Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Classic Cylon Raider - Making an old Enemy looking Good

Another ship that achieved iconic status started during the late 70s and early 80s, when we were introduced to the Cylons' "pancake" shaped fighters. These ships were the frontline force that devastated the Battlestar fleet and destroyed the 12 colonies in the classic series, but surprisingly they were no match for the Galactica and her crew. Well, hollywood treasured the main stars so no matter what, the principle ships and actors/actresses can never die .. Hurrah. I thought it was pretty amazing when I watch the old classics again, 2 or 3 Vipers were always capable of wiping out 6 to 9 cylon raiders. They just press the fire button and immediately 3 of Raiders explodes. No wonder the Cylons couldn't stand humans.




Studio Models that was auctioned of



Below are just some of the images I found and collected througout the years. They ain't much but hopefully they are enough you can use for reference for your build.
















Only available styrene plastic kit I know of for the classic Cylon Raider is from Monogram, later reissued under Revell with new decals. Kit wise is still the same old kit ... minus that hole and rubber band placement to shoot projectiles out.





Here are some build highlights I found in my archieve folders. I'm not sure who build some of these or if they are even the Revell/Monogram kit, but these are fantastic build you can use to emulate your own.










Studio Scale Cylon Raider from Gene Kozicki

This is a Studio Scale resin kit done up to perfection as highlighted in modelermagic.com. You won't get another kit like this from anywhere else.

Created by well known Hollywood man Gene Kozicki and using casts from Jim Key, he replicated this Cylon Raider fantastically! This piece was shown in Los Angeles at a Battlestar Galactica Film Marathon along with other fantastic pieces! This particular piece is no longer available from Jim Key, but a HERO version was created as a kit and now sold by Mike Salzo. You can reach Mr. Salzo HERE








2 comments:

  1. One of the problems with the original Cylons was that BSG:TOS was a product of the 1970's, specifically the era of the '70's where violence on TV was really under scrutiny. Originally the Cylons were supposed to be a rather competent enemy but the need to tone the Cylons down to keep ratings safe made the Cylons come off as comical in nature, even inept. Also, their mechanical nature insured that it was okay to take out as many Cylons as the Colonials could because after all vaporizing shiny toasters wasn't the same as vaporizing humans. The Cylons could have been a whole lot more fierce and competent and were originally intended to be so but ultimately they were dumbed down by pop culture media standards and regulations of the era.

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  2. Agreed. We now see this with the reimagined series, making them a force to be reckned with

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