Rio Grande Entry

Ahhhhhhhhh, Ben Sisco's personal plaything.

Light the engines, you know you want to!
 
Just a quick update of my progress. I've been waiting on my crew/cockpit assembly that I bought for an aftermarket addition to this build and it's taking them forever to get to me. So, I began my first attempt at pre-shading and base coating with the airbrush the other night. I'm not too disappointed with how the paint has come along this far being that it was my first shot at using my airbrush. I've decided that I DO NEED a new airbrush though, the learner I have is not cutting it. After toying with some test subject plastics, I just dove in and bit the bullet on (after watching many of everyone's videos on painting) learning the AB ways. It wasn't too bad.

During my pre-assembly/prep stages, I kept thinking about what Smusno said about lighting the engines. So, I ran up to the LHS and bought some styrene to fashion a floor panel and duct work to hide some lighting/wiring kits for the nacells. That'll be my first attempt at wiring/lighting as well, and I'm following many tutorials on the forums about what/how to do this. Great experience though. I cut up a floor panel and set it in temporarily in the main lower hull assembly and have not yet fixed it in place due to waiting on what kinds of lighting I'm going to use and how to route the wires etc. I don't plan on doing anything too crazy on the lights, just trying to find a way to get the lighting nice and ambient with a few led's or maybe tape.

One more thing on the paint. I picked camo grey (which was suggested on the paint list on the kit) and it doesnt look as grey as I wanted, more like a sand color is what it appears as. I kept with the overall color as another base coat, but I'll be doing another overall coloring when my new vallejo arrives in the mail. This gives me time for fine detailing on other parts and to get my wiring mounted and clear plastics painted etc. I'll post some more pics once I get some time to get that all done. I'll do another progress video as well. I've learned a TON of stuff though. You guys are a great resource and I really appreciate your knowledge when I cruise through all the threads here.

Until next time,

Tobes
 
Got home tonight and found a package on the porch. The cockpit/crew setup is here. It needs some fine tuning and paint etc. I've not worked with a resin piece yet but it seems that it'll most likely work out. We'll see though. Here's a couple pics of what came out of the box. It had quite a bit of leftovers from the mold. I filed it down a bit just to see how it came out. 4 crew and the cockpit. I guess it's better than an empty helm.

D155B5D2-orig.jpg

Setting in the lower hull assembly (sorry it's fuzzy and has brown stripes from the lights overhead):

CA57BF03-orig.jpg

Sorry for the fuzzy photo. Crew at the helm dry run:

3E8C44DD-orig.jpg


Still working on getting the paint base coats going, haven't had much time to do a lot this week.

"Camo Grey" isn't what I was thinking it'd turn out to be, but I think I can make it work with a good darker coat over it using this as highlights.

A8B3D727-orig.jpg

Overhead lighting added a weird tan stripe to this for some reason, but you get the idea I think. My pre-shading isn't really showing too well in this picture. I think it is time to buy a new camera lol.

3B90787F-orig.jpg

So, that's what I've got for now. I've got a lighting setup on order that I'll get together as soon as I can. I managed to drill some holes in the warp nacelle pylons and upper hull assembly to run the wires. I'll get some more shots of the wiring/lighting when it arrives and I get it installed. I watched Grendels' tutorial and that helped a ton. I ended up just choosing to use a 6 inch run of led's for inside the nacelles. Hopefully that'll be decent for my first lighting attempt. Looking forward to more though. This has been pretty fun this far along. More to come soon hopefully.

Tobes
 
Wow...the back wall and the floor panel look just like recasts of the interior details of the Cut-away Millennium Falcon.
Will you be adding a couple of accent lights to the interior?
 
ScreamingSamuraiStudio said:
Wow...the back wall and the floor panel look just like recasts of the interior details of the Cut-away Millennium Falcon.
Will you be adding a couple of accent lights to the interior?

I think I will be if I can manage it. I'm very new to working with lighting, but I think it would really help. After looking at a dry assembly with the cockpit in, I think it'll need it. I'm hoping to do that this weekend if I don't have to work overtime lol. My lighting shipped today so I'm waiting for that to show up.
 
I can't tell you how excited I am to hear you're lighting this. Should be really cool. Liking that cockpit and crew! :D
 
I'm researching paint schemes on other models of the Rio Grande and I'm coming across such a huge breadth of ideas. I have read multiple topics on painting the bussard collectors on this. I'm curious for additional input here. I'm seeing many of these guys paint the bussard collectors a solid color on the inside of the collector as opposed to a transparent red. I'm using a tape lep setup in the nacelles and blocking off the collector with styrene wall and a single led. I'm thinking of going with a transparent red on the inside since what I've seen just doesn't seem like it'd show very well with light behind it.

What do you think about this:
riograndebussardpaintidea1.jpg
I don't think this example will work. I'm still not sure though since I can't find "lit" examples with solid colors instead of transparent.

I'm still a ways off from even getting all the stuff pieced together since I decided to repaint the base coat . Working on the crew and cockpit tonight with handpainting etc. Will post more pics soon.

Tobes
 
I think it would light well enough with a strong LED. You could use an empty plastic drinks bottle and paint that the same way to give yourself an idea of the brightness and effect. Might not be the same size and shape, but it'll give you a rough idea.
 
I agree with Igard, a strong LED would do it. One other thing you can do is file down the LED into a triangle shape, this will diffuse the light as well as frosted paint.
 
Thanks guys. I'll hopefully get the lights in the mail this week and try them out to see how well it will work out. I've been watching Grendel's lighting tutorials a lot lately to get a feel for what I need to do and now I'm second guessing going with the tape LED's. I guess a test will be the deciding factor on how it'll need to be lit.
 
Technically, the bussards aren't coloured at all until the engines fire up.

A good solid coat of dullcoat or varnish on the inside, and let the LED do the work?





Its worked for hundreds of 1701-A's, trust me, ive been looking!
 

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