In Progress » Fish Sub » Paint FINALLY!

Yeah yeah yeah… I know! I’ve been slacking on the updates, but mostly because I haven’t had anything TO update. I’ve been taking a modeling vacation and trying to recharge the batteries so to speak.I also had to pack and ship out the first edition of the Fish Sub which was awesome and time consuming as well. The 2nd Edition will hopefully be ready in a month or so. Woo hoo! Anyway, back to the modeling…

After soaking the sub in Purple Power to remove mold release I was ready to do the parts clean-up to prepare the kit for paint. The clean-up went well and I only had to replace a couple rivets. (which I included with every kit, just in case. Your welcome!) The parts are all well-fitting and I only had a few spots that needed special attention. The most notable is the largest PE gauge plate. It didn’t fit immediately in it’s place as hoped/planned. However it’s a minor issue as all that needs done is to use a scriber to remove some material on the bottom of the two gauge tubes above it. Once a tiny amount of that is removed the face slides right in. The other part people had concerns about was the faucet knobs. To clean those up, simply rub the backs over some wet sandpaper until there is no more backing. The result is a knob with all the holes intact. The windows turned out very nice, but as usual with clear resin could benefit from a Future dip and some polishing to really make them shine.

I’m very happy with how the photoetch gauge faces turned out. I primed and painted them with a gloss black spray paint. Once dry I wet-sanded the faces with very fine (2000 grit) sandpaper. The reveals the brass underneath and leaves the black in the sunken areas. Then I gave them a couple Future dips to finish shining them up.

The interior of the sub needs painted first so after priming I painted it all with a semi-gloss white. Then I masked off the white in the head and sprayed on some Mr. Metal Color brass. I hand-painted the same Mr. brass paint on the other side of the interior. When dry I hand-painted on some copper pipe accents.

Once dry I sealed it with gloss then satin Future Floor Acrylic, then hand-painted the rest of the details like the read leather/wood seat and wood floor. Knob wheels were airbrushed with white then red and had a brass bolt-head hand-painted on. Finally everything was glued in place as you see above. Next I’ll mask the inside of the portholes, glue the head on, and fill the little hairline gap around the head so that light from my LED (see above image) does not leak out. The rim of the LED is painted in brass as well.