Secondly (maybe more importantly, actually) is that you will not need to mask off all of those windows! Foremost, painting it while in pieces makes it much easier to handle the model and get the airbrush at the correct angels without worrying about overspray on other finished parts of the model or breaking anything. This is a technique that I learned from watching Boyd Crompton of Trek Works. You may be wondering why the heck I pained it before glueing it together. But for me this is an artistic endeavor and I wanted to try the technique. I realize that he studio model was not painted this way and it never looked like this on screen. When I thought it was too much contrast I went back and lightly oversprayed some of the gray primer base color to tone it down. I then went and applied the same technique behind every grid line using White paint. This produces a feathered and shaded look forward of each grid line. Using a piece of paper as a mask I set the paper on each grid line and lightly sprayed the edge of the paper, letting it bleed over to the model. I used the primer as the base color for the whole model.įor the shading, I used Tamiya XF-54 Dark Sea Gray mixed with a little black.
However, they toned the colors down in post production and the ship appears as a cool gray with a hint of blue on screen. The studio model is actually painted deckhouse blue. Once I got this all primed I realized that the primer color was very close to the color that Rick Sternbach (the designer of the ship) recommends for a screen accurate version of the ship (as opposed the a studio model color accurate version). I used the regular gray instead of the light gray for this. I get mine at my local hobby store for $10 a can. It is just the best primer I have ever used, plain and simple. I like to use Tamiya Fine Surface Primer. It's more expensive, but I think it is well worth the price. The Black stops the light from leaking through the plastic and the white bounces the light around inside the model for even light diffusion. I used Black Primer and when that was dry a coat of White. The first thing to do paint-wise is light block the inside of the model.