So it was a busy modeling summer...

[Crimson87]

New unattached garage went up last year with a shop finally starting to form, and I finally found myself with time and space to work on multiple ships. So much got worked on that I'm not even sure how to bring it all up for display in the topics. One ship at a time, or just scattered brained like I usually am.

So Lets start with the redo of the Enterprise-A and the Sagittarius(Constellation). So a couple threads down you will have seen I pulled these ships out of archive in an unboxing. A large number of the White ships yellowed and when i looked at these two I couldn't help but think. "I can do better"

So I ended up going through a clean up process and then ordered some StarCraft's decal sets for them....(I hope Dennis enjoyed the bulk order)

But that wasn't all I had a lot more adventures... I next started on My USS Trident.

She was one of my early paint schemes for the Galaxy/Nebula ship classes and I always thought I could do her more justice with a two tone hull. So she got an alcohol bath, cleaning, and a new prep work job. The plastic piece that connected the primary and secondary hull had broken off, So I decided to replace it with brass rod, and add neodymium magnets to the insides to make it stay in place better unless forced off by hand.

I ended up grabbing motion picture miniatures vinyl masking to mark out the ship and using Vallejo Light Blue, and Vallejo primer Light Ghost Gray for the base two tone. In places like the 3rd nacell that didn't have vinyle masking I used blue masking tape. However, I learned on a previous ship the USS Titan(oh i forgot to showcase it) and laying down layer of future floor polish before blue tape will keep the tac of the tape from tearing the first few layers of paint job so I was kinda liberal with doing that between layers.

Those two colors contrasted very hard, so the trick to make it look better is to to take the Light Blue and re-frost the Ghost Grey lightly using airbrush to produce a less of a harsh tone.

As a base to base comparison of before and after, here was the USS Atlantis primary hull

I next moved onto use Gunship Grey from an old Testors bottle. I'm running low on these and finding good replacements is hard... I tried using Mission Models version which has a large problem with disintegrating when waterslide decal come into work. I tried using AK Paint's Air version, but it's too thick for an airbrush and I don't have enough spare bottles yet to do a full thinning mix and store it when you inevitably have too much to put back in the original bottle after thinning.

It still turned out pretty good through. Here she is with the paint details and PNT models decals. I still don't have a name set, or transporter decals for her... Those were ordered from JTGraphics back last October and they still haven't arrived. I heard he had a health issue a couple months ago, so I haven't pressed the issue. But she's close to complete and awaiting the final touches. I'll matt her down to reduce the glare once all the primary decals are complete.

I have a LOT more coming.
USS Saratoga(Miranda), Complete
USS Bozeman(Soyuz), Complete
USS Phobos(Phobos), Complete
USS Titan(Luna), Complete
USS Pasteur/Nobel(Olympic/haven't decided), No decals yet, waiting on JT
and the USS Typhoon( ASK Norway) No decals Yet. Haven't decided... on what decal sets to grab. I'm eyeing PNT Sovereign and 1400 decal sets to complete her. But waiting on a 1400 decal restock at FedMods. She was Inspired by Dr_Corsa...
And work on an assimilation bay has begun...

And at some point I need to talk about the new badger 360 airbrush I got last Christmas, this thing is AWESOME.

So I'll end here... And come back later to add some more pics of the other ships/projects later. I'm not very meticulous with documenting the process of building the ships though. So, some step will likely be glossed over in places. hehehehehe

[JeepSwensonFan1980]

Noice.

[Dr_Corsa]

Hello,

Wow, great job! Especially the future Galaxy is a beauty!

Go on!
Michael

[RogueWolf]

Great work all around! I also like where you are going with the assimilation dio as well, please keep us updated!

[Crimson87]

Thanks guys I apperciate the kind words!

Great work all around! I also like where you are going with the assimilation dio as well, please keep us updated!

Yeah the assimilation bay is going to go inside the main cube I've been working on for awhile. I had the idea that in addition to using green Christmas lights drilled into the sides for effect, I wanted the there to be a bay where the cube could be slowly ripping apart and assimilating any tech they crossed.

I still don't know what ship I want to use inside it. Voyager seems natural, but she sits on display by herself. My next thought was a miranda, as I have the spare parts to do a mock up, but i just feels its too old and it'd be something the borg would ignore. So finding something that fits and is modernized enough to go in there has been a stumper. I've bounced around the idea of excelsior parts since the whole ship couldn't fit inside.... dunno need more time to think on it.

Another idea after watching Picard and the observing "The Artifact" is to place a forcefield on the front of the bay. My idea is to pull apart some clear flat clamshell packing from an electronic item or other item with a flat panel clear plastic and etch in some random criss-crossed lines space about 1 and 2 inches from each other. I would then heavily thin down some sublime paint and run it along the lines for the effect. It'd kinda look like this...

Borg Cube PC.JPG (107.07 KiB) Viewed 573 times

It's a long term project, but I'm always willing to take suggestions.

[Crimson87]

Okay, so this post was orginially a "oops" post while trying to post edit for grammer. But that's fine as it saved a spot for the next update!

where to start where to start..

How about the USS Typhoon. She's an ASK Norway ebay recast that had been sitting in the closet for years.
This kit needed a LOT of work. I knew i wouldn't be able to fix the backwards inaccuracies of where the impulse engines and shuttle bays were, but I could work on the Nacells and pylons to get a bit better representation there. I'm also not a fan of the warp grills or barely any grill to see. They should be thinker, but I didn't want to spend day's fighting putty, and drilling out new ones. I also don't have a hobby town, or micheals, or hobby lobby anywhere near me to get plastruct and evergreen to fill and fix things for heavy modifications. Once I run out of my current supply I'm pretty screwed for awhile.

A lot of putty later, and I was into basic assembly.

After that it was a gray primer and and base coat of of Light Blue and a mask off of of Light Ghost Gray to get the two tone color of the 24th century.

As usual a light frosting of Light blue over the LGG reduced the contrast and it was onto masking the next dominant color of Gunship Gray. However, as you all can see clearly I had issues with runs on this color. This was me fighting to get AK Air paint to thin down enough to be useful. Getting the thinned mixture just the right consistency is a fight in using small amounts. This is something I have complained about in other threads, and it totally why spending a few bucks more to buy quality paint matters.

I managed to clean most of it up with 000 and 5-0 brush and moved onto the the next color. Here is where I land the logic behind the color change. After watching the episode of lower decks where the Cerritos was compared up against other California classes I noticed that the color strip on those ships changes based on the ship... blue, or yellow, or red. The norway is always seen with Red/Burgundy/British Crimson. I decided to head cannon the reason for the strip's color being the main purpose of the ship, just like officer color rolls. Command operations and defense, engineering, or science exploration. Here I used Pollyscale Israeli Camo Blue to get a dark blue that matched in correctly, and in some places used the blue in the same way Dr_Corsa filled in for his Norway. (thank you for the inspiration)

Next it was a few details. with secondary work...

And finally finishing touches and a glossing....

And were up to tonight... I'm ready for decals but am waiting on a restock of 1:1400 PNT decals from fedmods. PL says they'll be in in October some time. Lets hope he's right I hate siting and waiting. Those and the sovereign decals for lifeboats should finish this ship out. I also could use some red pin stripping decals. I'm not sure where to get those though.

She's the last of my "class of 96." Their names all came from weather phenomenon since I'm a meteorologist. USS Icestorm for Steamrunner, USS Heatwave for Saber, USS Supercell for Akira, and USS Typhoon for the Norway.

So this brings us to the other ship on my bench right now...
USS Ambassador NX edition. She's truly in experimental mode right now...

I'm not sure whether to keep her primary colors in the current order or reverse them on the primary hull. In teh current configuration The Name and registry have a lighter color to sit on, but in the reversed config I think It may look a bit better.

She was built during the Lost Era and I want the color scheme to match other ships of the time such as the Excelsior and Enterprise-C. I also think of this being a proto Ambassador, not the Andy Probert version, not exactly. I think of teh Andy Probert ediditon as a Nerandra class that set between the Ambassador and Galaxy with only a handful made, like in the Triangulum Studios video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpcRsHFDAnY
She's just an early configuration of the many iterations of this experimental ship that were tested in order before finalizing on the established Ambassador. Think the excelsior when she first appeared, she had variation from her final design, a lot of experimental tech, and some that didn't work. (transwarp *cough*)

However I feel like this Ambassador is missing something, and no its not just the fact that I haven't been glossing future polish between layers. Though I'm a moron for not doing so.... I jumped the gun and focused on the different color schemes and forgot to do that.(Whoops) I'm thinking maybe I need to come up with some kind of paneling pattern, but I may just decide it's too much work. I'm getting seaworld vibes off of her...

But perhaps an aztec pattern like my USS Firebrand? Here is my Ravenstar Freedom class for reference on what's in my head...

I know the Ent-C from that era doesn't have an Aztec as I'm aware, but the detail just seems to needs something... I'm all ears for ideas...

Anyway's thanks, for looking and have a great day!.

[Crimson87]

I was dinking around with color match and then decided to try a few things.... Think I found the pattern that gives the hull that extra something it was lacking. I think this is the color scheme I'm going to go with for the Ambassador.

The aztecs are 3 two-tones.
#1. Tamiya Sky Blue/Vallejo Light Sea Blue
#2. PollyScale USSR Underside Blue/AK Air Sky Blue(god help me airbrush this color on)
#3. Vallejo Light Gray/Vallejo Light Blue.

All three colors are there, though #3 is really subtle, so much so i can barely tell the difference in full light.
Should I do the same for the white?
Is there a vallejo air off white you would recommend if so?

I think I'm also going to reuse the motion picture miniatures vinyl masks from the Trident's hull for the secondary hull here. But this whole process of masking and two toning is going to take a long time to work through. This may be a few weeks before I get there... I may eventually break and start decaling something else.

[ProfArturo]

Fantastic, thorough pictures!

[Crimson87]

So here's a couple more days between mids work.

I continued working on the Ambassdor's primary hull.
SInce I wanted two tone color patterns I had to make some stencils for airbrushing. To do this I took a carbon scoring over some paper over the hull to capture the hull ridges.

I next mapped out the aztek pattern for each level...

The paper trace was then exacto knifed out to get a set of holes to exacto knife lines into a thin sheet of styrene.

And from here i went to town on the top of the primary hull.

The same was then done for the bottom of the primary hull. With a bunch more masking between layers...

And that's where it sets for now. Inspiration has not grabbed me for the secondary hull yet. I have ideas, but I worry that the colors may be overwhelming, and I'm not sure what types of highlight colors will be necessary for breaking it up. I'm thinking red pin stripping in places. But no one sells just decals of red pin striping. I also need some pin stripping for my Norway, along with 24th century insignias.

I also began to experiment with the borg forcefield effects. At first I tried to do a light etching with an exacto and see if I could get some color to fall into the spot. That didn't work so much, but then i remembered I had the whole green collection of toole paint pens and began using those with a straight edge to experiment on.

I'll try to make a more clean looking effect whenever I go all out. I also noticed that by straight lining and staggering both sides of the clear plastic you can also get an almost 3D effect that pops out a bit. I may experiment a little more with that before committing.

[Crimson87]

Well, its not summer here anymore, but I haven't entirely stopped working on things cause the outside is running the long decent into an icy frozen hell. I managed a little work on my borg cube in October before the snowstorm hit and set in. I ended up using Black FlexyPaste as a corner's sealent between tiles on each side. It was my wife's suggestion, and damn it worked well. It even allowed me to do some painting detail work on one side after all the stuff was sealed up. Unfortunately I have no picks on that, though I should have got some before the cold arrived.

With the cold set in, I have been steering more toward simple kit builds. I put away the Ambasssador for a little while. It's to much airbrush work and just not feeling it at the moment.

So instead I I ended up decalling the Typhoon. I used PNT Sovereign decals for life boats, leftover Galaxy class decals for pennants, PNT 1:1400 generics for naming and numbering, and 1/32" red pinstripping from burbank hobbies for hte red stripes. The pinstripping was just a bit too wide, so I used a sharp hobby knife and a metal straight edge ruler to cut the width in half to get the correctly thinned re-striping.

After I was finished I did give the Ambassador a little more love, but mainly in the construction side of the house. I thought the deflector dish looked a bit plain, so decide to add some accents with small half round styrene. The torpedo tubes also were angled down a bit, so i decided to straighten them out.

After that I put the Ambassador aside and began a different project. Restoration of the original series Enterprise and the Franz Joseph's kits I built based on Dennis's work. Since I was curious about the polar lights SNW enterprise, I decided to throw that it in as well. They claim it's 1:2500, but that's total bunk. She's almost the exact same size and shape as Starcrafts' 1:1400 scale original ship that scales to the Ent-C, D, and E.

These kits may look "OK" it that picture, but the old Testor's gloss coat that was placed on them had yellowed in the box they were in for the last decade. I hope some of these images show the yellowing that got on... I ended up taking these images for reference in the restoration.

After assessing the damage they all got an alcohol bath, and then a scrub down with a wire brush to remove the gloss coat.

I set them in the jar for about 3 hours, and that loosened up the crappy gloss coat enough to come off with the wire brush, but some of the decals were still adhering. That was mostly fine though, I didn't want the alcohol to pierce super deep into the resin. Last time I let that happen by letting it stay in there overnight the alcohol began to warp a miranda strut and main saucer on my USS Bozeman. Did not want a repeat of that. Figured I could always airbrush over it.

My Enterprise did have a broken pylon that needed mending. I've seen other people have issues with his before so I'll showcase how to fix a resin break here.

I really do recommend picking up a set of micro-drills and pin vice.

These come in handy for drilling very small holes where you can cut a piece of paperclip or hard wire and use it to stuff the hole with a little super glue.

I then used Testor's contour putty to fill in any holes or cracks and let that set a bit before getting the respraying the basecoat in Vallejo USN light gray.

With that done I threw on a basecoat of gunmetal gray on the SNW enterprise and then began detail work. Here are the ships lined up again with their new coats.

I Didn't like the SNW gun metal suggestion from polar lights, it was a bit to dark, so I ended up misting the ship with a light coating of aluminum to lighten the metal up. I also realized I forgot to put the color on the warp engine grills for the other kits. So got that in place this evening and did a future floor polish sealing.

I'll probably begin the decaling session tomorrow. I managed to find some left over 1:1400 PNT re-scaled Franz Joesph's decals that I got from Thomas an eternity ago. Thank god, as I don't think its possible to get them in 1:1400 anymore. Not sure if Thomas even still does customs. I tried to go over the Federation Models to check if I could get a spare set, and oh yeah..... WTF happened to Federation Models?

Last 3 days at least their website has been down with a claim that they haven't had the domain since 2014? WTF... Is PL going out of business or something? It does have me worried. That's the main place for the bulk of my star trek kits and decals.

Have a great day all!

Grant H.