Starcrafts 1:1400 TOS Enterprise (FINISHED)

[ProfArturo]

Finally found time to make some progress with this.

I'm still waiting on my window decals to arrive, and I want to be sure I want to use them before I fill any holes, so that's limiting my options at present.

So far have painted the base and deflector in gold.

Being used to much bigger 1400 scale models I've found it very fiddly so far, but all a learning curve!

[ProfArturo]

Still slowly progressing, but I must admit I've got rather fed up of the whole thing now.

Filled in all the windows and put a couple coats of grey on the hull, but it's definitely something meant for an airbrush or rattle cans as it's just become so tedius with a brush.

Every attempt to sand down some of the strokes results in sanding straight through some of the thinner areas or edges etc, which results in more painting, then more sanding, then more painting and so on. I never thought I'd get it looking right. I think part of the problem is with each build I do I'm holding myself to higher standards.

Have got as far now as starting to paint the details on the nacelles, a welcome change from boring grey:

Decided to go with Discovery inspired colours, which bring the engines more in line with the other Enterprises.

[trekriffic]

That's a nice color for the hull. Would you call that a bluish grey?

[ProfArturo]

Yeah it's officially just a grey, but it does have a bluish sheen to it which I feel helps add the impression of depth and scale.

Have finished the nacelles now, they just need decals:

[Tesral]

I like the direction you are going. She always looked a touch blue to me on screen. We now know thanks to the Smithsonian that the real color was a slightly green gray. Buuut, blue is till my way to go. That looks right to me.

[novahobbies]

Lookin' REALLY nice!

[trekriffic]

I like the direction you are going. She always looked a touch blue to me on screen. We now know thanks to the Smithsonian that the real color was a slightly green gray. Buuut, blue is till my way to go. That looks right to me.

Yes, the never ending debate. Do you paint it to look like what we saw on screen (which can vary from one scene to another) or do you try to match the color of the studio model. I painted my 1/1000 ISS Enterprise using a mix called Shady Cove which I purchased a quart of at my local ACE hardware. It's basically thick enamel for use on tractors and has that slight olive tint which is close to the original studio model color:

iss-enterprise-starboard-profile-below_13784954684_o.jpg (51.56 KiB) Viewed 1170 times

One of these days I'm going to do a blueish Enterprise.

[Tesral]

Yes, the never ending debate. Do you paint it to look like what we saw on screen (which can vary from one scene to another) or do you try to match the color of the studio model. I painted my 1/1000 ISS Enterprise using a mix called Shady Cove which I purchased a quart of at my local ACE hardware. It's basically thick enamel for use on tractors and has that slight olive tint which is close to the original studio model color:

iss-enterprise-starboard-profile-below_13784954684_o.jpg

One of these days I'm going to do a blueish Enterprise.

How did you thin that to model useability?

Heck considering the size of the 11 foot model it might be what was used.

[trekriffic]

How did you thin that to model useability?

I thinned it with airbrush thinner.

Heck considering the size of the 11 foot model it might be what was used.

I got the idea for using "Shady Cove" from this article by Paul Newitt over on CultTVMan's site:
https://culttvman.com/main/what-color-i ... -m-newitt/

I found this quote from Richard Datin who built the original 11 foot miniature of particular interest:
"Jeffries also furnished paint chips, for which I had lacquer-based paint custom-matched by a Fuller’s Paint dealer on Olympic Blvd. in Los Angeles”…..”it was not a Ford or GM paint or primer as some “learned” souls have decried. It was a flat finish–a light grey color with a light tint of green.”

And this bit about the reasons we saw a blue Enterprise in some shots:
"Film stock, especially Ektachrome-based 35mm film stock used in the mid to late 60’s had a blue bias (like 35mm camera film–it usually has a bias towards the color of the box it comes in, i.e. Agfa/orange, Fuji/green, Kodachrome/yellow, etc.); so if the Enterprise looked blue from the bluescreen (enough to influence Andrew Probert to give homage to the classic Enterprise by making the “1701-D” duck egg blue), AND by the film bias–then It’s blue for those reasons, and I can see how this “Concrete” color would absorb the blue biases easily…(I held a bright blue shirt under my drafting lamp, and reflected the light coming from the shirt onto the sample–and the sample became blue-grey. Voila! No green-grey, no neutral grey–Blue-grey.)"

Anyway, we could go on indefinitely about the myriad shades of grey that each off us prefers for our Grey Lady builds but I don't want to get any more off topic so that's all I'll say on the matter in this thread (even though it is a topic near and dear to so many of us).

[Cubey Terra]

Happy to see somebody else using Humbrol enamels. They need a bit of thinning, but I like the durability once they dry.

Nice work so far!