Duplicate this finish? Armor, aircraft, syfy input welcome

[Dukat, S.G.]

Guys and distinguished ladies,

Some of you are no doubt familiar with Starcraft's amazing new "Early Klingon Bird of Prey" kit.

Well, I'm torn all to frack in trying to duplicate the unique finish we see on that ship's studio model images. I'm particularly keen on these beautiful shots Doug Drexler shared with us:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50032391@N02/4885112197/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50032391@N02/4885113313/

To my eye, the following things are evident on the CGI model:

The base coat appears metallic, almost chrome.

Some panels are greenish-gray (closer to gray to my eye), but the metallic sheen is still vaguely visible.

Similar story, but the panels are more greenish. Almost like MM Pale Green.

Other close-up shots of the CGI model show a more blue-gray color obscuring the metallic undercoat, but you can make this out on the model's "head" and "neck."

To date, I've tried a few things and, while I've come vaguely close to duplicating the final look, something just ain't quiiiiite right.

What I've tried thus far:

I painted the entire model chrome silver.

Shortly thereafter, I came back and airbrushed most of the parts with a very, very heavily-thinned mix of a blue-green/gray color, a hair lighter than "Celedon" as seen here (bottom line, near middle):

http://www.coloredfilms.com/images/Prin ... rt%202.jpg

I "drew" panel lines in with Badab Black from Games Workshop's new ink wash line. Superb!

Next, I used GW's Thraka Green ink wash on a few panels -- a little here, a little there. Again, this looked solid if not overdone.

However, I never could quite nail the deeper gray-green color. Some drybrushing with Tamiya silver pastel helped in some areas, but most of the model just lacked that final "oomph" that separates it from spot-on and "hey, good job! That almost looks like the thing we saw on 'Enterprise'." :-\

Any input? I'd really love to see someone come at this from out of the traditional Trek-painting box. I realize the effect will never be perfect, but if we can paint perfect-looking Enterprise-Es from "Nemesis," well ... that sucker was all CGI, wasn't it? Why can't we do the same with a good old Klingon rustbucket?

P.S. -- Interestingly, these early Birds didn't feature much in the way of rust. I guess Kruge's ship spent too much time at the carwash

[Kylwell]

Oil filters and washes is what I'd suggest. Matte surface, little dabs... you can get the darker greens and the subtle mottled finish.

[TazMan2000]

What Kylwell said, as well as drybrushing with white or grey, followed by smudging the dabs with a tissue or sponge until the desired effect is acheived. This will take practice and patience to get the whole model looking the same.

TazMan2000

[Dukat, S.G.]

Many thanks, y'all. In truth, I was a little afraid you'd say something about artist's oils I used to absolutely adore them but, after years of other washing methods, I've all but forgotten how to use them. Time to do some research and practice -- get back into the swing of it again!

[WarpeD]

Careful, now. Syfy (tm) is the legal trademark of the wrestling, horror and reality show channel formerly devoted to Science Fiction. From those folks, input would be something to avoid.

[Dukat, S.G.]

Careful, now. Syfy (tm) is the legal trademark of the wrestling, horror and reality show channel formerly devoted to Science Fiction. From those folks, input would be something to avoid.

LOL

True, that!

The only reason I wrote sci-fi that way's because sci-fi wouldn't fit in my subject line.

And for what it's worth, I'm playing with artist oils to get that mottled finish. I've only practiced on scrap pieces so far, and my results have been mixed. As I noted in the Future thread, the oil actually ate some of it and attacked the enamel basecoat (note: the Future had only cured ~18 hours). That shouldn't happen when I let everything legitimately CURE.

Before the stuff started eating Future and the basecoat, however, my results were encouraging with Winsor and Newton's Artisan line (their "water-mixable" oils). Odorless turpenoid and regular old artist oils is a somewhat different story ... the paint didn't want to spread out evenly and stay that way.

This was over [cured] Future, however. For the stained look I'm after, y'all are right: I definitely need a matte coat. I'm not, after all, just going for the standard "let the wash flow into the nooks and crannies" approach here.

I'll post pics when I start to get things right.

[Dukat, S.G.]

Minor update:

I'm still toying with practice pieces. The most recent round were airbrushed with Alclad's Polished Aluminum. I'll let them dry and then apply various kinds of protective coats; e.g., Dullcote, handbrushed J&W's Right Step matte and maybe handbrushed Future with a little Tamiya Flat Base added. (My last attempt with that stuff was abysmal.)

My last round of scrap parts didn't go so hot. I thought I'd apply Future with a mix of black and white India Ink, the result of which was a kind of lighter Payne's Grey, as a wash for the panel lines (I'm using an old Adversary Set KBoP's wings, since they're vaguely similar in size to Dennis' model). It looked great in the recesses, but I went overboard and tried to use the same method to color filter some of the raised areas, too. The result was too dark, so I tossed the part in a cup of Windex.

Well, the Future/ink mix came off ... but so did most of the Alclad! That surprised me a little bit.

More to come! And hey, if anyone else cares to chime in, I'm all ears. This sucker is plain tough to get right.