I always liked the ships from the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Here’s my Cylon Raider.
I did take some liberties with the colors. It’s not Canon, but I like it. I used aluminum, steel, brass, and burnt metal colors my Testors & Model Masters.
Initially I was going to do some pre-shading and use aircraft paints for the panel lines,
but the paint I used was way too light so I had to repaint darker, losing the effect. I ended up just doing panel lines in chalks. Here’s the final result.
Personally, I don’t see a “canon” problem with the metallics. Why would robots paint something that didn’t require it for some reason? If any nitpicker mentions “well, the studio minis were gray”, my response would be that the bluescreening would have required that and the shade of your flat metallic look matches with that taken into account.
I like the old school version better too, but I think the new version explanation actually makes more sense; the robot is the ship instead of robots piloting the ship. Plus the thought that the pilot downloads into a new ship when it crashes, maintaining all its previous knowledge and experience is rather clever.
I built this kit once as a child. I remember “Millenium Facon-izing” it using bits and pieces from a Monogram 1/48 scale B-24 Liberator. I added the ball turret to the belly and the dorsal turret to the spot aft of the louvered cockpit.
