Expanse Magnetar Class Battlecruiser 3D print model

Detailed, print ready model of a Magnetar Class Battlecruiser / Proteus I prefer calling it The Tempest (Heart of the Tempest, one of the 3 Magnetar-Class Battlecruisers.) but you can also call it Magnetar, The Artifact or Proteus, depending on your choice and interpretation of the show and book.

First of all, this was a project from hell, took me almost 1 year to complete (with a slow pace of work ofcourse). Lack of source material and the challenges I encountered during designing and printing added to the work time. I printed mine with Anycubic Mono resin printer and I strongly advice you to use a resin printer because otherwise you will lose many fine details. While printing prefer a Tough resin as regular resin breaking gave me headaches. I also advice printing some pieces with clear resin like pillars from the stand and connection & tendril pieces of construction platforms.

Ship has been cut into 8 pieces, You can print them individually to make a bigger model. Personally, I reduced to model to %6 to get a nice size. (Yeah the model is big, I love working big :)) Or you can just print it as a single piece, depending on you printer size or preference. For this model, I myself used Milliput to cover the joining points. Addition to ship are optional railguns, the ship has 18 hardpoints to install them and you have 2 different railgun options depending to you choice. Railgun options also have 2 different variations, one static and one rotatable raigun barrel for each, suitable for bigger prints. Last for the ship is Laconian upgrades, you can see in the show that as the Laconinans constructed some black/orange colored additions to the ship. They are also optional.

Next is the stand, consists of 14 pieces, can be constucted as shown in the pictures. The stand includes a low-ploy mini Donnager model for scale. I designed the Magnetar to be 5 kilometers long and scaled the Donnager accordingly.

Construction Platforms took the model to another scale and I was very concerned how it will end up with those, results were suprising. Platforms consist of many weak pieces so be carefull while assembling those, they are very easy to break with regular resin. Platforms themselves called Stick consist of 4 main sections, Back (4 Pieces ), Center (4 Pieces), Forward 1 (3 Pieces) and Forward 2 (2 Pieces). They are connected to each others by Connection pieces and Tendrils pieces are connected to Sticks. They are all very week and if the break, glue them with a strong glue and put some Milliput to strenghten the broken parts.

There are also numereous optional Plaques for you preference.

THE BUILD I have to warn again, this will be hard, you must first print, prepare and paint the ship without the railguns. After that assemble the Stand. If you want to add the consturction platforms, before putting and gluing the ship on the stand, you must print the Stick - Center B section and then put it into its place on the Stand Leg 1. After that you can put and glue the ship and add the railguns. After you are done with the Ship and stand, you can continue with the rest of the consturciton platforms. Complete all consturction platform sections including the center one then glue the Connection to Back section and after they are stable, glue the Back section the connections. After that side is stable, glue the C-Support to Connection Center D to Forward 2A. It will take support from the ship hold to connection. Rest is straight forward, complete the rest as shown on the pictures. Feel free to ask anything.

First seen at the end of season 5 of the Expanse and then seen repeatedly during season 6, this thing was an ancient protomolecule ship, being grown / 3D printed between the construction platforms. Platform are also known as Stick Moons, and they are the helix like structure surrounding the ship. This ship was under construction at the orbit of Laconia at the time of Ringbuilders fall and thus remained incomplete until the discovery of Laconia by humans. SPOILERS: Originally in the books, Martian rebels found a smaller ship called the Proteus on the construction platforms. They then spent 30 years on Laconia, fortifying the ring gate and building their massive armada including the 3 Magnetar Class Battlecruisers. In the show, they went ahead, skipped the Proteus and showed us what will end up as the Magnetars. They are extremely advanced warships capable of reducing fleets, stations and even small moons in to ash. Only three were ever built. They were named Heart of the Tempest, Eye of the Typhoon and the Voice of the Whirlwind.