Round Four Report from Zaphod Beeblebrox - Part 2

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Zaphod Beeblebrox continues:

At this point, I knew my plan, but really needed to figure out how to do it. I searched all over and after finding Starship Modeller, I looked up some Federation models to get colors and ideas happening. I found a fantastic Enterprise model, built and painted by Thorsten Scholz. I mailed and asked some questions, especially about the patterns, and texture of the ship plates. He used a complex masking system to achieve the effect, and I figured that was the way to go. I got some film paper from work and thought I would try a basic pattern at first. This was when I realised that the small scale of the vehicle would make it extremely difficult to actually try masking complex patterns. Not only this, but I had never tried it before!

In the end, I elected to try my hand at drawing the patterns on with a pencil. This worked out pretty good actually, and I was fairly happy with all of my patterning. I wanted it to be interesting and complex, but due to the size of the vehicle, I couldn't make them too small. I also discovered that it is hard to draw very neat lines on a model like this! I feared the later stage of lining things immensely at this point.

Next came the panel colors. This was kind of fun. I had to keep the colors fairly pastel, and also interesting. All of the paints I used here are Vallejo Game or Model Color. I did some blacklining, as well as painting some objects like the seat, gun barrel and engine parts black for later. The colors I used for the patterns were quite varied, and some mixes between the colors helped pull the scheme together, I think. They included Prussian Blue, Azure, Wolf Grey, Medium Sea Grey, Intermediate Blue and White. The slightly greenish grey is Light Sea Grey. The Prussian Blue came out fairly dark, but in the end I liked the effect, so I left it as-is.

The picture below shows some of the patterning on the top of the tail beam, as well as the patterns on the "arm rests" of the pilot's seat. Seems quite messy at this point - the pencil panel lines are really obscured, and the panels themselves are quite rough. Again, I think of having to clean up and line all of these with vast dread.