NDY Gladiator-Class Cruiser

Heyo! Sorry for being inactive for so long; among other things, school picked up the pace and I haven't had much time for building.

That said, I have had enough time over the past week to build the Gladiator.

NDY Gladiator-Class Cruiser:

An general all-purpose battlecraft in the style of the Republic Venator cruiser, the Gladiator is heavily armed, armored, and equipped with large hangar bays capable of supporting a significant fighter contingent.

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The shape is loosely based on my old Resolute-Class cruiser. The Resolute has a sleek hull design primarily comprised of smooth curves, but I designed the Gladiator to be made of straight lines and rough edges to give it a solid, industrial look. To that end, I used straight-line slopes instead of arch bricks to give the ship a more angular feel.

It was a fun challenge to build the SNOT hull shell modules, which required a lot of fine-tuning of angles to seal up gaps between tiles and bricks. Since there was a lot of surface area to work with, I tried to give the hull some texture instead of having it just be a smooth, plain surface.

Gladiator and Resolute MKIII:

Gladiator with weapons removed:

The red and gray color palette is pretty much arbitrary; I just stuck with the Republic's cruiser colors because it looked good. But, I did come up with an alternate color scheme similar to that of some of Soccergirl's old ships.

Alternate colors:

I'll post the link to the .lxf here once it's up on the LEGO gallery. Total of 4,125 pieces. Enjoy!

Lovely! The weaponless one could be redressed into a luxury liner.

Hmmm... IDK... Usuaully, your work (especially the Resolute) feels wonderfully smooth, but this one... not so much. The design itself seems up to your usual quality standards, no problem there... it just feels... unaerodynamic, I guess? I think it's the extra guns sticking out; the weponless prototype looks much better, IMHO. The standard one just feels too... spiky, I think.

Other than said spikiness, it's a pretty good ship-- reminds me of the Terran ships from GalCiv3, which is a good thing indeed. Perhaps a bit over-detailed, but otherwise very solid.

talmid: Thank you! Yeah, that's not a bad idea!

Tetra: Thanks! Well, being unaerodynamic was the point all along. I do agree that the weaponless version is more aesthetically pleasing, but I think the spiky, blocky brashness of the fully equipped version fits the ship's character better.

There is no such thing is "over-detailed" in my opinion. This ship is horribly, wonderfully, beautifully ugly. And I mean that in the best way possible. It's a giant hanger, a set of large engines, a big reactor, and thick armor plating covered in weapons. She's perfect. I love this thing. She's not pretty in the traditional "a ship should be art" sense, but I find her "form follows function" design to be very aesthetically pleasing. She just looks RIGHT; like she is the apologetically war-winning beast that she is. Excellent work, as always.

I'm really liking this, Spud.

Overall, I'll admit I think it's not the most aesthetically pleasing, between being a blocky, irregular shape and the huge number of guns poking out everywhere. But regardless of that, this thing is superb.

First off, I LOVE the SNOT work on this thing. The hinge pieces for the sort of hexagon-ish sides, as well as the dorsal and ventral "bridge tower" sections, are amazing and I absolutely love them.

Second, the trans-blue thin wall bricks for the hangar force fields is pure genius. I'm totally stealing that.

And honestly, aesthetically-pleasing/over-spiky or not, this this looks like a frightening behemoth that I'm very glad is on my side. I can't wait to get my hands on the .lxf file and take a close look at it.


By the way, what's the length on this baby?

Dino: Thank you! "Beautifully ugly," I like that! That's exactly the look I was going for.

Arik: Thanks! Glad you like it! Well, at a scale of 1 stud = 10 meters, all told, the Gladiator is 690 m long.

BTW everyone, here's the LXF: http://www.us.lego.com/en-us/gallery/eae6dc44-2ccf-42e7-878e-9dba49f5a32e?index=1

That hangar is quite spacious, and the whole thing has a very Star Wars feel while being similar to your past work. Overall, it looks like it could headbutt right through anything. Very solidly built, excellent job.

I really like this ship. The detail is fantastic; the ship has great character. I would think that maybe adding something less blunt to the prow might improve it a bit by making it a little less rectangular, but other than that the whole thing is fantastic. Great job!

MAD: Yeah, maybe, but then again, I think the rectangular-ness really helps convey the message that this ship inflicts blunt force trauma on stuff. Thank you all the same, though!

I'll express myself a little more later, but I just wanted to say that I love this, very Warhammer 40k esq. At least in my opinion. XD

So I got a closer look at the ship with the LDD file, and honestly it's awesome. I love the construction of it, especially (like I said earlier) the "command bridge"-y section in the back and the angled sides.

The blockiness is really growing on me, kinda reminds me of the Halcyon/Marathon-class ships from Halo, or even a couple ships from Star Wars or Stargate. And it's definitely extremely menacing. One thing that might benefit the shape though would be something protruding out of the back, maybe like the hyperdrive fins/thrusters on the backs of the Venator or Acclamator from Star Wars. It's just a little flat back there (though it still looks really good, and I love your thruster construction techniques).

I think my only complaint might be that the gun count seems kinda high, but I'm pretty sure I'm the tiny minority in the forum when it comes to an "ideal" number of weapons and I could probably complain about just about everyone's ships having too many guns, including most of my own.

Typically people complain about my ships not having enough guns.

Except Mighty.

Yeah, looking at yours, they seem to regularly be devoid of weapons.

I really like the sleek look. At least for Federation-esq ships. I do want to make more greebed/weaponized ships fashioned more in the style of SBY and similar franchise's ships. I suppose the best description would be a mesh between Halo and Yamato.

*mumbles something about how someone has finally admitted to us over-arming our ships*

...but in all seriousness, if any ship needs a de-gunning, it's this one-- and that includes most of PXR's, which are the only ships on the site I consider to actually be OP. XD The actual hull is, as everyone else has said, pure awesomesauce; it's just so covered in guns, it ruins the aerodynamic-ness.

But I digress; we're starting to beat a dead horse here, and very close to going off topic.

What about that one ship of Ant's that literally every stud had a gun on it?

...oh, yeah, that too. My bad.

Niko: Thank you!

J-red: Thanks!

Arik: Danke! Yeah, it's probably a little OP. And I agree about some areas of the rear lacking definition. I think I'll do a MkII Gladiator that has a tad more detail at the stern and a reduced weapon count (but still have enough firepower to make it look good, of course ).

(Yeah, double post, I know   )

So here's the MKII Gladiator. The weapon count has been reduced and the ones that remain have been streamlined to improve looks. I also took Arik's advice and made the stern a little more interesting.

Gladiator MKII:

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Edit: After more hemming and hawing about what else to do, I decided as a further improvement to build an escort ship that could fit into the Gladiator's hangar bays. I've never really built any ship this small in microscale, and I think it came out quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

LE-7 Light Escort Vessel:

LE-7 docked in hangar:

Any comments and advice are welcome as always

Ahhhh... now that's a ship! Looks a bit too rectangular from the top, but that's just a minor nitpick. Well done indeed.

Tetra: Danke!

...Wow. Now that looks gorgeous. Me likey.

And I like the LE-7, too, especially the angled front.

...



I think I'm in love....



EXCELLENT refit! The weapons now make it look well armed and fierce, instead of prickly. And the little escort is.... wow... I LOVE both of these ships!





@Arik. Your profile picture almost has me in tears from laughter.

Ooh, shiny. I'm loving the somewhat blocky, yet streamlined look. The fins and guns poking out all over are nice too.