Battlestar Galactica Colonial One by Moebius

[modelerdave]

Man oh man I HATE the stupid conning tower! I cannot get a decent paint job on it to save my life. I need to sand most of the paint off the top yet again.

Anyway, no pics of that horror show, but I have been working on some homemade aztecing for the white upper hull. Once the conning tower has a respectable base coat on it I will do some aztecing on there as well.

These are showing up a little brighter than in real life, and after another pass to fill in a few more spots with aztecing I will do a mist of white to blend even more. But depending on the angle they are very subtle.

Base coat is Vallejo Dead White and the aztecing is Testors Aztek Pearl.

I have experimented with a more "industrial" type of aztecing for the lower hull and have done one successful test shot. I will post pics of that once it's done.

RIP my Tamiya tape.

 

[Analyzer]

I love the effect effect of aztecing, but it seems like really tedious work

 

[modelerdave]

It is incredibly tedious, especially since I was just making it up as I went along and kept changing my mind. But there's a weird little part of me that kind of likes the tedium.

 

[modelerdave]

I did a round two of aztecing today. This is almost done. I think I need to do a little more toward the front of the hull but I'm considering everything else finished. All of this taping is as tedious as it looks.

The visibility is definitely dependent on how the light hits it, which is exactly what I wanted. It changes from fairly bright to nearly invisible depending on the angle.

And my screwup number 3,421. Somehow I accidentally managed to melt part of the lower hull. It looks like my soldering iron is the culprit but I have no idea how. I am in the middle of puttying and sanding in the hope of salvaging it.

The "industrial" aztec test for the lower hull. The color is off but the pattern is what's important and I like how it came out. Again, I was going for subtle because this model is not very large.

 

[Analyzer]

It's really looking good!

 

[modelerdave]

It's really looking good!

Thank you!

The upper hull aztecing is done. It's very hard to photograph. Using a flash helps (the last photos) but in real life the pattern is not so nearly pronounced.

 

[SofaKing01]

And my screwup number 3,421. Somehow I accidentally managed to melt part of the lower hull. It looks like my soldering iron is the culprit but I have no idea how. I am in the middle of puttying and sanding in the hope of salvaging it.

Hey M,

Loving this project so far! Amazing work on the Azteking... whew... exhausting work.

As far as the "Screwup #3,421"... If there is room on the interior side, lay some simple styrene against the interior skin going up past the mid section. This acts as a sort shelf. Then slowly add filler to the bad areas sanding smooth. It's just going to take time to fix and straighten everything out.

Keep going!

 

[modelerdave]

More aztecing... (sigh). Man is this tedious work.

First pass at the conning tower aztecing. This was done with lots and lots of Tamiya tape sliced up with an x-acto knife.

Lower hull aztecing. This was done a little differently. I took a piece of screen door replacement, used liquid mask to fill some of the screen holes, then cut out others to make a template mask that I could hold down over the model and spray. It's maybe half an inch square with tape around the edge to make a frame or sorts.

So why didn't I do this on the upper hull? Because the edges are kid of fuzzy. I tried an experiment and it didn't look as good. But here I am ok with a more industrial kind of look.

The flash on the phone camera makes them stand out more than they do in person.

 

[Analyzer]

Looks great!

 

[modelerdave]

Minor update while I fight an awful sinus cold. Oh, my aching head...!

A little more paint work done on the conning tower, and I painted the blue stripes on the upper main fuselage. I decided to paint them rather than use the decals because I’ve heard there are fit problems with them. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. The curved parts were just freehand X-acto cuts on Tamiya tape. Did them in one try!

 

[Analyzer]

That really starting to look pretty amazing!

I always prefer paint to decals for most body strip/markings like that. Decals just can't compete to the quality of how paint looks

 

[modelerdave]

Coming down the home stretch (I hope!).

The mess of wires and LEDs for the lighting

A little piece of window screen that I used as a template for the aztecing on the bottom of the hull. I cut some pieces of of the screen and blocked others with liquid mask.

This is the result.

All glued together except for the cockpit and observation deck windows, which will be dead last.

The spotlight near the forward landing gear came out like I’d hoped

Next steps are clear coating, weathering, decals, and filling in all of the windows with Krystal Klear.

 

[Analyzer]

It really comes to life with the lighting

 

[Rustek]

The engine lighting came out great. I love the aztek work as well. Can't wait to her all done.

 

[modelerdave]

Thanks guys. I got most of the weathering done tonight and a good gloss coat on. I'll do some decals tomorrow and then maybe start on the windows with Micro Krystal Klear.

 

[Jimw100]

That aztec paint scheme looks ace. If there's one thing I hate more than sanding it is masking with tape. Nice work.

 

[modelerdave]

1/9/2019 update.

Everything is sealed, light blocked, and the decals have been applied. I need to do some touch up work to the decals on the rear of the conning tower (more on that below), then add Micro Krystal Klear to the windows, dull coat, and then fix to the base.

I only lightly weathered the ship, mostly because of the scale. I didn't want it too dirtied up. I did use a light panel line wash and some scorching around the engines, and weathered the lower hull a bit heavier than the upper based on atmospheric descent and the resulting scorching.

The decals in this kit are TERRIBLE. I didn't even bother with the blue along the upper hull since I heard it didn't fit correctly, but the the conning tower decals are a mess. The yellow stripe is okay but you have to cut it into pieces -- there is no way to lay that all on as a single piece.

The rear conning tower decals around the observation deck DO NOT FIT. There is simply no way to make them stretch enough, and the gap is not small. I had to use paint to close it up, which still needs a bit of touch up. They are simply sized way off. The lower edge should be horizontal and parallel to the length of the hull below the observation deck. That simply is not possible. Even if you curve it way up so it is now incorrect and looks wrong, there is still a gap, and there is one along the upper edge above the deck windows as well. It's just a lousy decal.

Anyway, enough ranting.

I need to fix the observation deck windows.

The blueish coloring on some of the conning tower and lower hull windows was an attempt to make it look like there were rooms or curtains behind the windows. I got the idea from here, that someone above pointed me to:

Making starship window interiors with backlit film

The problem is this ship is just too small for any details to show. I do like the variation in color so not everything is brilliant white, but at this scale you just can't get any details to show.

 

[Analyzer]

That's a shame about the kits decals

Everything really came together. Lighting looks great and the variation behind the windows does make a difference

Also keeping the panels lines more subdued and the weathering in scale was a good choice

 

[g0rb]

This is an amazing job, well done! I love the paint job, it is beautiful, and the engine lights are great!

 

[modelerdave]

And it's finally a (frustrated) wrap.

So the floodlight that was shooting down from the lower left side of the conning tower doesn't work and there was no way to repair it. I'm kind of bummed because it was a cool little detail, but oh well...

Apologies for the pictures, I only have my iPhone as a camera and no light box. It's just not a priority at the moment.