Prototype Klingon paint schemes.

[Dave773]

Been following the ACTA:SF progress and I'm looking forward to finally playing soon. In the mean time, I've painted up a couple "prototypes" (meaning I was trying to see if my airbrush skills were up to the challenge). I figured I'd post a couple shots here.

I admit that I went for a more "Paramount"/movie feel with these, but I don't think any SFB purists will mind. I wanted to do a scheme that would see 3-4 ships done in two evenings. One evening was airbrushing the base coats (3 shades) and one evening of detail work. The detail work was mostly the weathering and insignia.

I've got nothing against the Mongoose bases, but we wanted the option of doing Federation Commander games on our 1.5" star board as well. Plus I think hexes look sci-fi for some reason.

Anyway, thanks for looking. The Mongoose/ADB partnership has gotten me back into spaceship painting/gaming, so I am grateful.
Dave

 

[Iain McGhee]

Like those, particularly in the last picture. I was planning on going with grey/green myself, basing the scheme off the TMP shooting model.

 

[H]

They look excellent, very nice

 

[Finlos]

Those look very well done!

 

[LimeyDragon]

I love the weathering you have on them...

 

[billclo]

I love the weathering you have on them...

Is there weathering in space?

 

[Spectrar Ghost]

Yes, especially if your ship has a tendancy to burst into flame.

 

[tomrommel1]

very nice painting indeed

 

[AdrianH]

I agree, those ships are very nicely painted. Shading is subtle enough to bring out the detail without being blatantly visible as shading. There also appear to be windows on at least one ship's command tower - nice!

Screenshots in The Everlasting Klingon Battlecruiser don't seem to make it clear whether TOS, movie or later series Klingon ships were painted green/grey - if anything, it's the TOS one in that article which looks a bit greenish. But there's a SFU painting guide here which states that either blue-grey or green-grey is acceptable, so regardless of what happened in Trek, green-grey is an official SFU Klingon colour.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Very nice.

I can just see a squadron of them turning in formation with a glowing nebula in the background and the Klingon theme playing loudly. 8)

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

Well, if you want the "official" TOS colors, here is a picture of the smaller model produced by AMT for the show. It was never actually used for filming since it was used as the basis of their model kit (the larger model was delivered immediately). Once it was delivered it ended up on Roddenbarry's desk for a while. According to AMT it was painted the same as the larger filming model.

It actually has an interesting two-color Grey and pale green color scheme.

 

[ErikB]

And if you look at this image from the original film stock and squint a bit you can maybe convince yourself that yes the model really was painted those colours:-

Course, the remastered episodes just make the ship all grey, but that is no where near as much fun.

 

[Zamboni]

More on the purple D7 here:

http://round2models.com/articles/klingon-color-theory-101

From digging through some antique forum threads, supposedly the original AMT painting instructions called for a blend of 20% Napoleonic Violet, 40% Light Ghost Grey, 40% Medium Grey for the upper decks. The Krylon spray paint Celery is also a very close match for the lower hull color.

 

[ErikB]

Even more incidentally, in the 70s the studio model was got back from the National Air and Space Museum for potential use in the Star Trek Phase II series, and was repainted in this three tone dark grey/green/light grey scheme.

Good for late period Klingons possibly.

 

[Zamboni]

Nice pictures, I hadn't seen that pattern before. There's my 20/40/40 mix, but it seems much darker than I expected. Tthe original AMT color is probably something else (new paints are on order so can't mix anything myself yet).

I used to have purple/green for pre-war ships (such as the F&E mothball reserve), gray/green for SFU war construction, and movie green for post war ships (plus blue/gray for the odd ISF ships). I'm not sure where to squeeze in the tricolor, but I'm going to need to make at least one extra like that.

 

[Agis]

Very nice paint jobs. In fact I like them more than the "official" ones.
8)
The weathering is subtle, yet visible and looks "realistic".
And yes IMO there is weathering in space. :wink: Think of dust particles, small meteorites etc. Then entering even some parts of an oxygen rich atmosphere and whoops some visible rust will appear...
Please keep us updated!

 

[Dave773]

Agis- thanks, I'm a big fan of your stuff (for years now), so high praise coming from a painter such as yourself!

I will certainly keep you updated. I expect to finish up the Klingon squadron this weekend, then back to the airbrush for base coats on the Federation.

I appreciate the comments AND the model examples.

Personally, I was working off this shooting model. Again, maybe a little more "cinematic" than the standard (if there is such a thing) OS/SFB scheme. But, like I said, I wanted to give them some extra character.

 

[Agis]

Exactly the way I envision Klingons! 8)

 

[Sgt_G]

Exactly the way I envision a Romulan ship that got changed to Klingon due to a last-minute re-write of the script. 8)

 

[Rabidchild]

Exactly the way I envision a Romulan ship that got changed to Klingon due to a last-minute re-write of the script. 8)

Ha! Well said. +1