"Looking for ideas for a gas giant planet miniature" Topic

Anyone have any ideas as to how to do up a gas giant planet? I have 2 foam sphere halves, and an old LP record that I was going to use as the ring system. For the life of me I can't figure how I'm going to do the cloud banding. I can probably rig up something to make the planet spin on, but I don't have an airbrush. I suspect that trying to do banding with a spray can isn't going to go well.

I'm thinking maybe fat brush with acrylic paint, but I have a hunch that this method would result in bands with abrupt edges, not smoothly transitioning ones.

As for the rings, I had figured on priming it black and leaving sections unpainted so to represent the gaps between rings, but that might be making it too difficult for myself.

if you use a spray can
dont place the mask directly on the item
hold it several inches away
this help achieve a feathered edge

I've seen some beach balls that had coloring of gas giants. Just go to a decet toy store and serach.

See if you can rig a jig so you can drill through the "poles" of the planet and shove some dowels through. You will probably need them anyway…
Spin the planet on this axis while you spray paint it.

or sculpt one from spun sugar. when the games over you can snack on it.

Start off with the advice of previous TNE2300

Make a small jig with paper or cardboard--like a large letter "H"

Spin your planet a few inches behind the jig, and use spray can paint

Please note---some spray can paint can cause your foam to look like it is melting--check first for chemical reaction--or prime with a brush on paint to protect the foam

Unless your miniatures represent planet-sized ships, push your table next to a wall. The wall is the gas giant.

Not all gas giants have the striking banding of Jupiter. The clouds on Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are quite subtle. A nice, deep brown or blue with a few sweeping brush strokes for clouds will look quite effective.

G.

paint it a solid orange/rust color
and say it's a brown dwarf

Yep, those swirl-colored plastic beach balls are perfect, and suitably large.

Just leave as is.

If you think they're too large for your table, insert an air pump needle and bleed off some of the gas to "shrink" it a little.

It'll still look very impressive on the tabletop, next to your spaceship minis and fighters.

I used a 12" Styrofoam hemisphere and a bunch of different colors of spray paint:

Details at Super Galactic Dreadnought: link