09-01-2012, 11:29 AM
Hey everyone! There are 26 new pics for this month's update! Please check them out! Comments are always welcome.
It's been a very busy month for the Enterprsie models! I've now begun working on the Aztec patterns! And hooooweee! that is sure a lot of work.I've decided not to use any friskette to make the patterns because I've found that the widths of the grids vary slightly from one another. Some are wider and some are narrower. This can be very frustrating when using a friskette template. So in this case I measured the widest grid and use that for the basis of my pattern, then for the narrower grids I just make slight cuts and do some minor overlapping for the narrower grids. So all of the patterns for each individual grid are now matched up more perfectly with masking tape than they ever could be with a stencil or friskette. It takes about one hour to do one entire grid circle on each of the saucers. All of the upper saucers Aztec patterns are completed and I've got 4 rings of the grids done on the lower saucers. So, yeh, do the math... yes, about 30 hours to get what I did, done. But the pictures will speak for themselves. Everyhting is turning out very nice at this point.
I've also had to tweek a few things with the engineering hull and deflector housing. As I re-watched parts of ST:TPM and ST: TWOK I realized that something did not appear to be right and it turned out to be the Strongback and deflector dish housing. In ST:TMP when the Enterprise was in drydock, I was not seeing any of the strongback details that I painted on the ship that I was seeing in the movie. There was way too much definition to the colors that I had used and there is a slight sheen to the surface of the ship indicating she was basically "BRAND NEW". I began to rethink what I did and it turns out that I had been following pictures of the studio model details as the model was repainted for 1701 - "A". I became very distrought and realize this needed to be corrected befor I add decals. The solution was quite simple though, I took some light Neutral gray and thinned it out a lot. Then with a very light spray setting on my airbrush, I resprayed over the entire strongback with this color and guess what. It worked. You can still see the details but they have been toned down quite a bit. I will be spraying the Engineering hull as well as the other parts of the ship with gloss to give it just enough sheen to not only add the decals, but to give it the new hull look as well.
I should be able to have the rest of the masking done by the next update and hopefully all of the decals will be finished, then I can finally start putting these babies together and begin the lighting and wiring.
So, that's all for this update. I will see you again next update! Take care,
Mark
It's been a very busy month for the Enterprsie models! I've now begun working on the Aztec patterns! And hooooweee! that is sure a lot of work.I've decided not to use any friskette to make the patterns because I've found that the widths of the grids vary slightly from one another. Some are wider and some are narrower. This can be very frustrating when using a friskette template. So in this case I measured the widest grid and use that for the basis of my pattern, then for the narrower grids I just make slight cuts and do some minor overlapping for the narrower grids. So all of the patterns for each individual grid are now matched up more perfectly with masking tape than they ever could be with a stencil or friskette. It takes about one hour to do one entire grid circle on each of the saucers. All of the upper saucers Aztec patterns are completed and I've got 4 rings of the grids done on the lower saucers. So, yeh, do the math... yes, about 30 hours to get what I did, done. But the pictures will speak for themselves. Everyhting is turning out very nice at this point.
I've also had to tweek a few things with the engineering hull and deflector housing. As I re-watched parts of ST:TPM and ST: TWOK I realized that something did not appear to be right and it turned out to be the Strongback and deflector dish housing. In ST:TMP when the Enterprise was in drydock, I was not seeing any of the strongback details that I painted on the ship that I was seeing in the movie. There was way too much definition to the colors that I had used and there is a slight sheen to the surface of the ship indicating she was basically "BRAND NEW". I began to rethink what I did and it turns out that I had been following pictures of the studio model details as the model was repainted for 1701 - "A". I became very distrought and realize this needed to be corrected befor I add decals. The solution was quite simple though, I took some light Neutral gray and thinned it out a lot. Then with a very light spray setting on my airbrush, I resprayed over the entire strongback with this color and guess what. It worked. You can still see the details but they have been toned down quite a bit. I will be spraying the Engineering hull as well as the other parts of the ship with gloss to give it just enough sheen to not only add the decals, but to give it the new hull look as well.
I should be able to have the rest of the masking done by the next update and hopefully all of the decals will be finished, then I can finally start putting these babies together and begin the lighting and wiring.
So, that's all for this update. I will see you again next update! Take care,
Mark
"... once it's activated, there's no way to stop it!" - Scotty - DMa