ADMG Part 5 - Accurizing/Detailing the Main Hull

Here's part 4 of detailing and accurizing your Moebius Galactica, emphasizing on the Main Hull.

Look closely at the panel details between the ribs on your Moebius kit, and also on the top surface. You'll find that a lot of the fine details are either missing or they're rather soft on the plastic kit. At most, what we have are very smooth surfaces without those greebles and panel lines.

Well, at 1/4105 scale, if Moebius had decided to put in all these details, the price on the kit is going to soar so high only millionaires could afford them. So what they did was they gave us an excellent kit to get creative with the details, or settle with Acreation Models Deluxe Battlestar Decal Set.

Personally using the decals would solve a lot of problems, but for the professional, decals are sometimes not the answer, especially if you're building the kit for a competition. To be different, you need to manually add those details yourself.

Here's how your Moebius kit should look like:

And here's a raw VFX representation of the Galactica. Note the panel details, piping's and greebles in between the ribs. Another area that needs to be rectified is the top armour where it ends on the side. Notice the ribs actually goes all the way toward the armour and ending underneath it?

These ribs are missing from the kit. In fact, the ribs seem to disappear into a sloped angle within the side hull before even reaching the armour. Correcting this area is going to be tedious and a lot of modelers have chosen to ignore this section and let it be.

But if you want an accurate Galactica, I'm sure there are a few ways to deal with this. I had tried using the thinnest styrene strips to fill in the missing ribs while adding on to the side armour so they look connected. But unfortunately it thickened the top hull giving her a broader look. Suffice to say, this is the area I screwed up on my kit. So what did Marko do for this area?

Marko chose to drill, cut and sand through the excess plastic and looking at the images below, I do believe that is the correct manner to do it. It is a perfect remedy for this area.

Here's a comparison shot. The bottom hull has already been worked on compared to an unmodified hull on top. You're going to need to fill in the holes later and smoothen the surface.

Here's the CGI shot of how that section is suppose to look like on the Galactica.

To make the kit more screen accurate, you'll now need to add in greebles and panels to make those empty spaces between the ribs look more "busy", as well as scribing up the missing panel lines. Styrene sheet and strips cut to size should do the trick for your panel needs.

Here's Marko's finished build with all the added greebles and panels and scribed lines.

To emulate where those greebles and panel go, you can opt to follow the Otho's provided below. Please note it is near impossible to follow all those greebles and panels given in these images, so if you could get them to follow as close as possible, its already good enough.

Detailing the Main Gun Turrets

Many are not aware of this but the gun turrets supplied with the kit comes with soft details. They are adequate to complete your Galactica kit, but needs to be replaced or enhanced if you want your kit to be close to the CGI model, or if you are putting your completed kit for competition.

Below are some VFX images of how the gun turrets look like. Notice the details on the guns, as well as the collar base for the turrets. Whilst no one has come up with a PE set for the base, there are aftermarket parts for the turrets themselves


The first aftermarket parts for the turrets came from Paragrafix whereby all you need to do is to gently fold the PE parts over the original kit's turrets.

Paragrafix first PE Set

 The second set comes from Timeslip Creations and basically just replaces the kit's turrets. The image below shows the turrets before their resin flashes are cleaned off, and the later image is after cleaning and priming by Cylon75.

Also, thanks to Marko, he had highlighted how the turrets would look like using each set as an example. The turret on the upper left has the PE set, and below her is Timeslip Creation's turret. The turret on the lower right is the original turret from the kit.

The PE set is currently available over at Starship Modeler and CultTVman Hobbyshop while Timeslip's turret will be made availabe later.

More on Accurizing and Detailing your Moebius Galactica at

ADMG Part 1 - Intro to Accurizing and Detailing your Moebius Galactica
ADMG Part 2 - Accurizing/Detailing the Alligator Head Section
ADMG Part 3 - Accurizing/Detailing the Flight Pods
ADMG Part 4 - Accurizing/Detailing the Garage/Recess Section
ADMG Part 5 - Accurizing/Detailing the Main Hull
ADMG Part 6 - Lighting up the Moebius Galactica
ADMG Part 7 - Painting your Moebius Galactica