Just thought I'd throw a quick update into the mix with the 'not' Blake's 7 minis from Shapeways. Following some good pointers from CJR over at the TwoThreeSixMM Blog, I went the whole hog and unusually for me, did a spray undercoat. In the past, not being the owner of an airbrush, I've often found the results from this can be a bit hit and miss, finding it difficult to achieve consistent, smooth results, but given the nature of the material here, it was definitely the best way to go.
If anything, I was quite tentative in applying, and went for a lot of rather light sprays rather than one all-over job. The paint I used was described as 'flat black', although in the past, particularly on metals, it has dried with rather a glossy finish, but it was interesting here that the porous-looking white material meant that the final effect was definitely more on the matt side.
I am pleased with the finish so far, as particularly from normal viewing distances, the visible knobbliness of the material is much less pronounced. Of course the real test will be to see how the paints themselves go on over the top - I tend towards an easy dry-brushing of layers of colour on starships, so I don't yet know how these will respond to that. Two of the Pursuit ships will be a rusty scarlet colour, but the other, and of course the Liberator are mainly white - so fingers crossed there!
For size reference, the three Federation ships against the slightly converted Brigade Pacfed Barramundi, and a trio of GZG Kfirs as Colonial vipers:
I normally mount space craft using rare earth magnets, but found that the conformal sculpting and overall delicacy of these Shapeways ships meant that a magnet was looking far too clunky, so opted to place them directly onto the integral flight stand pegs.
I must say that the fit from the pre-cast holes was excellent - but I am trepidatious about how strong a mounting this will serve to be - I am sure I am not alone in experiencing peg break-off due to routine handling of minis mounted in this way.
Finally, again as a comparison of size, that all important Liberator up against the Bergstrom Galactica - Blake's ship runs out at 55mm, with the Pursuit ship to scale at 29mm long:
I am keen to push ahead with these when time permits, so look out for more updates soon - if I can screw up enough courage to paint all those white surfaces!
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