I tried to find a lighter gray than what I had on hand. I took the plastic cap from a can of Rusto 2X Gloss Winter Gray to Hobby Lobby, and looked through all the Tester's Master Modeler colors. There was no lighter gray paint.
A trip to Lowe's, then Home Depot - no luck.
I was concerned the home print decals would come up too dark against the gray color.
I had some spare red decals left over from the Saros build. The transfer on the gray paint looked good, ending up a sort of red/maroon.
Earlier on, the instructions tell you to scribe pencil lines onto the tube for easier decal placement. These slight indent lines are still visible after the model is painted.
I didn't want the lines on the model. I figured I could measure the 2" spans and line up the decals by eye.
There are a LOT of rivet dot decal lines on the model.
This might be one of the first steampunk model rocket designs.
Steampunk? Did someone say Steampunk?
ReplyDeleteBuild looks great so far!
Another Estes offering that could lend itself to 'Steam-Punking' could be the old K-31 Starblazer.
ReplyDeleteHi Ed,
DeleteI have an old Starblazer upstairs in a box. i bought the kit on Ebay, somebody had pushed and removed the balsa nose cone through a hole in the bottom of the bag. I never noticed it then. This was the redesigned version of the Starblazer.
I just painted a rocket that same Winter Gray and decided it was too dark, and I am now going to repaint it in "Perfect Gray" (which I haven't actually found in a store yet). That unfortunately is a matte color, so I'm going to need to go through the routine of glossing it before decals and then matting at the end. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteHi Neil,
DeleteI gave up trying to find the perfect lighter gray. This gray made the red/orange decals into a maroon color. I just figure it makes the rocket look more evil.
The winter gray is close enough to the old catalog picture color.
Just to make sure I'm clear: "Perfect Gray" is an actual Rusto 2x color, perfect for my application (which is different from yours). There's also Rusto Universal Iced Gray, which is a bit lighter still (also matte, unfortunately). I've never tried the Universal paints, still not clear how they differ from the 2x.
DeleteHi Neil,
DeleteI could only go with what I found available. After stopping at three different stores I gave up hope of finding anything lighter.
Being that the rocketships appear to be modeled on the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers stuff, I'd say they'd fall into dieselpunk more than steampunk. Steampunk tends to be something that would fit in with Jules Verne - these rocketships are too modern to fit (despite having the heavily riveted boilerplate appearance).
ReplyDeleteHi Naoto,
DeleteI guess it could be called dieselpunk. I've never heard that term before!
I'm guessing that the Space Cruiser Excalibur was loosely based on the El Dorado rocketship from Buck Rogers
ReplyDeletehttps://dragonpyper.deviantart.com/art/SS-El-Dorado-175509961
Lighter gloss gray is very hard to find; ask anybody who has built an AMT USS Enterprise. In the past I have found some Tamiya light gloss grays. I found a lovely LGG acrylic in a spray can at Sam Flax on Colonial a few years ago. Don't know if they still carry it.
ReplyDeleteHi Lonnie,
DeleteLike I mentioned in an earlier comment/comment, I gave up after going to three different stores to find a lighter gray. For a clone it looks okay. There is usually a compromise on these.