Wednesday 29 December 2010

New Ship - shades of green






From the top:
(1) Here she is based in the yellowest green i could find. Nice and shiny for the decals - but rather toy-like.
(2) Here i've added a few decals and yellow Go-Fasta stripes to break the green up a bit and a definete nod to Thunderbird 2.
(3) Had trouble with the nose as it seems the primer and main colour just didn't take at all, meaning that when i trimmed this panel to size it lifted paint each end. No matter - will cover the blemishes up with metallic paint and just have it more beat up than i intended.
(4) All done and ready for a coat of Matt Varnish to dull it all down.
(5) Dulled down - but STILL too toy-like. Right, heavy dirtying is in order then.

Vampire Batman - nearly time for clothing


So, festivities are winding down (hope your's were fab) and i've time to get back to me den.
Here we have the teeth all finished and i've sprayed a coat of white over the eyes and shield areas as (A) Games Workshops white these days is so thin its like milk, (B) yellow is notorious for being translucent no matter what brand you use, so thought i'd help both with a coating.

Thursday 23 December 2010

Merry Christmas readers


Okay, that's it, no more computer malarky while i go off and enjoy the festivities. Hope y'all have a great time and receive all you wished for.

Sunday 19 December 2010

Vampire Batman - skin and mouth done


Pretty happy with his undead skin-tone, so i've done the inside of his mouth. I've kept it quite dark in there as i want the teeth to be nice and bright and stand out as, once i've done them, i can go to town on the gore, which needs a light base to be put on to work properly.

Galactica Viper - base.


The base for my ship arrived yesterday and mighty fine it is too.
You might recall that there's a whole bunch of us making a squadron that'll be displayed at a model show next year?
To have cohesion, we're all being supplied by these bases which will all be joined together at the show to represent a hanger bay.
So they all work together, the bases are supplied already painted and we're not allowed to repaint them.
we can however dirty them down, put posters up, add flight crew, workbenches etc.
Not got a clue yet as to what i'll do.
You can also see i've started on the metallics on the ship and you may be able to spot some rust there between some panels.

Friday 17 December 2010

New Ship - all together






Here we have one of the pods all finished. Other than the red stripes, all detailing came from the 88mm kit. I had to put a couple of pieces in the "mouths" as these front sections were hollow, so i had to fill them with P38 to give enough purchase to glue with. And of course that meant, if you looked into the maw, you saw a blob of the stuff.
Second pic shows everything attached ready to prime.
Then we have her this evening in her lovely grey scheme. After this will be a coat of white as i've decided the final colour will be a bright green - and i don't wnat the grey bleeding through and dulling everything down.

Music to model by


Only saw a chunk of Tron Legacy on a run through the other day, so can't have an opinion yet.
Can on the soundtrack though - BRILLIANT work by Daft Punk, that's on the CD player non-stop right now. Highly recommended, especially if you're a fan of John Carpenter's own scores such as Escape From New York and Prince Of Darkness.
Word of advice - buy the actual CD rather than a download as you then get the bonus material of music video, photo gallery and trailers.

Saturday 11 December 2010

Galactica Viper - pastelled


All beat up now by adding black pastels, along with a dark brown one for warming them up a bit and not making it look too stark.
Before removing the masking tape from the canopy, i picked it out in Vallejo "Oily Steel".

Vampire Batman - put back together


So, ears on, filled, rubbed down and everything primed.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

Galactica Viper - off we go again




Can get back on track now with this build as i've hust received the excellent replacement decal sheet - cheers Mark.
As you may recall, a group build is going on over on the SFMUK site where we all build one of these new Viper kits, with new markings and all will be displayed as a squadron at a model show next year.
The decal sheet to enable that is for ships in the Spitfire Squadron, out of the Battlestar Excalibur.
Mark's done a brilliant job with these new decals, which work in conjunction with the existing sheet. All that's changed is the striping, the name of the mother ship and the pilots name - in my case i get my own plus my most used Net ID as my call sign. And some neat kill marks.
Looking forward to sealing all these in so i can crack on with the dirtying down.

Monday 6 December 2010

Victorian Lunar Lander - done


Okay, filled in the centre of each washer with Gloss Black to convey portholes and darkend some arears down while i was at it.
Might now Photoshop it and put it in a lunar setting.

New Ship - starting on the pods


So, been around every shop in town looking at pens and clutching this interesting grey thing that Andrew supplied me.
I'd already decided that two of them would be the front of the pods that will be slung on the underside. I'd figured a pen would be about the right length for the pods themselves and, looking at the diameter of the rear of the grey things, thought a marker pen would be about right.
So got these two from Wilkensons for £1.00 and went with them as the cap is nicely detailed and there's further detail on the body itself.
Next step is to use P38 to blend them grey and the pen together.

Friday 3 December 2010

New Ship - top and bottom



Thinking this is about how far i want to go with the detailing, just a few more panels and details and i'm done.
Up top you can see a long ribbed section, which from the B-52 kit. On the underneath i've got part from the always useful Airfix Refueling kit and i thought i'd bung a gun on so have used the barrel from the 88mm kit.
I've also added some small parts all over, mainly, again, from the 88mm kit - a rich source of fabulous, intricate detailed parts. No wonder it was used so much on SF models.