What's the trick to making solid black look like a cockpit?

Slave1 · Post by **Slave1** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:02 am

On kits where there is no clear part for the cockpit, how do you give it the right cockpit look? Whenever I try to do this, it just looks like black paint... not a cockpit.

Slide · Post by **Slide** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:53 am

have you tried SHINY black paint?

flat black looks bad, but a gloss will ususally do you fine.

what scale are we talking? how big is the canopy area?

Slave1 · Post by **Slave1** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:51 pm

It's 1/72 and the cockpit is triangular. It's around 1" tall by 1/2" wide at the base.

Slave1 · Post by **Slave1** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:42 pm

This is the kind of look that I'm talking about.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v728/ ... wFront.jpg
I was almost totally fooled by this at first.

Post by **TER-OR** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 7:32 pm

Yeah, very glossy. Black and then clearcoat.

haywire · Post by **haywire** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:59 pm

Black and then FUTURE

Slide · Post by **Slide** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:41 am

The way i did my armorcast Vulture was a basecoat of gloss black, and then i LIGHTLY dusted the edges with a dark grey to give it some depth, then put about 6 coats of future on it.

Post by **TER-OR** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:07 pm

Great suggestion, the forced toning will be nice.

Stu Pidasso · Post by **Stu Pidasso** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 1:39 am

Slave1 wrote:This is the kind of look that I'm talking about.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v728/ ... wFront.jpg
I was almost totally fooled by this at first.

That pic actually looks like they used a vynil mask. Look how the back edge of the front window is slightly "peeled" up? Or is that an optical illusion?

Post by **TER-OR** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:42 pm

Could be an illusion, but I can see how they could have done vinyl there.

kitty · Post by **kitty** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:22 am

I probably would have covered the black with a extremely reduced (thinned) pearlized gold, so thin that the gold is transparent.
It will look black if you look straight at it , but at an angle it will apear to have a gold glow

PetarB · Post by **PetarB** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 7:40 pm

The key to getting the illusion in my experience is different textures. You need different texture on your fuselage area - say, matt, and a different texture on the 'glass canopy' which should be highly, highly glossy. A couple of coats of Future may do the trick, or your might want to build it up a bit with a couple of layers of Tamiya clear, then Future. You're going to have a hard time if your surrounding area is gloss, but perhaps that wont be an issue for you.

CaptBillD · Post by **CaptBillD** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Wouldn't the prototype's operating environment be a factor? Aircraft models with opaque canopies are often painted from metallic sky blue to dark gloss grey to metallic navy blue, depending on scale and windscreen contour.

If your subject operates in an earth type atmosphere, consider the color of sky reflection and cockpit shadow tones or glare reduction screen in tinting your canopy paint.

davidlgreen · Post by **davidlgreen** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:44 am

i usually use tamiya's or gunze clear smoke.

CaptBillD · Post by **CaptBillD** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:52 pm

davidlgreen wrote:i usually use tamiya's or gunze clear smoke.

Over what kind of base? Silver? Dark primer? Soviet Air Force Turqoise?

haywire · Post by **haywire** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 9:37 pm

Ah Ha! They put it back up!

Lumpy's Guide to Painting Windscreens!!

CaptBillD · Post by **CaptBillD** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:09 pm

Interesting method from Lumpy, but it makes the vehicles look less realistic to me and more like anime mecha in 3-D.

davidlgreen · Post by **davidlgreen** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:33 pm

usually a few to several coats over neutral gray although i have gotten eaqually good results just spraying the canopies without any base coat.
sorry i didnt post sooner but i couldnt remember where this was and had deleted the e-mail

davidlgreen · Post by **davidlgreen** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:37 pm

man i'd love to have the model of that mech , love those games!

Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

What's the trick to making solid black look like a cockpit?

What's the trick to making solid black look like a cockpit?

gunze smoke

i want that mech!!!