Monday, August 22, 2011

You want an Accurate New BSG Hangar Bay Diorama? You're going to need Yeti Forge Models

I do believe a lot of BSG fans out there have more than one unit of Moebius Mark II and Mark VII Vipers out there. How do I know? ... OK, so I have more than ten units each, but judging from what I have observed (buying patterns), some of you have more than me. Others, well, at least two of each.

So what do you plan to do with your extra kits? I know a lot of you have this desire to recreate a Hangar Bay diorama, but are not up to scratch building the set pieces yourselves. Then there are the accessories that needs to be present to make the diorama complete, not to mention getting the figures. I don't blame you as I too am guilty of this. Just check out the amount of work you need to do when you see how the actual Hangar Bay look like HERE.

Fret not, as this does not mean you can't achieve your dream dio. A very accurate representation of the new Galactica's Hangar Bay is actually available, right under all our noses, and I am now committed to re-create one very complete section.



The Hangar Bay Dio set was first seen in a recent Wonderfest of which Moebius himself (from what I was told but I'm not sure if its Dave Metzner) complimented on the set. When I first saw it, my jaw dropped - literally. I had seen numerous attempts at recreating the hangar bay, and none so far has been as accurate as these.






Allow me to introduce the man responsible for making this possible, Jason Fraser of Yeti Forge Models. I have been in close dialogue with Jason after commissioning him to rework the design seen above to re-create a more detailed section to the diorama, extending it all the way toward the launch bays. The launch bay section and its control room will be worked on later, but so far, we have agreed on the following design for mine.


Check out how the Hangar Bay is going to look like after the jump


This is the one thing that made me so impressed with Jason, his ability to show you how your diorama is going to look like in 3D format. This is after some discussions with him on how I wanted mine to be, an exact replica of a section of Galactica's Hangar Bay.








The best part here is that the diorama pieces will be made available in sections. Hence if you don't want such a huge piece, you can opt for the smaller section. These sections will also come with light points where you can choose to provide lighting for them (lighting set on your own unless you request Jason if he can provide them for you). BTW, I'm taking all those above, so hands off this one.

As I am told (and I am really looking forward to this), the parts are made predominantly from ABS plastic with some resin pieces to further compliment the finished set. If you look at the above photos, the large section itself is 14 inches deep and 13 7/8 inches wide and over 9 1/8 inches tall, now that's a lot of Hangar Bay space.

I have shown these to a few selected friends and without a doubt, all of them were left with their jaw gaping. Yes, we had discussed earlier about recreating a Hangar Bay dio but due to the lack of skills and materials .. well, it had been all talk. Now, I can actually get this massive project moving, and I plan to put in 3 MKII Vipers, 1 MKVII and modify another into the MKVIIE (more about this later) into mine, alongside some of the BSG accessories I had bought. he only headache I have to face now is to modify all those 1/35 scale military figures to look like the Galactica's maintenance crew, the pilots as well as some military guards.

I will do up a WIP post once I have the diorama kit in hand, and am trying to finish up my other projects so I can focus on this baby.


About Yeti Forge Models

I found out Jason is able to make all this possible since he himself is a professional illustrator and a modeler, which puts him in the best position to understand your needs. He specializes in making diorama sets as well as reproducing some accessories for them as well as churning out some pretty nifty models. I had requested to see some sample of his other works (dioramas) and I have to admit, I am VERY impressed.










Wall panel designs is now no longer a pain in the butt to re-create. Jason provides a few samples over at his website, or you can write him and request for one with your own design.


Jason is actually no stranger to the modeling community as I do know a few members from the Hobbytalk forum has commissioned him for some fancy work done on .... their project. Its amazing how this guy stayed hidden for so long until I found out about him.

And here are some of his creations, be it accessories for your Macross kits or any other real world or sci fi needs, he can make it. It sure beats settling for what's out there when you don't want to get into scratch building (remember, not everyone can do this)





I was also privy to see some of the Speeder kits he was making. Check out those straight curve lines there. These aren't finished yet as there are still some work that needs to be done, but they are looking good for their progress so far.






Now if only I have the BSG Hangar Bay in hand. I plan to take plenty of images of the kit once I have her so you all can see for yourself. If you are interested in one, or a few, or you wish for Jason to create something, he can be reached at tundrayeti1@yahoo.com

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