Jay's Box of Sci-Fi CardToys | ...stuff hard to find anywhere else

"DRADIS contact, multiple CardToys!!!"

Battlestar Galactica was one of those series I always watched on TV as a kid. The revamped version shows that it's possible for a concept and storyline to grow up and mature as well. The new BSG is just incredibly good as a sci-fi drama, and surpasses Star Trek with great storytelling. And the new vehicle redesigns were cool, too...

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Colonial One

President Roslin's spacefaring Oval Office. One of the most refreshing designs of imaginary vehicles.

Battlestar Valkyrie

Commander Adama's earlier command, more angular than either the Galactica or the Pegasus, perfect for cardmodelling!

Cylon Raider

The bio-mechanical space fighters of the Cylon race, probably designed by the Kilrathi. Keep out of reach of small children, those wing tips are a real and serious hazard.

Raptor

The workhorse of the Colonial Fleet. Someday I will get around to building those crazy Macross-like weapons packs used in the Second Exodus. I need a closer look!

BUILD NOTE: The tail sections can be puzzling. Since initial release, I've added a new instruction graphic on how to position the pieces.

Viper Mk. 7

The sleeker and updated Viper design. Needs to be detailed; a good wash, wax, and rustproofing would be good. Lots of unavoidably small pieces and folds on this one; tell me if you have trouble…

BUILD NOTE: The panel lines drawn at the bottom of the fighter do NOT align. Align the rear edge to the end of the fuselage. As for the engine exhausts, just hide the blue parts by orienting them inwards. At the time this cardtoy was made, I had not yet learned how to texture objects separately.

Battlestar Pegasus

This Beast turned out faster to model that the Galactica. I made it using orthographic views of Coxxon’s model, one afternoon last Thanksgiving weekend (here in Canada), along with 3 other cardtoys. I had to skip the many indentations for the prow and the launch bay doors, but it should be easy for the builder to modify. You just need an X-Acto Knife and extra prints.

Battlestar Galactica

An experiment with a high-res texture; found out that for textures, jpegs don't work well with Metasequoia as bmp files. One of my more complicated designs, with several irregular boxes combining to form the individual sections of the ship. I used only one texture map for the left and right sides, so there is a "mirror effect": the "Galactica" written on the starboard pod is written backwards. I think it's not that obvious from afar, though.

BUILD NOTES: The flight deck pods and the engines can be a bit tricky due to their shapes. Have tweezers, chopsticks, and super-glue on hand!

Viper Mk. 2

Another attempt with high-res textures. The engines inlets turned out to be the most difficult parts to figure out. Here the "mirror effect" from using just one texture map for 2 sides of the model is pretty obvious; the reversed numbers and letters on the right side are glaring.

BUILD NOTES: Insert some padding between the engine cowlings and the internal structure to give them a rounded appearance. Only the edges of the cowlings on the sides and the flat top of the upper cowling actually need to be attached to the internal structure.

The Blackbird

An easy design, the craft easily broke into a few simple shapes. I don't pretend that it's accurate to the studio mock-up or the CGI model, there's just so little info on it. But I think this is closer than other drawings/representations I've seen on the Net. I also used only one texture for both sides, but managed to handle the mirroring of the "Laura" insignia. I'll refine this design when I find better reference photos.