Cylon A/B Fighter - Schematics

[137th Gebirg]

Arguably the only "good" thing to come out of Galactica:1980, this is the Cylon A/B Fighter. I was never quite sure what the "A/B" stood for, but I'm thinking probably "Advanced Bomber", or some such...

I had to take a couple liberties on some of the "open" areas around the rear of the ship, particularly around the engine compartment and upper carapace, plus using some conventional studio-scale detailing for the area under the nose. Overall, though, I think it's a pretty faithful rendering of one of the more obscure Apogee/Hartland miniatures.

Enjoy!

[GoldCylon]

Again so awesome work. Did you refer to any of the Jon Billings photos to help with achievement, or other sources to provide this awesome details art work.
As for the A/B I have no idea either, but weren't the human looking guys inside A/B also?

[137th Gebirg]

Thanks very much!

My primary sources were screen caps from the few episodes that this ship appeared and construction images from a build being done by a talented modeler who goes by the moniker "OTIST" over at Resin Illuminati. Not sure if his real name is Jon Billings or not. He got vacuform copies of the wings from the original miniature and attached them to a studio-scale standard Raider. They used a Revellogram Raider cockpit and other detail greebles to up the scale on the overall miniature to make it look huge in comparison to standard Raiders and Colonial Vipers.

And yes, ironically, Glen Larson can be credited with the first use of humanoid "skin job" Cylons in this ill-fated series. I believe the episode was the 2-parter "The Night the Cylons Landed" (ep's 9 & 10), which featured none other than ol' Wolfman Jack.

This ship actually made a brief appearance before that in episode 4 - "The Super Scouts" (ugh!) during a surprise Cylon attack on the fleet. You can see it strafing one of the RTF ships for only a few seconds. I remember a few years ago when G1980 started coming out in the form of VHS-to-DVD bootlegs on eBay, way before I ever knew about the A/B Raider's existence and wondered "what the hell is THAT thing?"

The rest, as they say, is history.

[GoldCylon]

Thanks very much!

My primary sources were screen caps from the few episodes that this ship appeared and construction images from a build being done by a talented modeler who goes by the moniker "OTIST" over at Resin Illuminati. Not sure if his real name is Jon Billings or not. He got vacuform copies of the wings from the original miniature and attached them to a studio-scale standard Raider. They used a Revellogram Raider cockpit and other detail greebles to up the scale on the overall miniature to make it look huge in comparison to standard Raiders and Colonial Vipers.

And yes, ironically, Glen Larson can be credited with the first use of humanoid "skin job" Cylons in this ill-fated series. I believe the episode was the 2-parter "The Night the Cylons Landed" (ep's 9 & 10), which featured none other than ol' Wolfman Jack.

This ship actually made a brief appearance before that in episode 4 - "The Super Scouts" (ugh!) during a surprise Cylon attack on the fleet. You can see it strafing one of the RTF ships for only a few seconds. I remember a few years ago when G1980 started coming out in the form of VHS-to-DVD bootlegs on eBay, way before I ever knew about the A/B Raider's existence and wondered "what the hell is THAT thing?"

The rest, as they say, is history.

AB = Advanced Bumble

[137th Gebirg]

^^^

Sadly true...

[Cylon-Knight]

LOL! Indeed.... it did go down like a rock.

[Red Eye]

Great work indeed!

The AB Raider is one of a few concepts which makes "Galactica 1980" watchable.

I wish they had included them in the Dynamite-comic series as well...

Some time ago, I've uploaded some clips on YouTube which featured the AB Raider... enjoy!

[137th Gebirg]

Thank ye kindly!

For posterity and amusement's sake, here's a screen cap of the original "schematic" used in the show (that you can see briefly in the YouTube clips above) when the Colonials first went toe-to-toe with one of these new Raiders. It seems that they actually had the budget to upgrade from their old vector "warbooks" to newer (at the time) 8-bit raster graphics; "hi-res" using artifacting to produce "fake" colors on the screen. Probably an Apple or Atari. Ironically, I think the original vector graphics they used in the original series would have done a better job showing orthos like these. In any case, here it is, in all its glory.

[GoldCylon]

It really didn't hit me before taking note that the AB did have color on the monitor verses the old green before that.

[Cylon-Knight]

Love 1980's pixel images