Windows then paint?

[Psylow]

After you drill your windows and you fill it with your clear filling of choice how do you handle the painting of the model after that? Or do you fill in the windows after you paint?

 

[Ziz]

I'm guessing you're talking about some kind of Starfleet ship, right? It depends on the scale. Which ship is it? How far along are you?

 

[Psylow]

I have not started yet. IT will be a star trek ship yes. I plan on starting a 1/3200 scale ship.

 

[Ziz]

If you're looking to fill them at that scale then will you be lighting the kit? If so, that solves two problems at once. The easiest way to light tiny windows like that is fiber optics.

Drill your holes, run fiber through them. Leave about 1/4" sticking out of the outer surface of the ship (it'll look like it has razor stubble.) Secure the fiber from the inside. Assemble and paint. When you're done, just use a clippers to cut the tips of the fiber off flush with the kit surface.

 

[Psylow]

There will be several windows. I will be drilling them out and lighting it with LED's from the inside. My main concern is do I paint the model first then drill out the windows and fill it? Or do I do the windows first and paint over the windows then go back and clean it?

 

[Grendels]

Most drill the windows, then paint, then fill the windows, and then assemble the model. Then you clean up the seam line, then touch up the paint.

I tried to do the opposite on a recent model, where I masked off the windows. It was a real pain, but it came out good.

The problem with masking the windows is that you have to mask quite a few windows. The model I was building only had 20 windows, not a problem. But a Star Trek ship would have hundreds.....

Another method I have tired is to not drill out the windows, then light block on the outside of the ship and then scrape off the paint on the windows. Again I used a masking fluid on the windows before paint. It worked well, but I would definitely practice this on scrap material. If you don't cut the paint around the outside of the windows before scraping the paint, you will not get a good result.