Jump to content

Shin

Members
  • Posts

    187
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Shin

  1. thanks for asking, and good timing on your post! I was away from the hobby for a while, and when I came back I got distracted with 3D printing and figure painting. This Enterprise has been sitting on my desk taunting me for it looks like a couple years now hah. I've made a little more progress since my last update, but I intend to pick this up full time within the next week. Updates incoming!
  2. A pretty good one Alclad Aqua Gloss (make sure it's the Aqua Gloss, this is the only acrylic in their line) - no thinning needed and pretty hardy and self levelling. However, I've had Aqua Gloss crack/craze when I sprayed something hotter on top of it, but will easily hold up to enamel washes. My go to is Tamiya X-22 gloss thinned with Mr. Color Levelling Thinner (MLT), it it gives a pretty impervious coat. The downside is MLT is a lacquer, and smells. You could thin with X-20A, but it it's slightly less effective.
  3. an alternate option - I polish the canopy instead of coating it with anything. This was for clarity though, not for preventing fogging. I used to use PVA glue to attach my canopy pieces (assuming good fit), but my last couple I went with Tamiya Extra Thin (I assume it's similar to the Plastic Magic in your photo) and didn't have any issues with fogging. I think after I saw none of the clear pieces I was using TET fogged up (smaller pieces on armor or other aircraft), it was safe to use on canopy. Obviously the downside is if you ever need to get back in, you won't be able to - whereas PVA you could potentially pop it off.
  4. thanks Thom! To be honest if I had a time machine, I'd go back and not buy the lighting kit. It's certainly not a bad kit, but unfortunately does not provide me with the type nor level of illumination I want from my model. Technically this can be a very straightforward build, kit + lighting kit, someone can probably knock it out in a couple weekends and have a decent looking Enterprise model. I should have just bit the bullet back then and invested in looking more deeply at alternate lighting solutions. From the last post, the two problems to overcome were purple colored lighting, and diffusing the impulse engines. I tried my usual X-21/XF-86 mix and that helped, but as suspected the bulb LED wasn't going to cut it. I thought moving it back may lessen the hotspot, so I clipped the entire tab off (remember, my lights were glued in at this point), and physically moved it away from the clear engine piece, only to find it was too dim. So I busted out a Mega LED from Evan Designs (5mm LED, similar to the ones I used above for the warp nacelles) and put that behind - bingo, evenly lit impulse engine depending on how far I went. An added bonus, this LED was a warm white (instead of the cool whites in the engines) which helped a little with the color. Unfortunately it was still a little pinkish at this point. In an attempt to diffuse the light a little more and shift the color it a little redder, I trimmed some small pieces of clear thin Styrene, and sanded it to frost it. I was going to spray it with Tamiya clear red, but then remembered I had bought a Pro Acryl transparent red paint to try out, so shot that on instead. I put that between the light and the clear impulse part, and was pretty happy with the result. Top left: result of diffused clear impulse part, diffused clear styrene shot with Pro Acryl Transparent Red behind it, illuminated by a warm white LED. Top right: I was going to paint the frame then use the Paragrafix PE, but in testing it looked great when looking straight on the engines, but from any angle, it looked exactly what it was - a flat part glued onto a raised object. The clear parts of the frame were clearly visible (sorry, PE not in the photo, it just shows the areas I hand painted with primer in preparation of the PE) Bottom left: masking job with small rectangles. I knew this wasn't going to be perfect because the insides are not perfect rectangles, they have small curves at some corners. Ended up having to toothpick scrape some excess paint off, and hand brush in some gaps. Bottom right: result after spraying Stynelrez primer, then 1:1 Vallejo Metal Color Dark Aluminum and Exhaust Manifold (almost the same color as the nacelle caps). I think I maybe should have gone with the darker Gunmetal for this, but that's OK. I'm surely not masking those small windows again. Here you can see it all together - the LED I made a stand for, the two floating lighting kit LEDs that I'll have to figure out where to point, and the transparent red pieces I glued behind the inside of the impulse engines. I was half tempted to put a tiny LED behind each of the impulse engine windows to really mimic the screenshot from above, but that would be an unneeded cost and probably cause its own headaches. Maybe if they ever make a 1/350 scale of this ship...
  5. Carrying on! Started with the saucer. I actually had way too much paint leftover from when I did the engines to just dump, so I ended up spraying the bottom saucer with MMP Duraluminum at the same time. Like the engines, the inside was sprayed black, then white to light block and disperse interior lighting. Problems immediately when I began to run in the wiring. After positioning the two rear impulse engine lights, they want you to run the wire clockwise on the inside pointing in. You can see after the first light, my wire was not long enough to reach the top holder as the instructions indicated. Yellow tape to temporarily hold everything in place. So I played around with the lights until I found a way to make sure all the tabs were accounted for, then held it all down with Bondic. The LEDs have a distinctively blue cast, so I tried to push the light towards a more neutral white by spraying the clear parts with Tamiya clear orange after frosting them. It... did not work. I tried again with yellow, and the results were still less than stellar. I may try and introduce a warm white light in there to try and balance our the color temperature. At this point, I've stripped all the clear parts. In the show, at one point we get a panning/zooming shot coming across the impulse engines. You can see some sort of texture in there, not apparent until the camera is pretty much right up on it. To try and mimic this (and make this model distinctively mine), I figured I would use a very small honeycomb pattern PE I found on eBay (I assume for engine grills). Cut to size, then glued to the back of the clear impulse parts. This photo shows both success of the texture getting the effect I want, but also highlights a couple problems - even with frosting the clear part I'm not sure it will adequately disperse the light to even out across the entire impulse engine piece. The other is a complaint from other builders - the impulse engines read as purple when lit up. This photo also shows one piece of PE that I used from the Paragrafix kit - the circular docking port there in the middle. It has openings on the doors to mimic the areas to be lit, so I drilled straight through the plastic to open it up. The existing LEDs don't do too much to get light in there, so it may need to be lit independently depending on what I do with the rest of the saucer lighting. Thanks for looking!
  6. The nacelle cap pieces were clear styrene, so the entire thing had to be light blocked (minus the rear openings). I did this via handbrushing the inside with multiple layers of black Styenelrez, and airbrushing the exterior. I did have to hand paint the exterior "inside" of the cap, the faces that run up to the clear part. I followed this same process with the base color. It looked a bit darker than the rest of the ship, but not as dark as the accent areas, so I made a mix of Vallejo Metal Color Dark Aluminum (10 drops), and Exhaust Manifold (4 drops). I may accent the ridges layer with a darker wash later. The Paragrafix photoetch set came with a part to pop on the rear grill, instead of masking off around the little holes. I'm not entirely happy with the result of this, both from how light transmits through the clear piece (can't be helped), and also the references showing the holes should be small hexagons (versus ovals as molded into the piece and used for the PE). I toyed with hollowing out the clear piece (using one of the non-colored clear pieces I had left), but I couldn't control how much was removed and kept gouging into the ridge detail. And I'm not creating PE for the errant detail, so rolled with what's there. The inside was light diffused using the same methods above, X-21 and X-86 to frost them up. I also finished the rest of the dark accents on the nacelles and pylons with handbrushing Vallejo Metal Color Gunmetal. Don't think I mentioned (though they can be seen in previous posts), there are small rectangle grill like pieces near the back end of each nacelles on both sides, they were painted with a mix of 1:1 Mission Models Gold and Bronze. The only pieces left were the fins on the rear of the nacelles and the bar on the side. Same painting methods and base color/dark accents as the rest of the engine. If I could do it over again, I wonder if I could attach these earlier rather than later - there are some light leaks from the holes these pieces sit into, and also the attachment points are a bit unsightly - it would have been tricky to putty those areas smooth, but may have been worth the effort. The biggest reasons I left all these pieces off was I thought it would be easier to decal the nacelles first, then attach these pieces. I'll figure a way at the least to get the light blocked. (note: the CG ship has a row of tiny accent lights running across the outer perimeter of that dark accent area on both sides of each fin - no way that I know of to mimic that at this scale) With that, all the parts of the engine are ready. I press fit in the fins on one nacelle (again, will glue after decals) and installed the red cap, then wired everything up to see the final result. I included a video (made a YouTube account just for this hah), hope that's OK. And if not, here's a photo of the final results: Pretty happy with where I am so far, and it's taken quite a while to get there. Will probably tackle the saucer next - think that'll be less tricky than the secondary hull.
  7. I hope the primer works out, I have heard middling reviews of Vallejo primer. But yes, this paint line is fantastic, many hold it as the finest acrylic metallic series - sprays great (did my Mustang wings with this line), and brush paints fantastically as well, lots of miniature painters use it for their metals. Regarding lifting, best practice would be to use high quality modelling tape (Tamiya for example), and before you apply it, detack it heavily. I usually stick it across the back of my hand or arm a few times before applying to the model. I may be overly cautious (or a slow builder) but generally don't try and mask anything for a few days after paint application to allow the paint a chance to cure.
  8. Technically you do not need to put on a clear coat before decaling. That said, if you are worried your decal solvent will adversely affect your paint, that could be a good reason to gloss coat before decaling. I have not had the opportunity to decal over the handful of Hataka red bottles I have, so I can't offer specific guidance. The safest thing to do would be to shoot some paint onto a paint mule or plasticard, let it dry, and test your decals on that.
  9. If you're asking about the specific Metal Varnish Vallejo sells in their Metal Color line, I'll just chime in and say I bought it when I got my first few bottles of Metal Color and regretted it. It didn't spray too well and did not improve the finish at all in my eyes. I do not varnish my metallic paints anymore. I mainly use Mission Model and Vallejo Metal Colors, and have not had any problems with using no varnish. The primer (both color and smoothness) will determine the shade and sheen of your metallic paint job. You can use this to great effect - grey primer vs gloss black primer for making subtle variance using the same metallic paint. Gloss black is often recommended for the shiniest and smoothest metallic paint job, which seems to be what most people are going for.
  10. Apparently I'm on a monthly update cycle, hopefully my next post will actually have something that will look somewhat recognizable. But alas, pylons... I ended up attempting to fill and sand the insides of the potato slicers. By the end of the process I used a combination of Apoxie Sculpt, sprue goo, Perfect Plastic Putty, and Mr. Surfacer 500 to see what would work best as filler. First shot here with Apoxie sculpt, they were mini-trenches at this point that I needed to fill. Sprue goo on the exterior to eliminate those joint lines. Once sanded, wrapped up the nacelle to protect from the primer and paint - then primed the pylons with grey Stynelrez. And I just could not get rid of the entire seam on the inside. I ended up trying to putty and sand four times, and still a little bit showed through the primer. I only decided to stop because I think I was starting to do more damage than good - the shape and edge bevels had started to deform. So with that I applied the MMP Duraluminum. The finish seemed to come out a touch rougher than what I was able to get on the nacelle. One thing that can also be seen is a slight "halo" around the potato slicer, a slight ridge from the molding process in the area. If I had a time machine I would sand the whole thing down so the area was flat, but at this point I'm well past ready to move on from these pylons. My hope is that the matte coat I plan to use at the end will dull down the speckliness of the paint and that halo. As always thanks for following, next step will be to finish detailing the engines/pylons and attach them together. Looking forward to that light test.
  11. interesting, don't think i've ever thought about that - i just assumed the thinner evaporates. i've never done it, i don't think I've ever seen anyone do it, and I don't know what you could clean thinner with. Maybe a light wipe down with a clean cloth? Give it some time to air dry off, then hit it with a clear coat. Enamels are relatively slow drying, wouldn't be the worst idea to give it a couple days for the panel line washes to dry up. That said I don't think I've ever seen panel lines affect a clear coat. I hope someone else chimes in if they have had issues.
  12. Oh forgot to mention - definitely disconcerting, especially if you're worried the sludge will stain your clear coat. One way to help mitigate this is by using a fine brush to apply the panel liner, so most of it flows into the line and only a little bit needs to be cleaned up. Called a pin wash, versus a sludge wash.
  13. Glad you're having better luck with the wash. Leaving it to dry will help it settle in there - obviously the puddle in the panel lines will take a touch longer to try than the thin film on the surface. Are you using Mr. Hobby GX with Mr. Color Levelling thinner? That's pretty much the gold standard when it comes to model gloss coating (short of 2K or stuff some car modellers use). 40% clear, 60% thinner. The key is light but wet coat(s), enough that the product can level a bit on the surface, but not enough to run. A sandpaper finish suggests to me that you're spraying too far or too quickly; the material is either starting to dry before it hits the surface or not enough is getting on. After a minute or two, you can then hit it with a mist coat of just MLT to briefly reactiavate the clear and help level it out a bit more. Some people suggest a light tack coat first on the model before your first wet coat as well.
  14. Hey @Dunderklumpen, I think you're on the right track - I don't see the point of having different "sheens" of the same paint colors, when their final look can be altered by various clear coats. That goes into my response to your whole question - I never clear coat for protection, only to change the sheen of different materials. I don't know how much you're handling the actual models so maybe you need more protection than I do. Like you said most things can be built in subassemblies, and that may be one way to separate pieces with different sheens (fuselage may be glossy, landing gear semi-gloss, wheels flat for example) before attaching them at the end. Masking is always an option - gloss coat the whole thing, then mask off small areas that have a flatter sheen and apply a flat coat to that. Or conversely flat coat the small pieces (perhaps the hard to reach places as you mention), tape or silly putty them off, then gloss coat the rest.
  15. Hey @DrumBum, are you blotting most of the thinner off the cotton bud before you try wiping the panel line wash off? It should be almost "dry" before you attempt to use it to wipe, you don't want it reactivating most of the panel line wash in the line, just the material outside the panel lines. A few other things to try: leave the panel wash to dry for a few hours before attempting to remove - this gives a chance for the wash inside the lines to dry a bit, and not get sucked up into the q-tip you shouldn't be pressing too hard when wiping off, a light scrub of the surface should be ample to agitate away the excess material. I guess I'm saying make sure you aren't digging your q-tip into the panel line you're wiping perpendicular to the panel line, correct? you can try a small piece of paper towel, a flat surface (vs the round of the q-tip) may help not agitating the wash inside the panel line sometimes you'll just need to do multiple passes - have a second round where you focus on the areas where it was pulled up from from the first go the nuclear option, but will help, is to scribe the panel lines deeper so that more wash has a chance to sink into there and stay. there are many scribing tools on the market, which allow for more control and consistent material removal than using your hobby knife. good luck!
  16. Short update - attached the pylons halves together. I could have sworn I took a photo of the wiring inside before I closed it up, but I guess it is lost to whims of my phone camera. I kept the pylons off the nacelle before painting for seam purposes - didn't think I'd be able to fill/sand easily the part where the nacelles/pylons meet if I had them attached. The wires from the lighting kit are THICK - I only used two (bussard lights and motor for spinner) and I feel they barely fit into the wire channel in the pylons - even then I had to use Bondic to slightly glue them together so they would sit flat to be able to close the pylon halves. I don't know what wizardry I would of had to do with three wires - luckily my nacelle lighting wire is much narrower. I'm toying with the idea of not filling the seams inside the "potato slicer" hole, mainly out of pure laziness, but we'll see. I've already applied some sprue goo on the outside seams, and will be sanding those after a couple days dry time.
  17. Thanks @LOX, so far all the plastic pieces have fit great. The motor fitting was good as well, but I can see the provided lighting kit will be difficult to stuff all the wires and control board into the secondary hull. I too have enjoyed the show - it's different than other series which is fine, and they certainly didn't seem to skimp on special effects and the starship sets which helps with the viewing experience. Back to our programming: after a month and a half you'd think I'd have finished the engines by now, yet here we are... One thing I forgot to mention last post, I had actually painted the nacelle halves before installing any of the clear pieces. There is some debate on what color this Enterprise should be - dark grey or that of a metallic sheen. In TOS the Enterprise was painted a light grey (with maybe a little green tint on the show). The aesthetics of the Discovery show (as well as the USS Discovery herself) has most Starfleet ships seemingly clad in metal plating - perhaps to bridge the NX-01 (Star Trek: Enterprise) era starships. In a Facebook post John Eaves, one of the designers of the ship for the Discovery show, addressed this when asked about what color the ship should be: This matches what I see in the show - the ship seems to reflect light more than a painted surface should, so I went with a metallic. After testing the metallics paints I had on hand, I decided to go with Mission Models Duraluminum. I didn't want it too bright, but also heard feedback that if you go too dark on the base color the Aztec decals may not show up that well. I think I wanted a look a touch darker than the Duraluminum, and am gambling that the overall sheen will darken after the Aztec decals and a matte coat dulls down the shine. So I sprayed a primer coat of grey Stynelrez, lightly sanded with high-grit pad, and then three light coats of MMP Duraluminum in a ratio of 10:2:2 paint/poly/thinner with a couple minutes between each coat. The dark accents I went with Vallejo Metal Color Gunmetal, carefully hand brushed. Then we get to the progress in my last post, installing the clear pieces, lighting, and closing the halves. Like many WWII aircraft, closing the halves results in a seam line running along the top and bottom. My filler of choice for this was "sprue goo", a mix of leftover Tamiya Extra thin cement in which small chunks of Tamiya sprue were mixed in until it was a thick consistency. If it's stringy, you need a little more TET. I added a couple drops of green paint to give it some color. Sprue goo's major benefits are that it sands exactly like a polystyrene part, and scribes through easily if needed. You wouldn't use this to build areas up as it doesn't provide structure, but is great for gap filling. I originally wasn't planning on filling the areas with this recessed detail, but after sanding the rest of the nacelle I thought I would try and be brave in this build. I went at it with sprue glue, sanded to the surface of the rings, and then used a micro razor saw and scriber to gouge out the recessed parts. I'm actually surprised at how well it turned out. I was a touch overzealous with the sanding stick so you can see a little flat part, but I guess you can't win them all. Luckily where most of the joins are are on raised details, so I masked off the areas and primed again. Top: Masked bottom of nacelle Bottom: Top of nacelle primed. You can see the successful filling and sanding of the gap. So after tape and masking fluid removed, here's where we are: Unfortunately there is a little cleanup needed because of some overzealous liquid masking, but overall not too shabby. Any small scuffs in the surface may be covered by the Aztec decals. Next will be to finish painting the dark gunmetal accents, but otherwise I think I can move onto the pylons. I may not attach the fins and accent pieces to the engines until after decals, we'll see how they are laid out. Thanks for looking, even if you're just taking in the photos and not reading my small novels.
  18. Yeah honestly paint is very personal, you're going to get a myriad of responses. Ultimately I think availability and access should be high on the list for any considerations. Regarding MMP, try light wet coats with a couple minutes between each and see if that yields better results - usually only need 2-3 for full coverage. I also needed to thin a little more than they recommend to get a good spray from my airbrush. I hear you on the acrylics, I'm in the same boat. That said I still want results, so I gloss with Tamiya X-22 and Mr. Color Levelling thinner, the only part of my regular process that has me use non-acrylics. Would hate all the work I put into a project to be marred by shoddy clear coats. For waterbased people seem to love Alclad Aqua Gloss, but I personally had mixed results with it. I've had good success with AK Interactive Ultra Matte for a dead flat, tried VMS Matte recently with good results for a flat, and Tamiya X-86 thinned with X-20A for a slight sheen, all acrylics, if you're interested. Lastly if brush painting is important to you I think you should definitely take a look at AK 3rd Gen. I know a lot of figure painters are using it with good success.
  19. For one data point, I use Mission Models for 90% of my painting and have been very happy with it. Yes the poly craps over eventually (both of mine have lasted over a year and half each before they chunked up), but the paint works so well for me that I'm willing to put up with it. Just know the poly is not necessary, and that you can potentially substitute their clear primer for poly if you really want. I will say one of the big reasons I use MMP is that it's available at my local hobby store and as an American company I wouldn't have issues sourcing it from multiple places around here. I have heard rumor that MMP may have changed their formula recently and new people using the paint seem to be griping about paint adherence issues, so I wonder if there's any truth to it. There is also a little bit of a learning curve - you thin less than other modelling paints so it may seem a bit thick in the airbrush, but once you dial the ratios in for your setup, it sprays wonderfully with good coverage, leveling, and durability. As much as I like the paint, I have not had good luck with their primers or clears. The primers seems to be more work than needed when there is a superior waterbased acrylic primer in Stynelrez (also rebranded as Ultimate Primer and Ammo One Shot). The flat clear I have never gotten to work, the semi-gloss is inconsistent for me, and the gloss is fine. I'm sure a lot of this is user error, but quite frankly if there are better/easier options, I'm going to gravitate towards those. The metallics are great though (for airbrush, not so much for paint brush). I haven't ever used the Mig paints so can't help there, but I did grab a box of AK 3rd gen metallics recently because my local store didn't have Vallejo Metal Colors gold in stock. I only applied via paint brush but they worked great. The actual paint seems to have fairly positive reviews as well. If MMP has gone down hill, AK 3rd Gen would probably be the first paint system I would look to test more of first. Oh, as a potential fourth option I have a handful of Hataka red line (airbrush acrylics), and the few I've tried have worked pretty well for me. I don't think I could recommend them without using them more though, and I've read plenty of positive and negative reviews about them. But if you're looking for aircraft colors, they've got 'em. And yeah, you're probably not going to match your paint brushing experience with acrylics vs the enamels. Sounds like you've already gotten a few samples to test, I say keep doing that, and you'll settle into one you like eventually. Good luck!
  20. If you want to stick to acrylic waterbased primers, I can recommend Stynelrez (also repackaged as Ultimate Primer from UMP or One-Shot Primer from Ammo/Mig). It dries quickly with good coverage, doesn't hide detail, and feathers when it's sanded after curing (instead of coming off like a skin). I'd stick with black or grey at first, the white is a little more difficult.
  21. glad it worked for you. in your example above you had a lot of extra information, i'm actually not sure where it all came from. To confirm, you need to copy and paste only the URL from the first box (highlighted in the image below), it should start with https:// and end with w2400 so it should read: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/...whateverlotsofcharacters...=w2400 (and again you can change the 2400 to your desired image pixel width, I suggest 880 or below)
  22. can you post the URL you're trying to use? That may be telling and help isolate the error.
  23. no worries, I'll try to help how I can, though it is kind of hard to troubleshoot over internet like this. If this doesn't work out feel free to try one of the other free hosting sites, it should be a lot simpler. Regarding the pink, I get that error if I accidentally don't copy the entire URL - that is, the URL entered into the insert link box isn't complete or valid. Make sure you are copying the entire URL, from "https://" on all the way through the "w2400" - it's longer than what shows in the box on the "Embed Google Photos site", another reason to use the CTRL-A select all from PC. I wonder if doing this on a tablet is making this more difficult in selecting that whole URL... You can test whether your URL works by pasting it directly into your browser first - it should bring up your photo. If that isn't loading correctly then it's definitely not copied correctly. Hopefully you have more luck on your laptop.
  24. So you've gotten to the part with the "Direct Image Link"? I generally left-click into the generated URL, use "Ctrl-A" on my keyboard to Select All (this should highlight the entire URL in the box) "Ctrl-C" or right-click to Copy, this should copy the URL to your clipboard. Then in your post creation box here, on the bottom right there is an "Insert image from URL" button. Click that, and then "Ctrl-V" or right-click Paste to put in the URL where it asks for it. Hit "Insert into Post" and the photo should pop up in your post draft. If you want to take the extra step, at the end of the link right AFTER you pasted your URL, where it says "w2400", you can change that 2400 to a more reasonable image width size, like 880. This is the width in pixels. 2400 is fairly large. Hope that all makes sense, good luck!
  25. As @bootneck mentioned read through the post, there are a few free hosting services available to you. Short answer no you can't post directly from your computer, the photos have to live somewhere and BM is not in the business of hosting user photos - for very good reason. As with many things it's a trade-off - yes, Google Photos needs a few more steps but it's free, and I don't want to be bothered with yet another website/account to deal with, so the extra few seconds going through the process to upload photos is worth it to me.
×
×
  • Create New...