My first EA ships + Advice?

Ok, all, I am working on my first ever ACTA ships--a small EA task force of 3rd Age ships. Hopefully pictures will follow this weekend or early next week, if anyone cares, but I could use a little advice before I dive in.

First, I could use a few painting tips for my Nova and Omega. Are they pretty much dark grey, highlighted with lighter grey, maybe touched up with a little silver on the guns or what have you? Any painting advice people have is fabulous. I'm also doing a Hyperion, so if anyone has done those before I'm all ears.

Also, I think at least 2 of the 3 ships don't have a hole on the bottom to insert a stand. Any thoughts on the best way to create the hole, or what size bit to use if I drill it?

Finally, I'm going to do what I hope is a fun "mod" for the Nova that I'm hoping will turn out well. It's very simple; I wanted to try and reflect the fact that in the game the vast majority of the Nova's firepower is in the broadsides--but on the model (as in the show) pretty much all of the guns face forward. I also thought the Nova always looked a little ridiculously overgunned for what it actually packs, but that's another story. I toyed with the idea of turning some of the guns to face port and starboard, but it looked a little silly and made the model a bit unwieldy.

So I ordered a bunch of replacement gun sprues from Mongoose and I think what I'm going to do is essentially reverse the ratio of big guns (16) to small guns (4). The big guns will mount pointing fore and aft as "chasers," if you will, and the top and bottom mounts will be covered with smaller turrets now, facing the broadsides. I'll probably keep the longer guns on the sides of the ship but the top and underside mounts will all be the smaller gun turrets and will be faced to present a massed broadside.

I'll post pics when it's done so you know how it turns out, but I *think* it will be a pretty cool effect; still bristling with firepower, but in the right places and not with quite so many oversized cannons.

Advice is welcome. Wish me luck!
 
Painting EA ships is pretty easy. Spray 'em black, paint 'em dark grey, dry-brush with a lighter grey. Touch up the details with silver, gun barrels and the like, and paint the hangar bay interior dark red. Bright blue/white glow on the engine ports and blue on the engine exteriors.
 
Taran said:
What does that work out to in Standard rather than Metric?

not a great deal! hmm, imperial measurements for 2.5mm, it's about 0.1 inches (marginally under) I think
 
The Hobbybox said:
Triggy,
He's American, they'll be using inches.

2.5mm is close to 1/10th of an inch.

yay i was right althoguh i said it in decimal rather than fraction :-)
 
The Hobbybox said:
Triggy,
He's American, they'll be using inches.

2.5mm is close to 1/10th of an inch.
I assumed inches but have no idea whether it is in tenths/eighths/other of an inch...
 
Triggy said:
Taran said:
What does that work out to in Standard rather than Metric?
What units do "Standard" drill bits use?

Well, in the US, we use 2 measurements:
English Standard (inches), usually abbreviated to "Standard"
and
metric.

And what is 1/10 of an inch? Think maybe 1/8th might work? Or should I go with 1/16th? Drillbits round these parts break down into Base 2
 
I've been having great luck with a 5/64 drill when using the GW style plastic flying stands.

The bit should be available from any local Wal Mart or equavilent.

Tom
 
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