Next: The Centauri and the Dominion

  When I started collecting miniature spaceships, I honestly thought I would be able to get all the miniatures I wanted in a couple months and then quit increasing the collection, and then there would be just a matter of rejoicing over the models of my all times favorite ships.

 Not long after that, I realised such task wouldn't be that simple... There are so many great modellers out there, and so much great stuff constantly coming out on the hobby that at a point I realised I would probably never cease wanting something else!

That was when I understood that my collection would be one of ever growing fleets...

Currently, I have many fleets on my plans (check the "Next Purchases" section of this blog), so many that I project that I'll only complete them by the end of the year. By then, I'm surely gonna have my eye on some fleets else. And this goes on and on (welcome to the crazy world of a collector!).

As for now, I'm working on getting the following fleets done: Centauri, Dominion, Cardassian and Federation.

The Cardassian and Federation are almost done. The first is going to get a reinforcement of Keldons and Hidekis, from Studio Bergstrom. The second is prety much complete, I just need to do some paint improvement before showing them here.

The Centauri and Dominion fleets on the other hand, are still mark zero, but are ordered already and will be on their way here very soon. I'm still thinking about the color scheme to go with those 2 fleets, but before that, let's take a look on some in-universe facts about those 2 races:

Centauri Republic

The Centauri are a humanoid race where males have funny haircuts and female have no haircuts at all (they're bald). Now, seriously, they're one of the major powers in the Babylon 5 Universe, and are arch-enemies with a reptilian race called The Narn.

Centauris are proud people, and possess a powerful armada to project their interests across the galaxy. The core of their fleet is comprised of Vorchan Warcruisers. They are among the most popular designs from the Babylon 5 Universe (probably the most popular, along with the Minbari Sharlins). We can see a squadron of those half-moon shaped ships fighting narns on the picture above.

Their warships are painted on violet and golden. I'm just not sure yet how dark/clear I want those colors to look on those ships. Thus, I did a little searching on google and found some interesting painting jobs on Centauri miniatures.

So far, my favorites can be found here:

http://www.andy.watkins.dsl.pipex.com/wargames/babylon5/b5gallerynewpics12.htm

And here:

http://dropshipstudio.wordpress.com/miniatures/babylon-5-a-call-to-arms/babylon-5-centauri-republic/

Pardon me for not posting the images here directly, but I didn't ask the owners for permission, and I wouldn't post them without it.

Dominion

The Dominion is a multi-racial civilization from the Gama Quadrant in the Star Trek Universe. They are a major power on the series, posing a threat to all Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers togheter (!)

 On top of the social pyramide are the Fouders, a shapeshifting race. Right below them are the Vorta, humanoid beings that govern the empire on behalf of the Founders. Finally we have the Jem' Hadar, which are the warroir cast within this collective, always ready to give their lives in battle for the Dominion.

The models for my Dominion Flet will come from Ender, at http://starshipadversaries.blogspot.com/. They look fantastic on photos, and I'm sure they're gonna look ever better to me when I have them on my bare hands!

One problem I had was that Ender's Battleship is so huge that it would be going to look blatantly out of scale with the rest of my miniatures. But I managed to solve the issue with myself.

The thing is, Ender's Battleships is in scale with the rest of the ships he makes (1/7000 scale), and since the battleship is suposed to represent a 1,5km long ship, you can have an idea of how big the miniature is...

But there is a single image on the Deep Space 9 show that laid ground for an unending discussion about the  acuraccy of that assumed size, and it is the image above. It shows the battleship on a scale much bigger that on any previous pics, portraying it at about 4,5km long (!). 

This inconsistence on the show led the opinions of fans to split into 2 main cathegories: Those who simply disregard the incoherence of this specific scene, accounting it for an  attempt to add dramaticity to the battle; and those who took this battleship as a larger version of the regular one. 

We here at My Ever Growing Fleets (and by "we" I mean pretty much just me...) fall into the second stream. After all, if it is in the show, then it is official and cant be disregarded!

But I went over all this discussion just to explain how I managed to be at peace with the size of my future miniature: I'll take it to represent the 4,5km version of the Battleship, and so I'll give it game stats correspondent to such massive size!!!

As for the paint scheme for them, well, I'll try to stick to the in-show colors the best I can. Looking forward to being able to begin the job on those goodies!

*End of Transmission*