Friday 24 May 2013

Plastic Fantastic - Dimestore Spaceships Trial Painting


Just finished putting together some trial paint jobs on a selection of the plastic Dimestore Spaceships - mostly just a bit of fun, with a couple of detailed ones, and others that were little more than dry-brushing with some detailing to see how paint would sit.

Must say, I'm quite pleased - certainly no complaints for what was a quick test run - these ships painted up easily, and I think would support a number of complicated techniques or stages of painting if you were so inclined.

To start off with, I was looking long and hard at the Flying Saucer design, and it reminded me strongly of the semi-mythical late war Nazi design of the Haunebu or H-Gerat:

http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/HAUNEBU.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_UFOs

So I went for it in Luftwaffe Green including some hand-daubed iron cross insignia - a bit rough, but I was too excited to bother with time consuming decals - something I will correct at a later date:



The Flying Dart shaped ship I just gave a dry-brush of bronze over the black undercoat, and then did a minimum of detailing - I was thinking that these might be a secret Allied design to combat the German 'Wunderwaffe' - maybe a bit of Luft '46 might be in order employing these - they would go nicely alongside 1/300 aircraft, I should think - throw in a few ME262 and the odd all-white 616 Sqn Gloster Meteor and Bob's your uncle!

Next I went for a simple grey scheme on what I am calling the 6mm Gunship, just with some red detailing - although I realise I forgot to finish the canopy before taking the photos - tut, tut!
The Flying Horseshoe got a sort of alien purple with the odd bit of colour - very quick and rough again - but definitely speaks to the potential they would have as Fleet-Scale Sci-Fi:


I think there was a race in the Babylon 5 universe that it would fit the bill for; was it the Vree?

Talking of on-screen Sci-Fi, the next craft, the ones with the trio of domed protuberances, I did to go alongside my Late Republic / Early Imperial Ships; here with an Irregular Star Destroyer and a Brigade Models' Insidioso:


I think the domes reminded me of the ones on an Interdictor Class, so perhaps these are an early, smaller scale fore-runner.....

Finally, just to show the scratch-building potential - I lopped off the two side sponsons on the ship I have dubbed the Rocket Sled - came away nice and easy with a quick chop of a craft knife - I was thinking fixed upright, they would make good moisture collector towers for 6mm stuff?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Moisture_vaporator



All in all, then, great fun to throw paint at, no problems to deal with, and a few good ideas as to how to employ the various designs - obviously a couple more to play with yet, so hopefully more to come on these......


6 comments:

  1. Those are pretty sweet!

    I've been searching for similar inspiration by looking at online colour schemes. It's astonishing how many TV and movie space fighters are just variations of "grey with a coloured stripe". Not that there's anything wrong with that, but maybe only for 1 faction?

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  2. Got my dimestore ships yesterday and already thinking of what I can do with them. As I believe I mentioned previously the tri-domed one will become agro ships for the most part, some will be luxury liners. The gunship I am thinking of having mostly as a Planetary/system defense ship, no sublight/flt/warp/etc... engines. The Horseshoes will be a luxury liner or private space yacht for corporations/governments. The "dart" (the single blue ship in your last post where you had each design shown), not sure yet, thinking a Fast Response (Light) Cruiser. The Flying Saucer will become the top and/or bottom of a couple space stations. As for the other ships I don't know, the Sled will probably get cut up for bits.

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  3. Those look great--especially the saucer!

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  4. Hi guys, many thanks for the comments - just was a quick rush at these, really - to see how they might turn out....... As I said, absolutely conventional responses to the paint, so now special treatment needed.

    Some great ideas there as well - a conventional grey scheme would suit them well, and although I didn't go that far, I'm sure inking or washes would pick out the surface detail that is nicely inscribed.

    Could definitely see the Horsehoe as some sort of Space Yacht, and I would imagine a pair of the saucers mounted back to back would make a good proto- Cylon Base Star, predating the ones seen in the original Battlestar Galactica.....

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  5. The saucer came out looking very "Iron Sky". Great work on an unusual project!

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