Part one | Part two | Part three
I was having a look at starship
modeller one day when I came across the Bin'Tak dreadnought in the
B5 minis section and was quite struck with the design, however as with
all good love affairs and obsessions it all started long ago. One day
I was in mindgames (a war gaming supplier) and having a look around
when I came upon the B5 wars model of the bin'tak. It was fully painted
on display and even had the side pods straightened and looked real good
but it cost $30 and I was skint and couldn't buy for mere aesthetics.
Also as in all good love affairs etc. I went away for a long time then
armed with the necessary skills I returned to again try my hand, only
this time I decided bigger is better hence this 1/1500th scale model.
First off I needed a plan, so I set about finding all the reference material on the 'net. It seems that the Bin'Tak was made for the B5 wars game but is mentioned though never seen in the actually episodes (just as well as I couldn't be stuffed watching them). All the pictures were either from AoG (makers of B5 wars) or of their model. But I did get lucky, one of the things I got was a play sheet with a three view and a big plan view. After enlarging the three view to the size on the plan view I then checked them (the plan view was just a ship systems diagram) then I accurized the plan view and then chopped bits off the various photos to add in the details. Using the dimensions of the ship I checked the scale of the plans I had made only to find they where 120% to wide so I squashed the width of the drawing down in photo shop and got it just right. Here is the photoshop composite plan view. If you really want full size plans e-mail me. I used my customary plan making paper (grease proof lunch wrap. It's as long as you like so you don't have to tack bits of A4 together) and commenced work. I decided on 1/1500th scale as it'd give quite an impressive size of ship which, although big would not be to big (length about 0.8 metres). I drew the plans full size so I could use the plans as templates for the actual parts. After getting the basic shapes down I discovered that the references I'd found didn't give much detail on the centre section so I bought the AoG mini. I wouldn't normally get a smaller miniature to make a larger version as all the details are likely to be over scale when enlarged over 5 times. However there was no alternative so I bought it. Using the miniature I could draw in all the missing bits on the plan. |
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After getting the plans sorted out my attention
turned to what materials to make the kit from. After a bit of I
decided that the material to use would be wood basic shapes with
plasticard and other bits and pieces for details. I made this decision
because I'd got all the necessary tools and best of all there's
plenty of wood lying around my place so I wouldn't have to spend
anything on it. |
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