by John Cook

This is my Babylon 5 Omega Class Cruiser, Agamemnon. She was famously captained by Capt. John Sheridan both before and during his tenure as Military Govenor of Babylon 5. Most famously, she was nearly destroyed in the battle to retake Earth from President Clark as Capt. Sheridan ordered her to ram the last remaining missile satelite as it was about to fire upon Earth. She was saved by another cruiser which destroyed that satelite just before Agamemnon collided.

The kit is by Warp Models and is a resin and metal kit, my first attempt at such a beastie. There were over 200 cast resin parts that had to be washed several times in dish detergent to completely remove all the mold release and oil from the resin itself. Each piece had to be meticulously cleaned of flash by file and sandpaper. Assembly was straightforward using super glue and kit instructions were good.

Several of the metal pieces required a slight "turning" to properly round them and remove casting flash. This was done by clamping the part in a drill chuck with the drill set to a slow speed and using a needle file to remove flash and round the part. All gun barrels were carefully drilled out.

Painting was done with Testors primer and Testors Battleship Gray overall. Escape pods were painted flat red and the tips of lighting masts were done with flat white. Several washes were done to bring out detail and improve appearance.

The engines recieved special painting, first with metalic blue and then the centers were sprayed again with metalic red to create a heat distressed metalic finish. They were then dabbed with thinned black metalic to create a "worn" look.

The "paneling" effect was the most tedious part of the job and my own idea. I sprayed a sheet of clear decal film with Battleship Gray and then streaked it with light and dark brush strokes. The sheet was then diced with an X-acto knife and metal ruler into tiny rectangles which were hand placed, one decaled panel at a time. Many batches of panels were placed!After all the large panels were placed I decided a second round of smaller panels was needed, as the first ones seemed a little large by themselves. The overall effect comes close to matching the CGI model in the series.

The stand is my own work and is of polished oak with cut and soldered brass tubing to form a cradle.

Image: Bow view

Image: Right/front

Image: Port side

Image: Spine

Image: Rear view

Image: Engines

Image: Above and behind

Image: Engines from above