... at least the RAF has Curves.

no rebels?

I like it a lot.

I suggest lots of purple, and glitter. That way no one will question how badass it is.

I have three of them. I think they are cute. I've named them Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

And nopony questions how badass RD is.

I should paint an ISD in Maud colors.

What about Princess Luna?

-smirks a bit- Well Tall Giraffe, you've nailed what one ISD is going to be: Lunar Eclipse using an altered NLR insignia. Although the Nightmare is pretty cool in concept too.... hmmm, must think about that one. That said, I don't think anyone would bat a lash at a 'Maud' ISD, it's so neutral that it'll still look Imperial without too much fancy going on to distinguish it.

Dear god, get this pony crap out of my Empire! D:<

I like the paint job on the GSD that Lyraeus has in his videos. I'm thinking about doing something similar. I think the GDS design looks good, however the sculpt seems a bit off to me. The image from the wiki has a more tapered and sleek look that FFG didn't quite nail.

The AFM2, on the other, has a great sculpt. I know that it is unpopular, but FFG's design looks much better than the older renditions of that ship that I have seen.

How dare you talk about the glorious Gladiator Star Destroyer! Any more of this nonsense and you will be tried as a rebel spy!

On topic though, I like how it looks. I still think the space whale takes cake for weirdest/ugliest looking ship so far.

And here we were with an interesting conversation. Fine, you wanted suggestions, then here's your two choices.

Do you know how to use plasticard and are you comfortable with it? If no, skip to 2.

1.) You can chose to alter the front and the aft if that's what's bothering you. If you like the 'Macross'/robotech look and want the ship to look more robust, altar the prow into a pair of boxes to cover the ridiculous fork front. You can also add winglets along the rear edge of the ship in much the same way as the Victory does in order to make it look more 'in keeping' with the fleet and cover up some of the odd angles.

2.) Your choice is to simply alter the colour scheme. But now you have another question: did you want to let it blend with the rest of your fleet, or did you want it as a separate patrol element? Do you plan on more than one?

You can change the colour scheme to indicate a homogeneous whole along with the rest of your fleet, or to differentiate it through a few splashes of colour: said colour can be complimentary (such as a softer slate grey or an off white) or it can be stark (Red, blue, even gold or pure white). You could even do something interesting like a tiger-stripe hull as a partial dazzle using masking tape and two slightly 'off' shades, such as a slate blue and dark umber, then wash them and drybrush back some of the initial colour.

Thing you got to remember with ponies is that they have colours and markings by people who generally know what they're doing. There's a reason you don't see any bright red and black official characters, there's a reason why the 'earthy' tones are chose in general are 'background'. You see certain colour patterns which emerge that actually work. So when people say 'Maud' which in this case would be figuring out a majority smoke grey colour scheme with highlights of muted mauve which ties the whole thing into a subdued cool palette. It can be used on the plating or perhaps as a highlight colour mixed in among the highlights. What shade of smoke grey, what type of dark mauve? We already know unambiguously, and in what combination.

Then you have insignia: if you're a wargamer you might very well have a lot of these hanging around. It also means you can cut them apart and use them however you want to the bow or to the aft angles. In my case, I'm likely going to add an NLR derived symbol on the back leading edge of my ISD: a crescent moon with a sword and outstretched triumph wings (like the Blood Angels/Dark Angels of 40K). Does it work? Yes, yes it does.

Oh wait, you wanted me gone now, right? Your wish is my command.

Geeze man, take a joke. o.o

Geeze man, take a joke. o.o

There is no joking in the Empire! Put your serious face on -

-smirks a bit- Well Tall Giraffe, you've nailed what one ISD is going to be: Lunar Eclipse using an altered NLR insignia. Although the Nightmare is pretty cool in concept too.... hmmm, must think about that one. That said, I don't think anyone would bat a lash at a 'Maud' ISD, it's so neutral that it'll still look Imperial without too much fancy going on to distinguish it.

Nightmare fits better into Imperial naming doctrine as generally being negative things, (Malevolence, Dominator, Virulence, ext)

I like the paint job on the GSD that Lyraeus has in his videos. I'm thinking about doing something similar. I think the GDS design looks good, however the sculpt seems a bit off to me. The image from the wiki has a more tapered and sleek look that FFG didn't quite nail.

The AFM2, on the other, has a great sculpt. I know that it is unpopular, but FFG's design looks much better than the older renditions of that ship that I have seen.

Geeze man, take a joke. o.o

Dear Lord, I've resorted to image macros. Paraphrasing one of those stalks-heads from the bar, “I need to go home and rethink my life.”

My apologies, I'm being overly sensitive and a bit pissy today. No excuses. Though it does read strictly as a statement. Anyway, I'm fine admitting when I'm wrong and eating crow, though I try not to dine on that any more often than I do pizza.

That said, the advice still holds. What exactly do you not like about it? You mentioned it was misshapen but is it the ship's basic shape, or does it look too dissimilar to the Victory and Imperial styles? (You may find you grow used to it when you have it in hand. I keep wanting to replace mine with Mel's Nebulon B2 but it's likely too small).

Regardless, there's only so much painting can do to mitigate the look of the base structure. Banjobonito's suggestion is probably going to be the best and easiest. Dazzle was designed specially to make ships harder to identify by their angles, so it would stand to reason that will help in this case where you can make more natural angles in patterns. Masking tape lines work with minimal fuss as long as you cut the tape cleanly.

Don't think I've seen Lyraeus's GSD. I'll have to look again.

Agreed BeardedBaron. I still can't figure out the Imperial naming conventions: Gladiator is fine, Victory fine, Interdictor fine, ISD-Kittenkiller not so much.

It's certainly the shape of it. All the star destroyers were made with that wedge shape design so that their weapons could be arrayed in a fashion so they could all fire down its front arcs as well as for broadsides. Even the new Raider has this design. The Gladiator's more boxy design is out of place with the rest of the fleet., and sorta makes it stand out like a sore thumb.

I like the idea of using plasticard to turn those squared off sides angular, thus mimicking the other SDs' designs. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm good enough with the stuff to make it look good. ^^;

I'll admit, I know exactly what you mean. The boxy angles and fork-faced front are just weird compared to everything else slated for release. It's mimicking a Star Destroyer frame but it feels like a Taiwanese knock off.

I hadn't noticed it until you said it, but the turbolaser deck is actually a big part of the problem. The line's aren't parallel to the sides, and they're not even straight like a traditional Star Destroyer, they splay out like a Y in the opposite direction. That and there's a series of 4 tapered cylindrical 'sensor dome' things just behind the bridge that look uncomfortable like the caps of superglue bottles (I should know, I built some mines/platforms out of them). That and the bridge is larger than that of the VSD.

Hmm, I'll see if I can get a mock up of some winglets some time, with the right application of plasticard (even hard card), it might really help. No promises, but I'll see what I can do. As it stands, it is a really weird runt of a ship.

....now the Assault Frig II, that's a fugly space whale. The Gladiator is pretty dope.

The Glad may not be the best looking ship on the table, but it will never win the ugliest ship award because that belongs heart and soul to the AFmk2 Space Guppy. The fugliest thing ever plopped out of a space dock.

I've been trying to think of the Gladiator like a bulldog. It's not the prettiest thing, but it has a certain endearing quality. Plus, it'll bite your leg off.