Whoops! Been out of the blog sphere for a while. I wasn't well and ended up doing a stint in hospital. Eeergh....
Anyway...at last I think the viper is finished.
I wish I had taken photos of the terrain build, but I was keen to get it over with. Basically the terrain is plaster over a polystyrene base. The grass is railway model fibers with acrylic paint dabbed on to break up the color.
I used a sponge and worked from dark to light colors for the rock face. The weird plant things are left over milliput sculpted then painted with acrylics.
Lessons learned from this exercise? Weathering took a lot longer than I thought it would.My 'ol mate Tim Wade thought that I could have gone a bit further with the weathering. Looking at it now, maybe I could have.
Although I thought if you look at F1-11s (which are old planes these days) that are still in service, while they show a bit of wear and tear, they are still kept up to a certain standard. I figured the Colonials would treat their ships the same way.
I actually realised one must be wary of using filming miniatures as reference for painting these spaceship models. For the most part the film models are WAY over weathered...I assume so that there is no doubt that the details will show up on film.
While I do like my terrain, it probably dominates the whole display a bit too much. I could have got away with a base half the size and made a much more elegant statement with the design.
There are a few things that are a bit sloppy...you can tell the bits that were rushed. I know I'm always going to struggle with wanting to get a thing finished and keeping an eye on the quality.
Overall, it was great to take something that I had always thought I had ruined at age 14 and turn it something I'm fairly proud of.
7 comments:
Pete that's amazing. Top work
As that grand Philosopher from the great state of Texas once said, "Mission Accomplished!"
It's great! I'm amazed anyone can find the time to finish a model - especially with kids in the house! How on earth did you do it?
Awesome! I love the diorama environment. And yeah, now that I've read your reasoning on weathering I tend to agree. Good points!
Anyway, fantastic job!
Sorry about the hospital stint, too. Hope you're feeling much better now!
Super sweet Mr Mullins,
Mind you , you might also have to make a little guitar out of plastic -
cos that's what people tend to do on mountain peaks.
The photos with the inserted background are hilarious! If you squint just a little bit, it looks like a real pilot on a real hilltop-- but I guess that was the whole point, eh?!
The weathering is fine. They would have a maintenance crew on the Galactica who would have to keep these ships in shape in accordance with military standards. They wouldn't be like the Milennium Falcon, as that was a privately owned ship, and they wouldn't be like X-Wings, as they were just sort of hopped-up jalopies for a band of rebels. And like you said, if a model is tiny, too much weathering can betray its small scale. Super-cool stuff!
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