And she’s done! I had a good time building this up, even though I had to put it on hold for months due to work commitments. The final photoshop wallpaper was especially fun. I used one of the dark photos to create it. The batteries are in and the lights are on in all of these images. I didn’t want the windows to be overkill-glowing light spotlights, so I only used two bulbs inside of the ship (which is hollow by design!) and painted the insides with a reflective metal spraypaint.

Buy the 1/48 Orb Ship Kit here.

Nothing on the Orb Ship today since it’s still drying. I want to make sure that the panel discoloration is completely cured before moving on to streaks. This gave me a good chance to start and finish the Martian base though. Lots of steps here I think so bear with me. Let’s start at the beginning though and show the plaster/celluclay base I started with.

Next I sprayed the entire piece with flat black cheap-o spray paint. I noticed that parts where I used superglue (the darker spots on the above starter image) were remaining glossy while the “unsealed” plaster and celluclay was sucking up paint like a fiend, so I let it dry completely, masked the sidewalls with blue tape then brushed on a layer of Future Floor Acrylic to seal it.

Next I drybrushed on some craft acrylics (Apple Barrel, Americana, etc…). I started with a warm dirt color as shown.

I did several more layers of drybrushing moving to a more yellow-orange dirt color. Then I made a wash of that color and applied it to the entire base, using a sponge to even out the brush-strokes. This got the sandy coloring into the crevases and mottled the paint so it wasn’t so even. Then I used gray and black paint to pick out the slate and piles of rocks. When dry I did one more layer of the yellow-orange dirt color.

Next was meant to be the final step, but it didn’t look right… I mixed some Martian colored pigments (Mostly MIG African Earth as their  “Martian Dust” pigment is too… red) with alcohol and put the mixture in my sonic cleaner to thoroughly mix it and keep it from settling while I airbrushed small amounts of it over the surface. The end result obscured the rocks too much I think and was too orange as compared to the reference.

I went back and picked out the rocks more, mixed some European Dust and Beach Sand pigments into the mix and resprayed again, this time not as heavily. The result was much better, but the rocks looked too uniform still.

Lastly I went back and applied some light washes to some of the rocks to highlight them. I then sponged over them with some of the pigment wash thinned further with water. The end result is more like what I wanted… got a nice rich red-brown base with lots of variations in the tones so it’s not all one color and bland.

The photos are making it look more orange than it really is, but I’m happy with the result.

Moving right along… next up was filters, discoloration, and then panel shading. I went over all of these techniques in my Millennium Falcon youtube videos, so no point in re-describing it when you can check them out. Here’s the results:

I also started work on the base. Tom Grossman of Tag Team Hobbies (one of my Industria Mechanika dealers) shared this cool image of the Mars Rover on Mars and since I’m a sucker for most things Martian in nature, I saved the image and decided to use it as reference for this base.

I started off with a 12 inch by 5 inch piece of MDF, then added thin basswood around the edge to make it look nicer. On the top I poured plaster and smoothed it over the surface. While wet I put thin sheets of plaster I had saved in my “terrain bin” onto it and sprinkled railroad talus. onto the surface for the loose rock.

When the base plaster layer was starting to set-up I shattered the plaster sheets with the back of a screwdriver handle and wet-sponged the smooth portions to give it some texture. When cured I took a stiff toothbrush and “eroded” the plaster sheets. Finally, I applied some Celluclay mixed with more talus and plaster sheet to the base for some higher terrain portions. Next for the base is primer.

Almost 4 months later, but I’m back on this! In case you don’t recall, this is the Industria Mechanika release of Scott Robertson’s Orb Ship. The kit’s 2nd edition is coming up so click here to get on the notification list.

After the bare metal base coat which was covered in a layer of gloss Future Floor Acrylic, I sprayed the entire kit with hairspray. When the hairspray dried I painted the entire kit white, let it dry a few minutes, then masked off what I wanted to keep white. What was left I sprayed orange, then removed the masking.

Next I used a wet brush and plastic/wood tools to chip away at the orange and white paint revealing the natural metal underneath. Then done I did more masking for the caution stripes, numbers, and the symbol on the side of the ship. Before painting however, I applies a little liquid mask with a sponge. That way I could easily rub away the mask making the new marking chipped with the base orange color showing through.

That’s it for this update. Next I’ll start applying filters and other discoloration steps. I took this last image with a 12 inch/30cm ruler to again give you an idea of the size of this ship. HUGE!

Back to the Industria Mechanika Chompbot #5 for a bit now that I’ve made some time. Industria Mechanika keeps me crazy-busy! I recieved the initial canopy sample a few weeks ago and they’re really nice. The original plan was vacuform, but that just wasn’t working out. So we went with resin. Luckily the resin is super clear. A dip in some Future and it’s like glass!

I tinted this one by filling it with some clear Tamiya Yellow then dumping the excess. Unfortunately there was some dried paint bits in the old jar of paint when I opened and stirred it so a few of them are marring the inside of the canopy with specks. DOH! If you try this, use a NEW bottle of paint because otherwise it works great!

Since the Chompbot fights mutant vegetables as one of it’s duties, I decided to make some for a diorama with the bot and chomp troopers. These were made from Sculpey and painted with Tamiya Acrylics and oil paint. Roots were done with Jute twine. I still need to make tomato goop w/ seeds as well as the leafy limbs.

The gourd goop was made from cotton soaked in Tamiya acrylics and white glue. Seeds were made from Sculpey as well.

Next up I’ll finish the Chompbot weathering and start on the basework.

Hi all! I’m back again with another of my Industria Mechanika releases. For this project we teamed up with the famous Scott Robertson to create a model kit of his “Orb Ship” from the sci-fi art book BLAST. Let me start off by saying, that this kit is HUGE! It’s about 4.5″ wide x 14″ long. There is 4 large resin parts with a bunch of smaller parts, photoetch, and laser-cut windows to complete the kit.

ORDER YOUR ORB SHIP HERE »

For this build I’m painting the kit like the box art for promotional purposes. So Orange, White and metallic chipping. To start off I constructed the kit and masked the windows with liquid mask. The kit goes together quite nicely and the laser-cut windows with photoetch frames are awesome and make those slight gaps which would otherwise be between the “glass” and resin disappear. (not that there’s a gap with the accurate laser-cutting, but it still looks much better!) I also lit the interior which has a LOT of space for wiring/batteries.

When ready I primed it with dark gray Duplicolor primer.

Afterwards I did my base chipping color. Normally I’d use a rust/gray tone for this, but since it’s a space ship I’m making the chips be more metallic aluminum. For this I used Alclad II Aluminum and Jet Exhaust.

Next up, hairspray chipping!

Yesterday my laser-cut foliage (thanks to Jason Eaton) arrived and I immediately set everything else aside to finish Adrian Smith’s Frankenstein up. Like the other plants, I sponged acrylics onto both sides of the paper and embossed them with dental tools. For the daisies, I used stretched sprue for the stems. Pics are below and you can order Frankenstein while supplies last here!

Continuing on as much as I can while waiting on the canopy and figures tests to arrive. Since the last updates I’ve applied the #5 decal, then an yellow-ochre filter, then discolored the surface with blue, rust, ochre, and white oils. I rubbed graphite onto the dark gray parts, then sealed it all with Satin FFA.

Light lenses were painted from behind with a mixture of Tamiya Clear Yellow and Clear Orange. They were glued into place with a water-thinned white glue pin-wash.

For the mouth I base-coated in an aluminum, then applied hairspray and top-coated with German Gray. Then I chipped away at the gray and buffed it all with graphite.

Next I’ll be adding some rust texture to the exhaust pipes which right now are just primed in Duplicolor Black Primer. I’ll also be adding rusty streaks coming from some of the chips.

“A new one? What about finishing Frankenstein” you say? No worries! Frank will be finished next week when my laser-cut foliage arrives. Meanwhile, I’m working on the initial sample build of Industria Mechanika’s release of Jake Parker’s Chompbot #5.

Preorder your Chompbot and Chomp Troopers here. Order by 9.28.2012 to get a $10 discount when you order the Chompbot and Chomp Troopers together!

This kit is a lot of fun and bigger than you might think. Check the preview video below to get a good idea of size. The figures are about 2″ tall while the bot itself clocks in at around 9 inches tall. Since most of that is a sphere, it’s a rather large piece!

Clean-up was a breeze. The only part to watch for when building the chompbot is that you’ll want to insert some 1/16″ brass rod through the lower legs as they’re thin and over time could sag under the weight. Drilling those parts to insert the rod was really easy though so it’s a minimal worry. In fact I did all the clean-up, pinning, and even managed to drill out the resin eye-bulbs and replace them with 5mm LEDs/soldering wires all in about 2 hours. Check out the following video to see how simply this goes together:

I started priming and painting yesterday. First I primed the Chompy with Duplicolor Green Self-Etching Primer, then with Duplicolor Dark Gray Sandable Primer.

When that cured I airbrushed the entire kit in German Gray Tamiya Acrylic then airbrushed on a very thin coat of Future (FFA) to seal it. When cured I masked off some of the parts I wanted to keep in the dark gray, then sprayed it all-over with a mottled coat of custom-mixed rust and dark gray Tamiya Acrylics.

Another very thin coat of FFA was applied, then I sprayed all of the parts with hair-spray. Over this I sprayed on a green blue, then Tamiya Acrylics Sky Gray. About 20 minutes later I took a wet stiff brush and started chipping away at the Sky Gray color to reveal the rusted mottled color below.

Next I’ll hand-paint some details in more German Gray that were easier to pait after the chipping than they would had been to mask.

It’s amazing what you can do with some old green sprue and paper scraps. I’m waiting on some laser-cut plants to finish this up, but meanwhile I’ve been making some saplings and such. For these I first stretches some green sprue over a flame, then used the portions near the ends with the thicker base. I crinkled the sprue a bit because nature abhors a straight line. I used leaves that I cut using wavy design scissors then sponge-painted with acrylics.

I painted the stems with a sponge using the same green as the leaves all over, then using brown near the bottom to simulate a woody stalk. I glued the leaves to the stalks with a mixture of white glue and the leaf-green paint. I also dabbed this on in spots to simulate buds.

Next up will be the laser-cut plants once they arrive.