A Battlestar Galactica fan has been spending the last few years putting together what is now a nearly-complete, full-scale model of the iconic MK II Colonial Viper ship from the series. Social media user Baz Arm, who also has an Instagram page dedicated to his custom blades, has been working on the Viper, which is almost 25 feet long, since 2019, but he expects to be finished in 2022, according to a new interview he gave in Australia’s Canberra Times, his local newspaper. Luckily, between his Instagram and YouTube channels, you can watch progress over time through photos and video.
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The project started in 2015, but has accelerated since the covid-19 pandemic put everyone in lockdown for a lengthy period of time, giving people a better chance to finish up their long-running projects like this. Baz says that his last big geek-centric project was an Iron Man suit, which he wore to children’s hospitals in his area.
“When I finished with that, and I couldn’t fit into the suit anymore, I went, what’s next?” he told the paper. “I’ve always been a sci-fi buff. And this is something that I liked in 1978 when I originally saw the show as a child, and then when they re-released it in 2003, the more modern sleek lines on the MK II was something I found very attractive.”
You can see a video of the earliest stages of the ship below.
Apparently his original plan was to create the ship out of cardboard, but instead he landed on using plywood and a number of repurposed materials like computer parts and aviation equipment. Some of the materials were donated by followers of the Builds by Baz Facebook page.
“I took screenshots from the show and posted online, ‘Does anyone recognise these instruments? Where can I get one?’” Baz explained. “I had a hailstorm of people sending me uncalibrated or failed instruments, but they look good and they do the job.”
He has also got some stuff that’s very screen-accurate, including the screen displays that are a direct lift from Battlestar. He says he interviewed visual effects artist Lee Stringer, and Star Trek CGI expert Doug Drexler to make things as screen accurate as he could on a budget.
“They were both very helpful and forthcoming and a lot of the set crew have been sending me photos of the building on the set, and behind the scenes stuff. It’s always with a bit of a non-disclosure thing: ‘Please don’t share this on the internet. But anyone who’s building a life-size Viper deserves all the help they can get, so here you go’.”
The next plan is to build a custom trailer for the craft, so th e
