Red Iron Models Sputnik-1 1:35 A last ditch attempt to complete a model in 2020

[dnl42]

Nice work on this! 

 

Did you thin the Mirror paint? You compared it to Molotow pens; have you ever tried Mr Color Super Metallic paints? 

 

A concrete finish on the base would be superb! 

[Mike]

1 hour ago, dnl42 said:

Did you thin the Mirror paint? You compared it to Molotow pens; have you ever tried Mr Color Super Metallic paints? 

The Mirror went into the paint cup neat, and that weird matt silver finish was done during the clean-up phase, when I added a few drops of Mr Self Levelling to the paint cup to see how the residue would spray before I washed it out with liquid reamer.

 

Where the Mirror beats Molotow is in being able to easily brush it on in tight areas without the 1mm or 2mm nozzle causing over-spill of the Molotow.  I also think that Mirror doesn't suffer so much from the pen stroke "contrails" that you can sometimes see in the wake of the pen.  From an airbrush, it's pretty much hands down Mirror any day of the week.  It was a piece of cake to spray, and even though you're putting it on wet-on-wet, it's so easy to do because the paint is so thin and full of colour, you don't get to the stage where runs could be an issue.

 

I've since put some brush coats of Klear over the paint, and it hasn't affected the sheen one iota, so you can clear coat and decal over it.  I'll test tape over it at some point too

[Arild Moland]

Great results! Molow sells chrome refill bottles, which is what I used when airbrushing, but it still looks like Mirror is the better option for brushwork. Now I only wonder when I'll get mine, with the holiday season and the covid situation being what it is in the UK.

 

Hope Red Iron Models restock their rovers soon. I picked up the Lunakhood-1 a couple of months ago, and it looks great (and quite a bit more work than the Sputnik, of course  )!

[Mike]

2 hours ago, Arild Moland said:

Molow sells chrome refill bottles

I didn't know that.  Might come in handy sometime, thanks

[Mike]

Last night I took my life in my hands, matted down the shiny black base, and gave it a few stipple coats of Mr Surfacer 500.  Then I sprayed it with a coat of Lifecolor European Asphalt from the new War on the Road set, which I then overpainted the next day with a thinner patchy coat of Concrete, from the same set.  I swiped the 'brush vertically to give it a bit of streaking in the paint, so to speak, as well as some edge masking to give it a more faceted look in places.  Then I dry-brushed the whole thing with some Xtracrylix Light Grey (XA1139).  After that I dotted in some chips with the Asphalt again, which I accented with a little pure white (XA1141) on my favourite 000 W&N Series 7 paintbrush.  I kept it fairly muted so as not to distract from the model itself, but I can always add a bit more later.  The photo doesn't really show the texture of the stand now, which I'm quite pleased with.  Here's how she looks now:

 

 

It looks a little more extreme in the flesh, and now I have to decide how to do the lettering.  I'm wondering about those metal letters you sometimes see on statues, which get all weather-worn and leave streaks down the concrete as they weather out.  Will have to do some looking for references later.

 

[dnl42]

Most excellent! 

 

For the lettering, are you thinking of weathering steel or a bronze?

[Mike]

5 minutes ago, dnl42 said:

Most excellent! 

 

For the lettering, are you thinking of weathering steel or a bronze?

Thanks Not sure yet.  I'm reading a book I'm reviewing at the moment, so haven't got anwhere with the "looking" part yet

[Andy Moore]

The concrete base looks much better than the plain black. For the lettering, I think I'd go with a dark iron tone, then add some rust streaks running down the concrete. Patinated bronze would also look good, but maybe wouldn't contrast as much with the concrete?

 

Andy

[Mike]

I've given the lettering a coat of gloss black paint with my trusty no.7, and touched in a few blips thanks to my shaky hands.  I've also been looking at various lettering types on monuments and statues, and a lot of the Russian/Soviet era stuff has golden lettering.  I've also seen a few dark metallic ones as someone has already mentioned.  What to do?  Might give the gold a quick go and see. I've got a few gold paints knocking about from testing years ago when I was going to rebuild and paint my old MPC C-3PO.

 

What to do

[Pete in Lincs]

On 12/24/2020 at 8:18 PM, Andy Moore said:

Patinated bronze would also look good,

Just what I was thinking.

[dnl42]

Agree on the bronze. 

[Stephen W]

Love seeing it come together and it would be interesting to see the finish you can get on the base with the lettering. 

[Mike]

Had some fun yesterday doing a bit of muted gold lettering, and some additional work on the concrete, adding a little bit of streaking with oils and paint as I went.  I also put a light wash of Ultimate Dark Dirt on the satellite body too to add a bit of definition to it.  I might remove a little bit more and/or highlight the rivets later, although I'm inclined to leave it as is.  What do you guys think?

 

[John Laidlaw]

That looks great, Mike. Both parts are lovely, but I'm particularly enamoured of the base.

[dnl42]

Excellent! 

I agree, the base is outstanding. Not sure what they intended, but it really fits. 

[Basosz]

The base looks *really* good, but I don't think satellites get dirty. They're kept clean during production, stay inside a fairing or nose cone during launch and then up in space where there's little to no chance of weather to weather the thing.