Sovereign Replicas USS Enterprise NCC 1701-E
1/650th Scale
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Time for that airbrush action I was yakkin' about earlier
Life Is All Shades Of Grey...And So's This.
Greetings gang!, were off once more.
Last time, this wee deal was having the masking applied for the first round of paintwork.
A question was asked on one of the BBS and that was how do I know which parts
of the 'aztec' masks go where.
Well for all and sundry, the masks are shaped just like the ship so it's
a matter of looking at the masks and the model and after a short while,
you get the idea of what goes where.
Not an exact science but as good an indication as is available.
Once the areas are identified,
a little line drawing with a marker pen to outline the said areas and of we jolly well go.
Now some bits come off the sheet easy and some don't,
thankfully a bit of masking tape and a handy and slightly dangerous tool was made up.
Blade end picks up the edge of any masking part,
tweezers for peel off and apply without having to put one down to get the other.
Perfect ?, well as usual no,
but it works so good enough for yours truly.
So into the final bit of the first aztec layer.
As soon as job done was called and after a coffee break,
yea verily 'twas time for some paint pandemonium.
So, loading up old faithful with some light grey paint, Revell enamel SM371 to be exact,
much blasting of the stuff all over the place duly followed.
To spread the job out, i'll be doing the saucer paintwork first completely 'fore I migrate onto the rest of the ship.
So, the first coats went on...
Slightly patchy in a few places but that's on purpose,
solid and even colours just make it look a bit too clean in my opinion.
Others may differ but there ya go.
So after the top and bottom coat were nicely dry,
I just laid some varying width strips of masking tape onto
the underside and gave it another coat of grey,
then removed those strips and the rest of the aztec masks,
the result is as follows
Not too shabby, it will look better with the rest of the paintwork done.
Now back to the top of the saucer.
First things first was to get some of my frisket masking doo-dads and then mix some paint.
One thing of note, got the idea for the single mask/multiple areas
thing from Lou Dalmalso of 'Aztek Dummy' fame.
He showed some of his work on his Enterprise 'E' and I thought to give that a go meself.
Nice one Lou! it do most certainly seem to work sir.
So masks got and paint mixed.
A small amount of the SM371 added to about twice the amount of Revell SM374.
First using the larger mask, this was sprayed over very lightly on one area,
the mask turned moved to the next locale,
turned 90 degrees and then airbrushed again, repeat.
Like wise for the small masks but a heavier spraying for that one.
The result, well see for yourselves...
Well, did the trick as far as i'm concerned.
Once all done then remove the aztec masking.
Very nice if I do say so meself.
And I just did.
The contrast between the grey will be improved once the whole ship is given a shot of
matt varnish right at the end of this lark.
Last bit of this, using the smaller frisket,
a dab or two of spray to the other parts of the superstructure so to speak.
Okedoke to this point.
Next job is all the darker grey areas of the saucer and here is where we gonna see some fun and games.
Thing about those areas is they are surrounded and crisscrossed with pin striping,
like you can see here in this screen cap of the front of the saucer...
Now that will take some time to do but not that long thanks to some nice gear
I found on that well known internet auction site.
Nope, not overly large rings decorating my less than pretty digit but reels of masking tape,
1/2 mm width masking tape to be precise.
Said tape in varying different widths, is available from the mob in the link below.
Good stuff methinks and can also be got from the sellers site which instead of trawling through that auction site,
you can just get thee hence to
www.jammydog.com
Many widths of tape available so go get 'em if you need 'em gang!
The stuff I got will be used liberally, the results of which you will
just have to wait untill the next update to see...
ain't I a stinker?
You lot go easy now and i'll see thee next update time!
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