Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Hmmm, sounds like you need something that'll pour. Not sure, other than resin, what to use.

i use either Hobbico's Hobbylite Filler or Westco's Magic-Smooth depending. The Hobbylite is extremely light filler, great for lightweight work. The Magic-Smooth is a 2 part epoxy, gets really hard and lends some weight.

You could try Tamiya's Titanium Gold X-31, which is a pretty light gold. Compared to thier regular gold it's about 35% as goldish.

What color is teh stain? White-ish? Sometimes MicroSet sometimes affects the acrylic undercoat, but if you wait a bit for everything to set it'll go away (usually).

Well...there's a couple of ways you could do it, here's how I would go about it. First draw a rectangle 8.57 cm wide by 5 cm tall by selecting the rectangle tool and option clicking on the working area. This will bring up a dialog box asking for the dimensions. Now, using the Single Section tool (th...

Well....If you have a line drawn & you want to draw another on exactly 5mm from it you can off-set the line by goign into the Object>Path>Offset Path and type the number (5mm) in there. You may have to go -5mm depending on whether you want the line inside or outside your shape. Fix the angles &a...

The big trick I found to printing your own ink-jet decals is to let them dry for about 48 hours before coating them with a sealer. And then letting the sealer fully cure (another 2 days) before using.

Createx are made primarily for tee-shirt art and in my experience are a bit of trouble to work with on plastic. First, they are what you might call soft. Even after several days of curing I could still wipe the paint off the plastic. A primer coat helped but they still damaged easily. A liberal coat...

Welcome to the club. Unfortunately the club likes to hit people a lot, causes brain damage that leads to buys chunks of resin that look like little spaceships. Construction...hmmm, well that depends. The last two Hasegawa Macross models I've built (or am building) I was able to pull from the sprue, ...

Heh, for some of us a minute is about 55 seconds too much. And if you're using gap filling CA the wait is even longer.

Vallejo has just released (or at least at my LHS) a line of airbrush ready paints.

Could it be humidity? CA is hydrophilic and cures with moisture (or is it the other way around?). I take it you're not hitting it with ZipKicker or some other form of accelerant?

My main glue is Tennex. I know of a guy who mixes Tennex & Ambroid half & half. He loves it. Me, I just use Tennex. The Testros is a bit thicker and slower, Ambroid a bit faster & thinner (IIRC). Love CA for some applications but not for all. THere is a specially formulated CA for styren...

I perfer the pastel technique, it's faster & easier with one exception. You've got to plan ahead. If you lay the post-it note down where you've already smeared pastel it'll peel at least some of it up.

But, if you really need ot you can hit it with some artists fixative.

Testors.

Largely due to ease of availability.

I've used Fleck-Stone but never on foam. It's purty cool stuff but for modeling needs some serious weathering to finish up the look.

I've had decent results attaching plastic to balsa with gap filling superglue. Don't know how well it'd work with bass wood.

Cody's Coop has an excellent article on simulating battle damage. I've found a lot of it applies to spacecraft also.

Amen Brotha!

Tamiya's pearl is available in spray can only. It's TS45.

Oh, and it's white only.

You can also try Paint+HobbyLite filler filler if you need some thick stuff.

Ah camo mechs...a subject near & dear to my heart. First, an airbrush will give you better results than brush painting. Now I know there are some master brush painters out there but (in my book) mastering hte smooth brush finish is far more difficult than mastering an airbrush. Then finer the ti...

Windshield wiper fluid? Never tried that...and now I must, as my laziness is overran by my cheapness.

I use Tamiya's thinner for thinning their paints for use in an airbrush. I've tried isopropyl alcohol, and the other form of alcohol, along with distilled water. Never got decent results. Sometimes the paint would curdle, or seperate, or gum up in the airbrush. But....other folk here have had good r...

Paints. Most paints will need to be thinned with the approriate thinner. Some paints are labels as thinned for airbrushing. Air Pressure. Somewhat of a personal prefrence, but 15psi is a good starting point. Cleaning. Alwasy clean the brush after use. This means, at the very least, spraying cleaner ...

I've got a friend who's an airbrush artist, does cars or whatever he can find. When he was first getting seriously into it he when tto the doctor with a sore throat. The doctor looked down his throat and saw black & blue guck running down the back of his throat. Though Doug had some bizarre dise...

Absolutley! Even with acrylics (actually I think acylics are worse).

And a mask of some form, at least to keep the paint form collecting in your nasal cavities and draining down the back of you throat.

Well, I don't know how anybody else pre-shades, but I use acrylics and have no issues with it. First, paint all nooks & panel lines black or very dak version of the main color. Then, starting from the center of open areas start filling in the open areas til you have a strongly two tone model. Th...

Jonas, I've seen your dogs, how can you truely be sure (or did you shave them?).

The pre-shading should be somewhat subtile. Depending on the look you're going for. Then gloss coat it and use a wash to bring out all those niddly bits of detail and deepen the black of the panel lines.