Revell Cylon Basestar
(http://www.revell.com)

Instructions and Reference Pictures are available

When I saw this ship in the movie I thought it was one of the coolest designs in all the series.  I like them better than the Imperial Star Destroyer.  I knew there were some Prequel models out there but I had not seen any recently.  Then one day I saw a review of the kit at Starship Modeler website, and I looked all over for them.  Turns out there were some strange legal/rights thing where Revell could not release them in America but they had a bunch in Germany. I have looked all round and could not find anyone that would ship to the US, that I trusted.  Then I found out Starship Modeler had a store site as well. They really need to advertise it.  They were importing them in small amounts. So I placed my order for a Republic Star Destroyer and Fine Molds Y-wing (to justify the shipping, at least I am telling myself that).  Only took a few days for my models to arrive.

Open Box Review
This is a very nice kit, it comes with enamel paint, glue and a paint brush. I use acrylic paint was much of a use to me, but there other stuff was nice.  Being from Germany the manual was in German as well, but easy enough to follow.  I had a few questions on what a few symbols meant but after bit I figured them out.  The kit is large, a little over a foot long when done.  The detail is great and well molded. I did not see any flash and the kit is design very well there are just a few seams to worry about.

Spure Shots
	These Spure shots were taken off the web. I did not take the pictures before I started building.

Planning
This is kit is another example of me being excited and not planning.  I am doing this review in hindsight; I have a 1/3 of this model completed so it is from that point of view.  This would be a fun kit to light.  It would be hard for a first time person I think (would be a first for me) but would look so cool.  Makes me regret not buying the fiber optic Imperial Star Destroyer kit a long time ago (I got the DS9 instead).  If you are not comfortable with panel lining don’t get this kit.  If you can do it or don’t want to try it will not look that good.  In my WIP shots you can see where I did half of the top side as a comparison.  Panel lining not that hard but it time consuming.  The first big mistake I made was trying to panel lining to early.  I did the base coat of Light Air Craft Gray, and started paneling it.  Thing were great until complete the lining of the top, and released I wanted to do some Aztec panels and I would have to be very careful or I might paint in the panel lines and have to redo a lot of them or end up with too many layers of paint and obscure the detail.  I also wanted to try spray painting the strips.  It went pretty well, but now that I have an airbrush I think that will do a lot better.  I plan on using a metallic paint for the engines and using pastels to dirty it up.  I also wanted to panel line this kit. It is surprisingly easy to do.

Things I have learned from this kit so far.
Do not touch the model after priming to see if it is dry, just wait. (I learn this on every kit I work on)
Do all Aztecing before you start panel lining.
I can spray paint strips on a model if I tape them.
Make sure you tape is down smooth and tight, or spray paint will blow under the tape.

Work In progress Shots I am not quite happy with the base color, it a brownish/tan white while I had a white bluish/gray in mind. But it is close enough I am happy. I didn’t use decals on the model so for I spray painted the red center strip and wing strips. It was pretty easy but the bottom strips are a bit off center. Panel lining is taking a while. But it is fun to do.

8-20-08 Started Panel lineing the bottom. It takes a while. Things when quite well till I got to the tiny panels in the middel of the back section. I thought I could swip the thinned paint over the lines and wipe off the excess. It didn't work that well. Now have to back an clean up the panels. I stil have to go clean them up and fill in a few spots here and there.

Contact me at josborn@happinessismandatory.com