Battlestar Galactica Models
and Box Cover Art
All imagess are
©
Randy Asplund
| I
first saw one of these kits when I was in collage. A friend had one
sitting on the mantle.But I put my desires away because the university
had greater demands on me. Many years later, when my career was just
starting to take off, I met the folks from Monogram/Revell at a trade
show and they asked me to paint covers for all four kits being
re-released.Then they gave me kits to build as reference. So what you
see here are the cover paintings with the models I built for reference. So welcome to the universe of BSG. Where the human race has been virtually wiped out by a race of robotic beings called Cylons. The humans flee in a fleet of whatever ships they can muster, led by the only remaining capitol ship, the Battlestar Galactica. The Galactica can be thougt of as an aircraft carrier in space. It is huge, close in size to the Enterprise D in Start Trek. |
 The Battlestar Galactica Model |
| Because
the original kit was made with a minimum of parts, the top half and
sides were all made in one large piece. That meant there could be very
little detail on the side of the hull. I was ready to add that in the
painting, but they told me to keep it as in the kit. So I decided to be
clever and light the painting from the back so such details would be
lost in shadows. |
 Battlestar Galactica 18x24 Acrylic & Alkyd NFS  |
|
I chose to depict the Galactica during the surprise attack by the
Cylons when the fleet was destroyed. The kit had decals so you could
choose to build either the Galactica or any of her sister ships. The
red nebula in the background is to give a psychological impression of
danger and action. The crazy thing about this cover is the stupid white glow out the back of the engines. I never wanted that, but after I turned in the Viper cover, they liked it so much that they really, really wanted the same effect on the Galactica. I explained that the effect was a special thing the Viper did and that the Galactica was never shown that way in the show, but they just didn't care. So since I used Alkyd and oil on the painting, I just used water based gouache for the glow. As soon as I got the art back from the company I washed it off! Well, its not the worst innacuracy a model company has done. Wait until you see ERTL's Legendary Space Encounter for Star Trek! |
 The Battlestar Galactica Colonial Viper Fighter Model |
 Colonial Viper 16x20 Acrylic & Alkyd $1,600  |
| This is the
fighter flown by the Battlestar Galactica Colonial Forces in the
original TV show. Unfortunately, the model kit is too cheesy to even
have a pilot, so I had to add an "effect" reflection in the canopy so
allow the art to correctly represent what is NOT in the kit. They also
removed the rubber band powered missiles, which is a good thing because
they just made it a cheap toy. Oh, did I say cheap? They retailed at
around $18 if I remember. For what you get it would have been expensive
at half the price. But alas, it is still original BSG, and that makes
it cool. |
 Battlestar Galactica's Cylon Base Star Model |
 Cylon Base Star Acylic & Alkyd 18x24 $3,200  |
| The
Cylon Base Star was the alien robot version of battleship combined with
an aircraft carrier in space. Like the Battlestar Galactica, it caried
fighter craft which we see launching here on an attack against a
Colonial planet. It is also shooting plasma bolts at a city on the
horizon. The show was kinda cheesy with chrome robots that wear black
tights and despite having fururistic computer lives they couldn't hit
the broadside of an office building with their guns if their circuits
depended on it. But for 1979/80, it was fun and techy SF, and we loved
it! |
 The Cylon Raider Model from Battlestar Galactica |
 Cylon Raider Acrylic & Alkyd 16x20 $ 1,400  |
| The
Cylon Raider was flown by three pilots. To this day I don't know of
anybody every figuring out why a robot space craft needed a pilot at
all, let alone three of them. when they remade the TV series in the
2000's they figured that out and the Raiders were all their own
sentient creatures. That absurd blue-white glow is back again on the
engines of this box art ship, but notice I wasn't about to have that on
my painting. Well, the client is paying me to give them what "they"
want, not what "I" want, so I added it temporarily. I tried to make
this cover as exciting as possible, with lots of action. |