Whats the best way to do Blast marks and carbon scoring?

[Jon Kunatz]

Working on a Mark 7 Viper, and my technique seems a little off.

How do you guys do it?

[Ziz]

I did it once on an old Millennium Falcon by dipping a q-tip in dark grey and then "striking" it across the surface of the kit the way you strike a match to light it.

[TER-OR]

I like using three layers. First a grimy streak back whichever way the blast went. Grease etc. will flow and stick.
Second, a translucent oily color closer around the impact, directed the same way but a bit more local.
third, after the dullcoat, a more opaque oil or pastel char in the hole and immediately surrounding.

One color/layer alone won't do the trick.
Avoid black.

[nkuzmik]

There are two questions that you need to ask:
What weapon is involved?
What environment does the hit take place?

If you want to get picky, you can also consider what the target material is. Ceramic v. metal armor, etc.

Lets say we are hitting a metal plate with a laser, in atmosphere. The molten metal will interact with the air and give you spattering effects, which may or may not deposit globs of liquid metal elsewhere on the armor. but also making the point of impact very rough. Between the spattering and conductive and convective heat transfer of the atmosphere, the point of impact will cool down to below melting fairly quickly. Furthermore, the presence of an Earth-like atmosphere will allow the metal discolor as it forms and oxide layer. Think about an old copper pot versus a new one.

Now take the same metal and the same laser and lets try this again in space. There is no air, so the molten metal won't spatter. Ergo the surface of the wound will be fairly smooth. The lack of air means that the metal won't change colors. More precisely, the lack of oxygen. Compare welds from a stick welder to those from a TIG or MIG welder, which uses a stream of inert gas to keep oxygen away from the weld. So the point of impact would be the color of untreated painted metal. The lack of air also means that any molten metal will stay molten noticeably longer. The surface tension will tend to form it into nice rounded shapes. So the laser will melt a quantity of metal which will try to expand against the surrounding solid metal. It will for lack of a better word, "flow" up, creating a little volcano shape. As the laser heats more material, it too flows up and out of the "volcano," only to be deposited on the slopes.

[Jon Kunatz]

Well as I said, Im finishing a Viper Mk.7. Basically Im following the box top image...so I see a lot of dark grey streaking and blast marks.

I do like your info nkuzmik, so would a soldering pen do the trick, or do I need a different tool, like a dremel or something? Also you mostly see the Mark 7 fighting in space, but im not sure what the weapons are in the BSG universe. They cant be machine guns, so im guessing they are particle cannons or mass drivers of some sort. So the heating effect would be there but Im thinking impact damage would be greater.

Am I off base on this or what?

[nkuzmik]

I'm sorry, I missed the nature of the kit, and focused on the result. Yes, a soldering iron or pen would work very well. I used a little butane fueled soldering torch from Home Depot when I did my Master Grade Exia Repair kit.

For Cylon weapons in the new BSG, that is pretty much all kinetics, be they gunpowder or mass driver.

A high velocity round should go through the thin skin of a fighter with very little resistance. The result would be just a hole with the corners bent in a little bit.

I was at an aviation museum where they had a QF-86 Saber jet fighter on display. I asked the curator about what I was vandalism. He said, "No, those are bullet holes from when this drone was shot at by an F-14." I would have sworn that it was a pickax or something.

Just take a sewing needle or clothes pin, get it hot in a torch, then quickly stab it into the kit.

Depending how narly you want to get, you can try to model what happens when an explosive round goes off inside the fuselage. That will cause cause a bigger hole, with the edges bent outward a little bit. Then fill the hole with greebles. The finish should still be a pretty clean metallic because there is no air to allow for oxidation.

[TER-OR]

Wine bottle foil is great for those exit wounds and ripped/torn metal.

No lazers in the NuBSG universe, so it's all projectiles - though some may be explosive and might leave some soot. Decide where the hydraulics, lubricants etc. run and you can stream some bleeding back from various spots.