4 - Tri-Deck Final Stages

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First, I went back with the Kelly Green paint and touched up all the glue spots and some bare metal where I'd clipped the tiny bits.

Next, I wanted to try something that I'd used successfully with ship models. On a model like this, which doesn't have prominent texture, it's difficult to drybrush just the details and not get the surrounding hull at the same time. But what I'd found worked with some modern naval models was to drybrush light gray over dark gray anyway, which shaded both the hull and the raised details light gray - except right next to the raised areas, where there were "shadows" of the original darker gray. I thought I'd try something similar with this starship. Reaching into my paint bin, I brought out Aleene's Light Lime (a whitish green color) and drybrushed the sides and bottom of the ship. I left the flight decks in their original color for contrast.

The result was more than I wanted - too stark, the light green was too much contrast. So my next step was to try a very watered-down blank ink wash, hoping both to tone down the highlights by staining, and to get enough ink into the crevices to bring out some of that detail. This was a partial success, but the highlights were still too bright.

So I started mixing my own highlight color, blending white and the Kelly Green together, and "hand painting" that over the main highlights. I tried one shade, found it still too light, blended again, still too light, blended again...

Then I remembered! This was Apple Barrel Kelly Green, and most Apple Barrel paints are fairly transparent. So I simply repainted the ship Kelly Green from the bottle, which had the effect of tinting the entire ship a bit darker. Just what I wanted.

I felt like the ship still lacked something. There was some scribing on the topmost flight deck, which made me want to paint something there. Also, the diagram showed some details on the ends of the flight decks which made me feel to add something there. Reaching into my paint bin, I found Apple Barrel Woodland Green, and used it to paint in the zone on the top deck, and the ends of each flight deck. (Honestly, I own and use other paints than Apple Barrel - it's just chance that I've used them so much lately!)

The final step was to protect the ship with a thorough coat of Testors Dullcote, then to slip it into its flight stand.