U.S.S. Endeavour - An exercise in decaling...

[Little Soldiers]

Hello all,

Of the many resin '2500 miniatures I originally took delivery of here at Little Soldiers, precious few were of a quality good enough to put on the tabletop.

BUT—! Undeterred, I mined through the coal, and managed to salvage a few rough diamonds - and, if I do say so myself, the results you see here prove my efforts were worth while:

This is the U.S.S. Endeavour, finished as she would have looked during the 'Middle Years'. The hull colour is Tamiya XF-12 IJN Grey, with a touch of white.

The decals are all home-made, rendered in Illustrator on my Mac, and printed on my new laser printer.

All the panel line are also decals - and what a pain they are! But, compared with the pain of dodgy, trembly, hand-brushed linework, I think they were worth the effort.

I went with a 'non-canon' blue glow in the engines' inboard sides, as I've always thought its an effect the original series' FX people would have gone with, had the money and technology been available in the '60s.

And here's how the old girl appeared in the original show! Notice the fine lines demarking the hangar bay doors? Yep, that's decal work too!

I hope you've enjoyed this little display of the fun I've had this weekend - it was time-consuming with all that decal applying, but I think it proves the 2500's have the potential to form a fleet any gamer would be proud of.

On to the Kirov-class Australia and the dreadnaught Federation!

 

[Red-24]

Looking good. I know what you mean about decals being piddly. I've made up custom decals as well. The took a long time to make, but also take a long time to apply. I've only done tests on my USS Star League.

Haven't really finished or taken proper photos, but you can make out most of them in these shots:

 

[Renny]

It looks very impressive. Nice work.

 

[tomrommel1]

like it a lot

 

[Greg Smith]

Decalling the panel lines - amazing!

And the photo of the ship orbiting the plant is great.

 

[shiba-tenchi]

Really nice, but decalling panel lines...wow! Someone should introduce you to the world of washes and inks, and the joy of Gundam markers!

 

[The Legend]

Hello all,

Of the many resin '2500 miniatures I originally took delivery of here at Little Soldiers, precious few were of a quality good enough to put on the tabletop.

BUT—! Undeterred, I mined through the coal, and managed to salvage a few rough diamonds

Ok This has to be the most important thing about your post.

Don't get me worng man, your [modelling and painting is superb. I'm sorry to jump in on your thread like this but I really have had it now. You hit the nail on the head..... Precious few of a quality good enough to put on the table top. I decided to crack on with mine and to be honest I've managed to make a constitution class look pretty good (Photo's to Follow) and the Dreadnought is superb with virtually no faults.

The frigates and heavy cruisers and light cruisers. I can't bring myself to look too closely at the battlecruisers. I spent an hour and a half cleaning mold lines off the miniature and then a further couple of hours using liquid green stuff to round off misscasts and fix porous holes in the hulls or Green stuff to resculpt detail that was missing.....

In short I'm not impressed and I was very enthusiastic about this. Especially considering how brilliant the NA minis are. The game does not really matter anymore though. The remains of my "Fleet Box" have been discarded to their box and uncerimoniously mothballed until I can bring myself to try and sort them out.

 

[Little Soldiers]

Really nice, but decalling panel lines...wow! Someone should introduce you to the world of washes and inks, and the joy of Gundam markers!

Let me assure you, shiba, these things are known to me... 8)

Grindhouse Games Panzeraffe (by me, with washes )

The primary reason for the use of decals, rather than washes and markers, is control. Using decals allows me to place each panel line exactly where I want it. If I make a mistake, I may lose a decal piece, but there is no need to clean off the error, or repaint the hull colour. Also, each panel line has a graduation on one side, essentially reproducing an effect of 'feathering' which would be all but impossible to reproduce otherwise at this scale.

The surprising thing is, although I took over an hour to decal up the top of the saucer section alone, ( :roll: ), once I'd gained that initial experience, the underside took less than 10 minutes. Being something of an experiment, (with some time spent in trial and error, and allowing time for multiple layers of varnish to dry), the whole ship took me the best part of a day.

I expect that time factor will come down substantially when I start to 'assembly line' the rest of the fleet. Also, small ships like Burkes will be even faster again.

Well, that's the theory! The USS Federation is awaiting her decals next, so we'll see if it holds up in practice.

 

[Little Soldiers]

The frigates and heavy cruisers and light cruisers. I can't bring myself to look too closely at the battlecruisers. I spent an hour and a half cleaning mold lines off the miniature and then a further couple of hours using liquid green stuff to round off misscasts and fix porous holes in the hulls or Green stuff to resculpt detail that was missing.....

In short I'm not impressed and I was very enthusiastic about this. Especially considering how brilliant the NA minis are. The game does not really matter anymore though. The remains of my "Fleet Box" have been discarded to their box and uncerimoniously mothballed until I can bring myself to try and sort them out.

Legend, I'm sorry to hear of your bad experiences, and yes, I sympathise, with neither qualification nor exception.

When ACTA: Star Fleet was announced, I decided to take it on board as my primary product for Little Soldiers in 2012. I took a whole load of the initial Squadron Boxes, and was, to be honest, rather upset about what I found inside.

And to be honest again, I was disappointed when Mongoose and ADB made the call to go metal.

But I have to say - Matt and company have been stirling with their efforts to keep me 'in the loop' and they have done all I could ask of them in terms of trying to keep me and my customers happy. As a result, I've decided to stay with ACTA:SF, at least until we have a good look at the metal models, and how well they turn out. In the end, it may be just the dauntless Trekker in me, but I think Starline 2500 has the potential to become the best range of 'Trek miniatures since the FASA range.

Let's wait and see if this ugly duckling of a range really can turn into a swan!

(Wait - that'd mean its a Changeling... hmm, license doesn't cover those...) :lol:

 

[The Legend]

I hope so too. The figures that have cleaned up ok are excellent, I suppose I hyped myself a little too much. The Original Series is my favourite Show from Trek and is in my opinion far superior to any of the latter. I will persevere, I'll probably contact mongoose regarding a couple of ships for replacements.

Winge over! Ha ha.

 

[Da Boss]

I'll probably contact mongoose regarding a couple of ships for replacements.

Winge over! Ha ha.

You really should contact them for replacements - Like GW - MGP do replace faulty figures - as indeed they should.....

 

[The Legend]

You really should contact them for replacements - Like GW - MGP do replace faulty figures - as indeed they should.....

One of my freinds did get a replacement Osprey after the first resin one ordered was badly miscast and warped. I know mongoose are good for that..... Feel a bit guilty about wingeing over the forum now.

:|