18 May 2008
Fighters # 1
- Paint underside of 36 fighters DONE
- Name fighter squadrons and colour them DONE
- Base 6 flights of fighters DONE
- Put another 36 fighters on painting dowels and black wash them DONE
- Order more fighters DONE
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10 May 2008
Battlecruiser and Fighters # 4
David sent me pictures of the existing Adler fighters, to remind me of what colour design I used.
GZG puts out the Adler as the standard Neu Swabian League fighter, and have a special Interceptor
fighter. But those are fat looking little things. So I use Adlers as Interceptors - thay have that
sleek predatory look to them - like Battlestar Galactica Vipers.
- Paint Maximilian BC with Humbrol Matt 106 (light grey) DONE
- Paint 36 fighters with with Humbrol Matt 106 (light grey) DONE
- On the BC and 36 fighters paint white, silver, yellow, green, red, black DONE
- On the BC and 36 fighters do touch-ups DONE
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5 May 2008
Battlecruiser and Fighters # 3
Today, the big task is painting all those fighters - 20 stands of them (120 fighters). This is two flights of Interceptors,
eight flights of Wulf Heavy Fighters, and 10 flights of Adler Fighters.
- Paint Maximilian BC with Humbrol Matt 67 (dark grey) DONE
- Paint 36 fighters with with Humbrol Matt 67 (dark grey) DONE
- Look very confused about the other colours on the fighters DONE
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4 May 2008
Battlecruiser and Fighters # 2
- Glue remainder of Maximillian Battle Cruiser DONE
- Trim fighters. DONE
- Mount 36 fighters on dowel DONE
- Black wash everything DONE
- Drill the remaining fighter stands DONE
Useful hint - I use a small pin drill on the bases. This can either be used by twisting it in the hand manually, or by a rachet mechanism.
With the rachet mechanism you can drill swiftly and geerate quite a bit of heat. This can melt the plastic. If this happens, keep
the drill moving and extract it. Stopping for any reason causes the plastic to congeal round the drill bit - I broke two this way today.
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27 April 2008
Battlecruiser and Fighters # 1
- Yesterday was shopping for araldyte and more washers DONE
- Battlecruiser pinned DONE
- Washers araldyted into the bases DONE
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25 April 2008
Bases and Drilling
So my long awaited Maximillian Battlecruiser and fighter flights finally arrived. (Speedily delivered by Eureka, and
the marvellous Nic Robson. The delay was in me ordering the stuff). Eureka's castings are very clean. So it was
just a little trimming, and then careful drilling and pinning of the battlecruiser (pictured).
I always drill and pin the stand to the figure, and then paint it. All the preparation was complete, but the process was
delayed when I ran out of araldyte.
I mount my fighter flights, missile salvoes etc on an inch clear plastic hex, mounted on a black flying stand.
As always, the stand is weighted with a pair of washers glued to the underside. The black flying stands are an inch across (25.4 mm),
and New Zealand metric washers (25 mm) are ideal - as they fit exactly in the underside of the figure. British washers are imperial -
an inch in diameter, so don't fit. I have had to go to a smaller size, with a bigger internal hole and hence less weight. To compensate,
I glue in a couple of washers.
To ensure everything stays where it is meant to, I drill the stand, and pin it through the plastic sheet and into the underside of a
centrally placed fighter. The clear plastic hexes are cut from the plastic that comes stuck in the collar of new shirts. Everything
seems to work well and I've had no problems so far.
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22 April 2008
Woad
I finally got down to something I had been avoiding - woad. My Pict army had bestrode the battlefield the previous
May woad-less.
"Pict" means painted people and they had been described as being heavily tattooed during the time of the Romans. By the Dark Ages
(600 AD in the case of this army) tattooing or painting themselves with woad was no longer mentioned in conjunction with Picts.
Furthermore, no details of the actual tattoos survive. And additionally, although woad is mentioned as the tattoo pigment, this
fades with time and so was probably not used.
So, nobody knows what designs were tattooed, nor what the colour was, nor if the Picts were still practicing tattooing by
600 AD.
That said, I got out my marvellously authorative looking Osprey books on the subject and grabbing six different shades of blue
paint I set to. The result is visible here.
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12 April 2008
Full Thrust Fighters and Bases
- Assemble five fighter bases DONE
- Add white card layer under each base DONE
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6 April 2008
Painting Full Thrust Merchant Vessels, and military vessels # 3
- Paint side stripes in white or tan or green DONE
- Add logos, flashes or other markings DONE
- General touch ups DONE
- Reglue the large merchant vessels DONE
- Touch up white DONE
All finished, barring a bit of screaming and hair tearing. The large freighters FT332 and
FT333 have modular components which fit nose-to-tail to make a long, thin vessel. Each
module fits firmly - projection into socket - and so I simply glued them together. Sadly they drooped at each end.
GZG figures often require drilling and
pinning (particularly their larger vessels), and I was just lulled into a false sense of security by the tight fit of the modules. Grumble. One
more attempt to see if FT333 will glue up properly, and if that fails I will revert to pinning this particular model.
5 April 2008
Painting Full Thrust Merchant Vessels, and military vessels # 2
- Humbrol 106 Grey on NSL military ships DONE
- Paint military ships with white DONE
- General touch ups DONE
- Touch up black DONE
- Add yellow and black stripes to merchant vessels DONE
- Add yellow and black stripes to military vessels DONE
- Add navigation lights in red and green DONE
- Add blue runway lights DONE
Almost finished. Just a bit of tidying up to go. Waiting on paint to dry before completing the finishing touches.
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4 April 2008
Painting Full Thrust Merchant Vessels, and military vessels # 1
- Paint interface ship red, yellow & orange markings DONE
- Paint blues on luxury ship DONE
- Glue luxury ship engines DONE
- Trim large merchant lugs and fit DONE
- Humbrol 106 Grey on NSL military ships 1/2
The merchant ships are coming along well.
Painting the larger NSL warships is quite a job. There is so much detail - by choise I have taken the modular, patch-work quilt design,
where each assembled segment of the ship is a different shade of grey. This seems to take forever to paint.
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3 April 2008
Painting Full Thrust Merchant Vessels
- Touch up black wash on several ships DONE
- Touch up dark brown DONE
- Touch up olive green and black on small tanker DONE
- Touch up fluoro on containers DONE
- Paint tug white DONE
- Touch up white on containers DONE
- Paint white struts on container ship DONE
- Paint white on bow of container ship DONE
- Paint silver on bow of tanker DONE
- Add tan colour to tanker DONE
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30 March 2008
Setting up Modelling and Paint Log
Several projects have been languishing on my dining table for several months. For some reason, there always seems to be someting else that
needs doing first. So come the end of March, I decided to crack back into painting my Full Thrust Merchant ships. Oh but first I had to create
this log. :(
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