By Jeffrey Griffin - images & text © 2008

Scale: 1/4100 - right at 3.25"/ 8.26cm long

Parts: 5 resin, no base.

Instructions: One page, color sheet plus a small color painting guide.

Decals: ALPS-printed waterslide with markings for one ship

Molding Quality: 9 - pretty danged crisp, with only one or two air bubbles, some minor mold seams that were easily removed

Detail: 10 - BEAUTIFULLY detailed

Accuracy: 10 - About as accurate as you can get at this scale, especially when based on the few reference images available

MSRP: $30.00 USD (~$30.47 CAN/ € 19.34 EUR) available from StarshipModeler

Overall Rating: 10 - An excellent and accurate kit that needs very little cleanup work

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I've been on a big Battlestar Galactica kick of late and so keep going back to September of 1978 and bouncing forward to the 2003 BSG Miniseries and regular series. I've always been a hardware guy and both versions of BSG don't disappoint in that regard. In TOS BSG there were 220 ships in the RTF and in TNS BSG there are around 75 at the beginning of Season Two. A small number of those TNS RTF ships are directly taken from TOS and the Rising Star is one of those.

We first see the Rising Star in TOS' Pilot Episode "Saga of a Star World". Originally only mentioned by name during the Miniseries thru first three seasons of TNS BSG, we never got a clear view of this ship. We were given a couple of brief glimpses of her stern in the TNS episode "33".

It wasn't until the 4th Season of TNS that we get a decent view of this classic BSG design. As with about half of the ships in either BSG universe, the Rising Star is another favorite of mine from the respective series' RTF's. It's unique, streamlined shape makes it seem like what she's meant to represent - a luxury passenger liner. What I find most interesting about the design is that it's not anywhere near as utilitarian as most of the other ships in the RTF's of both series.

What You Get

The kit comes packaged in a rectangular shaped cardboard box with the parts in a ziploc bag, an instruction sheet, decals and a nice label on the top. The model parts themselves are of a white color and the smaller parts are packaged separately from the larger parts. You get a total of five (5) resin cast pieces. The resin pieces have only a touch of flash and some very few voids - I noted only four on my copy. While some seam lines are apparent, they're easy to take care of with a bit of Xacto, sand paper and those four aforementioned voids are easily dealt with using putty (Tamiya Modeling Putty) and a touch of sand paper.

The parts consist of main hull and five engine bells. The main hull is very nicely detailed for such a small model. The engine bell parts are molded to a pour stubb and must be separated from the stubb. Careful use of a #11 Xacto blade did the trick for me, followed by sanding to be sure the ends are evened out.

The mold lines on the main hull section were easily cleaned up. However, there a few areas which required a careful trim w/a sharp Xacto blade for mold stubbs, as well as very careful sanding w/a 600+ grit sand paper to remove them. There were also two voids along the leading edge that needed filling, but they were small enough that only a minute amount of putty was required, so were no real problem at all.

Overall, the detail is crisp & clean and consists of sunken panel lines on the exterior of the hull. The engine section has some nicely done conduits/pipes, as well as some other detail that appears to be accurate to the studio model. In fact, the overall detail on this kit is pretty darned accurate compared to the reference images online.

There have been some recent never-before-seen images of the studio model unveiled on DaNet. They show a number of subtle, different colors all over the model, as well as a slightly darker weathering than I had previously thought. I'm not yet sure what color to use, but feel confident that I'll be able to come up with something from my stash of paints.

The decals are also in a mini-ziploc baggy of their own. They're relatively straight forward and also appear to be accurate to the studio model. They're the standard ALPS printed decals we've come to expect from Timeslip and I'm sure they'll go on quite smoothly after a glosscote. I'll then seal them with a dullcote.

I'll eventually be back with a buildup portion on this kit. I actually have one that's nearly finished and just needs decaling. Well, actually, I'm probably going to have to strip it and re-paint it as I noticed a chip in the paint just now and so will have to see if I can fix it. If not, re-paint! I'll be back with how I finished this, regardless!

Conclusions

I'm extremely happy to own this kit and feel that it really inhances my own RTF. My Rag Tag Fugitive Fleet is that much more complete now and I can't wait to finish this kit so I can add it to my RTF. If you're looking to build an RTF for your Timeslip or Revell-Monogram Battlestar Galactica to defend, this is definitely a must have kit! I think that this one is well worth the cost. Timeslip Creations - and the pattern maker, Scott Spicer - have given us a fantastic replica of this iconic ship from the Rag Tag Fugitive Fleet.