Painting Log

[Tredrick]

I had to put the painting on hold while I went out and picked up some bright metallic color paint and black ink. Fully equipped, I went about my painting.

For the Omegas and the Nova I wanted to paint them without the white and do them entirely in metal colors, like on the show. The first thing I did was paint them in my bright metallic (GW Chainmail). After painting I covered the entire ship in a thin coat of black ink. After that, I drybrushed the chainmail paint back over the ink to pick up the details and make the ship look newer.

The first picture is with one Omega painted and the other inked.

The second picture shows the same ships in bases.

This third picture shows one inked and the other drybrushed.

A final picture of one of a completed Omega, in base.

Next up was the Nova, getting the exact same treatment. @ pictures of it completed.

The last ships up were the 2 Tethys cutters. They were painted the same as the Omegas and Nova, except they were drubrushed in white. I then picked out the guns in chainmail and added the blue detail work seen on older EA ships. This was the look I had planned for the Hyperions.

With all the ships painted I am pretty much done. I will have to decide how I want to get names/ID numbers on the ships. I'm not sure when I will have the time to attempt these final details. COuld be tonight, could be next week. I still need to get a proper varnish too.

Overall, I am very happy with how they came out. Each ship is a little different from the others in look, which I think fits the recently rebuilt nature of Earth Force.

Coming Eventually:
Part Seven: Details, Names and Touchups
Part Eight: On the Table.
Part Nine+: Any new ships I buy, if there is any interest in that.

 

[Chernobyl]

I'm curious to see how you'll be putting on ID markings. Looking good!
I did some painting of my own this weekend (over the 4th of July Holiday) and hope to have pictures on my website soon.
Chern

 

[Obsidian]

You might want to check out the following site http://griffongames.safeshopper.com/44/cat44.htm?306

They have Decals for the EA ships that were designed for the B5 Wars ships many years ago. Since these ships are the same scale as the old ones the decals should work just fine.

 

[Tredrick]

I will be ordering a set of those decals. WIll defintely be nice to get some EA symbols on the ships.

I have also gotten a name on one of my ships. I give you the EAS Calliope:

The "A" is a capital letter bacause it is damn hard to paint a small "a" that small.

 

[Chernobyl]

think I'll wait until I get decals...I stink at lettering with a brush.

I have one earth ship mostly done, check it out here

http://home.comcast.net/~epicarmycard/mystuff/multimedia.htm

Also have 24 of my starfuries done, but the pictures were all out of focus, so those will wait.

Chern

 

[Nomad]

Tredrick wrote...

For the Omegas and the Nova I wanted to paint them without the white and do them entirely in metal colors, like on the show

??? I always thought EarthForce ships were basically overall dark grey.

The metallic finish looks good, though.

 

[Tredrick]

Tredrick wrote...

For the Omegas and the Nova I wanted to paint them without the white and do them entirely in metal colors, like on the show

??? I always thought EarthForce ships were basically overall dark grey.

The metallic finish looks good, though.

I always viewed it as a dark, metallic grey. More bare metal than the other races. Earth Force is rebuilding and needs ships as fast as possible. Not painting them saves on construction time and cost.

 

[Tredrick]

Since I am going to have to wait for the decals to finsih the detailing I decided to go ahead and put the pictures of my gaming table. I had a revelation when I took these pictures too.

See that footprint? That was put on there when I was sealing the table. Got to patch that up.

My gaming board consists of a 4'x4' section and two 2'x4' sections. This way I can have a 4x4 table, a 6x4 table or an 8x4 table. Only one 2x4 section had a starfield on it, so I can;t go above 6x4 for space games right now.

I need to get a second fleet so I can do some action shots.

 

[Tredrick]

AH, if I am going to resurrect one of my picture therads, why not the other?

First, the people at AOG had no clue how to design a multi part model that could fit together. The Poseidon was a nightmare to assemble. The rotating section does not fit together well at all. I did a lot of reworking on it to get it into the condition I did.

Worse, there was no way to get it to actually rotate the way it was meant to. I ended up chopping the central rod off and drilling in my own. Since I could not use anything smaller than the rod that it was originally meant to rotate on, I had to use a nail instead of the insulation wire I used on the Omegas. In all other respects the build is identical to the rotating Omegas I did.

The other sections had similar problems, but none so bad. There were a lot of gaps and the front section did not fit quite right onto the hangar section.

On the whole, I spent six hours getting the model to look like it was supposed to out of the box and rotate like it was designed to do.

Compare that to the Avenger, which took me about six seconds. Really, how can one company be so clueless in one area and so good at another aspect of the same field?

Anyway, the painting was identical to the other ships with one change. I wanted to simulate the plate look from the show. This is not hard to do with the minis already have them designed into them. To get the look of some panels brighter than the others, I repainted some of them in a few different metallic colors and then inked them. After waiting a few second to let the ink seep in a bit I rubbed it off with my finger. I did not use a tissue or anything absorbent because that took off too much ink and it was left way too bright.

Finally, the pictures:

 

[Scimitar]

Wow! :shock: That is just impressive. Amazing job.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Hey, I didn't know Mongoose minis came with a limited warranty! :lol:

Wulf

 

[Nomad]

I like the way you've split the ships into older (white) and newer (metallic) generations.

That Poseidon looks awesome!!

The great thing about Call to Arms is that you can actually get to use it.

 

[Shadow Queen]

Vallejo paints.

I find that after some time they turn wartery, im going back to games workshop paints

 

[Tredrick]

Scimitar: Thank you. The funny thing is the two model I was least happy with out of the box, the Poseidon is my favorite on the table. I am generally happy with all of them. The only mini I may gave a serious going over int eh future is the Nova.

Wulf: Heh. The limited warranty is from my Sony PSP. They were very nice and replaced it quickly. I was without it for only 10 days.

Nomad: Thanks for noticing. If the ship class had its maiden voyage before 2200, it will be in white. If it was after, it will be metallic. I originally planned to fo the Hyperions with the method used on the Tethys cutters since it first took flight in 2208. I wanted it to be a transition ship.

DerinaJean: I have learned this lesson. There are a lot of good about the Vallejo paints, but the difficulty of finding them and the extreme dificulty of drybrushing with them has turned me off to them.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

DerinaJean: I have learned this lesson. There are a lot of food about the Vallejo paints, but the difficulty of finding them and the extreme dificulty of drybrushing with them has turned me off to them.

If you get the chance, try Lifecolor (unfortunately, the Italians can't spell 'Colour' either...) paints. They are now my acrylic paints of choice. I only use Valejo flesh colours and metalics.

Wulf

 

[Chernobyl]

We american's don't have any problems spelling colour...we just know its spelled color! :lol:
All my B5minis are done using vallejo paint. You've got to be good for drybrushing, as the quick dry formula can work against you. The Nova (pictured in another thread) has 3 layers of drybrushing. It uses a black+gray mixture for base color, adding more gray and silver for lighter coats, and adding white to the mix for final highlight. Gives a pretty good gray/steel-ish look. overall though, I'm much happier with vallejo than w/ GW paints.

Chern

 

[Tredrick]

The reason we do not use the letter "u" as much on this side of the pond si that we do not haev government sponsored programs producing a surplus of them.

Much like older English has an abundance of "e"s from before the Mancherster "e"-mine went dry. (Not to be confused with narn e-mines.)

My problems with Vallejo is that it is too watery and when I try and wipe the excess paint off for drybrushing, it all comes off adn there is not enough to stick to anything.

 

[Mr Evil]

if your talkin language dont forget there are somthing like 49 phonims ! ie there are more sounds than letters...

we all got it wrong, color and colour are actuly pronounced diferently as well.

 

[Right Hand of God]

Um....we all got it wrong? I don't think so......it's colour. with a u. It says so in the oxford English dictionary. Now just learn to spell and speak correctly and we can all get along, that's good little colonials.

 

[Tredrick]

Um....we all got it wrong? I don't think so......it's colour. with a u. It says so in the oxford English dictionary. Now just learn to spell and speak correctly and we can all get along, that's good little colonials.

Shouldn't that be "Oxfourd"?