ALLLLLLLrighty.
Much has happened.
Starting with...
Plating on the bottom. I'm really really really starting to hate panels.
So the bottom is just "cursory" -- I don't intend it to be detailed, it's just there so it
has a bottom. I had originally planned to not even build the bottom of the ship at all, it would just be blank with the only the very edge built. But I was convinced otherwise. So, here we have some slightly oversized hull plates because I just want this thing DONE.
Also brightly coloured binder clips for engine flaps.
Some semi-accurate detail on the top of the docking corridor. The green and white bits are reasonably somewhat kind of sort of what they're supposed to be. The brass thing is actually an earring -- found two of them (earrings often come in pairs, who knew?) and thought they'd make some nice greebs. The round gizmo is a large washer with some cable ties (of course) behind.
That, my friends, is a quad laser cannon. It's a quad laser cannon made from junk, but regardless, it's a quad laser cannon. Styrene, lollipop sticks, tile spacing wedges, a USB flash drive lid, a gear and some plastic goodies from an old SLR camera, washers and of course.......some zip tie bits and bobs.
General overview of the ship. I've added some warts (green) made from cable tie bits, and the two red greebs on the back are the safety mechanisms from Rustoleum trigger-style spray paint cans.
Underside "detail", or lack thereof. The lower jaw box is...smoke and mirrors. As I've said before, I have NO intention of turning this thing upside down, so no one is ever going to scrutinise the fact that the lower jaw box is made from a CF card case, two clothes pegs, a screen door catch, the side wall of a cable modem casing and some other bits of plastic junk. It's our little secret.
The "landing gear" are little blocks of wood covered with styrene. Spared no expense.
And now...............paint.
The above three photos are in reverse order because I'm tremendously lazy and can't be bothered correcting it.
The plan, such as it is, is to paint the maintenance hatches and the entire equatorial greebly section matte black. The main reason I'm doing it this way is that this thing is made from so many different materials that I can't be super confident that the glue on the greebs will hold together once I try to cram black paint and black wash and dry brushing and weathering powder and who-knows-what else in there. So...starting with black makes that a WHOLE lot easier.
(Besides, it looks awfully sexy with the equatorial 'trench' painted black. Who knew?)
Base colour -- Rustoleum "Heirloom White".
Reverse order again. On the right, masking for the red parts of the ship.
On the left, masking for the red parts of the ship, plus total mummification in paper.
I got lazier as the colours went on and on, but I really wanted to make sure there was no possibility of the RED paint overspraying. Grey overspray I can pass off as "weathering". Red overspray....not so much.
We have red! The colour is "Hot Lips", with a random overspraying of metallic red as well, just for...variation. And because shiny is awesome.
Light grey panels. Can't remember the name of the colour, but it's the same colour as the lighter grey on the
Enterprise.
Medium and medium-dark grey panels. First colour is "Windspray", which is actually a Colorbond fencing colour. I was delighted to find the can at the back of my spray paint shelf, as I didn't think I actually had four shades of grey to achieve the "correct" effect on the panels. Second colour is "Ito". Aren't you glad I'm telling you all of this?
Dark grey. Colour is called "Namadji", and verges on brown. I'm really happy that the "Windspray" is kind of a cool grey and "Namadji" is a warm grey. Gives it some variation and interest.
I've taken the masking off the maintenance wells, so this is about as "pristine" as the Falcon will ever be.
Because it's time to get dirty.
First, the exhaust vents need to be BLAAAACK. Masking took ages, but was worth it -- as masking often is.
And there's our initial black wash. Now, it won't surprise you to know that I'm doing all of this 'wrong', and I'm not using expensive oils for my washes. All of the weathering is going to be done using acrylic paints (the kind that comes in tubes for a couple of bucks, school paint), some sidewalk chalk and the most outrageously expensive part of the whole weathering process will be a pack of artist's pastels. So...this should be interesting.
The first point of failure (sort of) has been the initial black wash. I forgot to include soap in the recipe, so there were some spectacular issues with surface tension and my wash retracting away from some of the greebs/edges/features. Oh well. We live and learn.
Second pass at a black wash, and some weathering here and there. I accidentally discovered a remarkably easy way of applying the streaks of rust/water/grease that trickle down the hull panels. I struggled trying to make them work with a brush, and with a rag, and with my finger, and with a bit of rag on the end of a skewer, and none of these methods seemed to work. What DOES work, though, is to use the edge of a piece of EVA foam. It's soft but relatively rigid, doesn't damage the surface, and because the pieces have straight edges, it makes creating straight streaks quite simple. Obviously this trick would be dependent on scale. I wouldn't use EVA foam to apply weathering to a 1:1000 model kit.
(EDIT: I just re-read this and realised I didn't actually explain a thing, here. The rust/water/grease run-off marks are soft artist's pastel. You scrape off some, (lets say) black and orange pastel with a blade, wet it a bit, let it dry, then rub the EVA foam edge on the dried pastel mix, then rub that on the ship. I'm very tired and am clearly failing at communication right now.)
More to come. Stand by.
