about right, I will go with them.

My G'Quan is about 37mm long, so the Omega would be about 45mm. I am not counting the forward antennas on the omega.

I also play B5wars, so I cannot really scale by Acta priority levels. For example in B5wars G'Quan costs 625points and Hyperion costs 705p.

To be completely honest, I would like to build ships in bigger scale, since it would allow for more detail. However, casting them would then require more mold silicone and resin, making the whole procress cost much more. I have also noticed that its much easier to play with smaller miniatures.

But expecially after I found following pictures of omega, I am starting to long for larger scale with more details.

http://www.virtualmatter.org/assets/work/omega1.jpg

http://www.virtualmatter.org/assets/work/omega2.jpg

http://www.virtualmatter.org/assets/work/omega3.jpg

 

[Greg Smith]

Those are splendid pictures of the Omega.

This is always useful for reference: http://www.starshipmodeler.com/b5/b5tech.htm

And a interesting discussion on the scale and sizes of certain ships, since all sources do not neccesarily agree: http://www.meshweaver.com/Craft_Comparisons/Craft_Comparisons_1.htm

 

[McKickaha]

Quoting Anthallas

I am not too obsessed with the scale, expecially since my figures will be so small otherwise. B5tech.com says that Omega would be ~1700m and G'Quan ~1400. Since those sounds about right, I will go with them.

My G'Quan is about 37mm long, so the Omega would be about 45mm. I am not counting the forward antennas on the omega.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

I also played B5wars, so I cannot really scale by Acta priority levels. For example in B5wars G'Quan costs 625points and Hyperion costs 705p.

Used to play B5 Wars myself, in fact the "demise" of that mini line, I unfortunately started near the end, is what made me a bit a of fanatic on B5 minis in general, still to recover from that

To be completely honest, I would like to build ships in bigger scale, since it would allow for more detail. However, casting them would then require more mold silicone and resin, making the whole procress cost much more. I have also noticed that its much easier to play with smaller miniatures.

Well obviously prefer the bigger scale myself but it is indeed a very expensive sub hobby. Still I have managed to learn some skills over the last couple of years which are now useful for Deep Black.

But expecially after I found following pictures of omega, I am starting to long for larger scale with more details.

http://www.virtualmatter.org/assets/work/omega1.jpg

http://www.virtualmatter.org/assets/work/omega2.jpg

http://www.virtualmatter.org/assets/work/omega3.jpg

Wonderful diagrams, thank you for sharing these. With these you could scratchbuild a truly large scale model, but I guess thats another story.

 

[Sean-Khan]

Always good to see new scratchbuilds That G'Quan looks marvellous, great work! It's good you're not too accurate about the scales, especially if you're doing fighters and/or ships of large size differences, at some point it's necessary to go into relative scales.

Those resource pics look great, I just hope I would have had them while doing mine - although I wouldn't probably have gone into such details.

I've made a bunch of relatively simple scratchbuilds (no time for too much details if I want enough ships, and I've had enough of mold-making for a while), if you want to check them/few wip's here's the link: http://e2ogame.net/gallery/models/b5/ .

 

[McKickaha]

Sean-Khan

Great work, very cool.

particularly like your paint job on the Shadow Cruiser, amongst the best if not the best representation of the canon look I can recall seeing.

Just been painting a series of hexes on one of my own alternative race ships, as 1 part of an effect, but when I get around to painting my own Shadow Fleet will need to keep your style in mind as a benchmark.

 

[Anthallas]

Hey, that is an awesome site Greg. It gives the G'Quan a lenght of 1200, which is 200 less than the b5tec one. That would place the Omega model in about 53mm lenght. I think I will do something between 45-53mm, judging what looks best when I build.

I would not want to go to relative scale on any ships I build, but in some cases it might be impossible. But I would like to build an in scale white star, which would be about 10mm long.


The general idea is to build a the basic shape from plastic card, then fill all gaps with milliputty and then file it to shape. The details will be made from plasticcard, various plastic bits and greenstuff/milliputty.

 

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Nice looking ships Sean.

 

[basaint]

Awesome work guys!

wish I had thought about scratch building that way...would've saved me the 1000+ dollars i've dumped on minis in the last 6 months