Ages ago, I'd bought some of the magnetic adapters from Ninja Magic to allow me to quick-fit ships onto flying stands. For painting ships, I'd figured it would be a good idea to fix some of the adapter bases onto long flight pegs that I'd picked up from Litko.
I therefore set to work. The first problem I found was that the base sections were pretty fiddly to glue together. The second problem was that I later found I'd used slightly too much Zap superglue to fix the two base sections together which meant the ship part didn't fit properly in many of them. Unfortunately, by the time I'd discovered that, I had already done the same process on a number of flight stands. Grrrrr!! Hopefully I'll be able to drill out the excess glue so that they are usable. In the meantime I prepared another 8 flight stands
The next step was to decide which fleet to do. The easiest option was to do the FSE starter fleet - 2 frigates, 2 destroyers, 2 light cruisers, 1 heavy cruiser and 1 battle cruiser. Cleaning these up wasn't too bad apart from the drive exhausts which had quite a bit of flash that needed drilling out. After fitting the magnetic adapters, I primed them with Vallejo black polyurethane primer, base-coated with Dark Blue, heavy-dry-brush with 50:50 Dark Blue and Light Grey, with a final light brush of 50:50 Dark Blue and White.
I'm not totally sure about the basic colour scheme and don't want to go any further without seeing what people think, so here are some photos. For some reason, the photos against the black background have bleached the colours on the ships.
Let me know what you think of this as a base colour.
The scheme I'm looking at instead is a mid grey base dry-brushed heavily with pale grey blue, then some panels picked out in dark blue.
Looking good to me. Are you going to put an wash on over the dry brushing? Might help to bring out the detail more.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Ross
I like the basecolour as it gives you plenty to work with. I'm also pleased to see you paint this subject.
ReplyDeleteI'm to give the Liebster Blog Award to five of my favorite blogs and I have you as one of those five. I'm running the post tomorrow and I hope you don't mind that I chose you.
Maybe, just maybe, you could add a wee bit of silver to the last drybrush....very small amount and then very dry and just lightly go over the very upper surface.
ReplyDeleteCheers
paul
They are not pink! ;-)
ReplyDeleteHow about yellow trim? Perhaps some red and white bands/checkers? Whatever, I'm sure they look good when finished.
Very nice Tamsin.
ReplyDeleteNice spaceships and I' d like the blue. Maybe better a white primer than a black one, it makes colours more brilliant ;-)
ReplyDeleteMarzio.
Very nice ships there and a very effective colour scheme. Now the NSL which be hunting them
ReplyDeleteHI Tamsin, my FSE fleet is cream with light blue accent bands. That being said I think your blue works equally well. keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing them finished.
ReplyDeleteThey look fine to me and I liked the bleached look as well even if it's only a lighting effect!
ReplyDeleteNice work Tamsin, I actual quite like the colours in the bleached pics!
ReplyDeleteI like the look Tamsin. Also like Paul's( from Paul's Bods) suggestion of adding silver to a final drybrush.
ReplyDeleteQuality. I have the same fleet on the table just now. Base colour looks fine to me. Think they'll look great with another colour and some spot details.
ReplyDeletePhew! Not a totally awful colour scheme then!
ReplyDelete@ Roma912 - yup, there will be a wash step to bring out the detail. I didn't want to do that at this point in case they went into the stripping pot.
@ Anne - given that it was the potential for starship gaming that got me back into the hobby, that fact that nearly 18 months later I hadn't painted any of my fleets up was a festering sore on my conscience. Ooohh! an award! *huge smile*
@ Paul - a finishing drybrush with some silver in it? Hmmm, that could work.
@ Ashley - no, they're not pink. That colour is reserved for the Peni..., errmm, Phalons *lol*
I was thinking of doing some of the panels in red and white on this fleet; yellow might get added in some places as well.
@ Marzio - yup, white primer might have been better, but the black primer has provided a bit more depth of shading to the main blue.
@ PK - NSL will be next up
@ Clint - your scheme sounds much like the one I had in mind for these ages ago.
Hi Tamsin. I agree with Ray and Fran. They look good, but I prefer the bleached look;)
ReplyDeleteYou should see mine, urgh, a disaster
Very cool Tamsin!
ReplyDeleteHmm, Sci-Fi starships, hmm I've always thought about, said naw, but then the kids bless them have started watching the Clone Wars and all those Republic cruisers give me that tingling feeling
ReplyDeleteNice work and the next wargame show I go to I might just walk on the wide side ;)
The base colour looks good to me
I love GZG spaceships, but they are a head-scratcher to me on how to paint them- I tried about 3 or 4 different attempts with color before I went with a light grey-white.
ReplyDeleteI think the blue is good but maybe something a bit off about it- maybe it's the saturation of the darker blue photos. GZG ships have such a 'utilitarian' design about them, it's hard for me to think of them as being bright colored. I think the blue will work once the ship is finished- get some weapons, engines & lights in different colors, maybe a marking stripe in white (?) and I think it will look good
I like them. They look good to me and I think the blue reaction is something that happens in the digital jpeg process. I had some blue markings painted on a tank and no matter what I did the blue went like a blurry glow in the photos. Really odd.
ReplyDeletecheers