Modeling How-To: Detailing Part 2

This is the second in a series of posts about detailing your scratch built starship models. Part One is here.

Kit Photo Buckets

Every time I get a new model kit in I make a point of photographing the parts trees and then collecting them into a bucket for later use. This lets me refer back to where a part came from in case I need to get that kit again. I spend way too much time on Google Images searching for similar model tree pics for models that I’m interested in purchasing.

Here’s an example of a photo bucket for a model kit I’ve used.

This bridge on a tank model was a gold mine for great parts to use on a warship.

When the model parts are molded in light colors, use a dark background. When they are dark, try and use a lighter background color. It’s no more complicated than that. I don’t spend a lot of time on it and I include a picture of the front box art so I can order it again.

For each model that I scratch build I have to asses whether my boxes and boxes of kit parts is going to cover it. Not only in volume but in type of parts. For instance, tank kits are great for mechanical parts but you always wind up with 200 road wheels that you never use. So, do I really need another tank kit? Maybe I could get a boat kit or a train or here’s a wild hare, how about a truck accessory kit? Believe it or not, I’ve used all of these examples.

Boat kits are awesome for starships that are the same scale as the boat, in this case 1/350.

Generally, if you are replicating the used car look of ILM models you need lots of mechanical pieces to include pipes, boxes, gears and grills and engine blocks. The trouble is, if you just slap them on your model without trying to integrate them correctly you wind up making a model that people look at and go, “Hey, that’s a tank cannon, right?” This is not good. You want your detailing to imply actual mechanical devices that do something. Form follows function. Is that a flapper thingy that pops up from the fuselage? Maybe it needs a hydraulic activator arm under it. Starfighter engine? Maybe it needs some pipes or tubes around it like a jet or rocket engine. I’m not suggesting that you know what every piece does, only that you make the viewer think that it does something.

Strips of plastic on the body remind the viewer of wing strakes on fighters, while plates behind the cockpit remind one of armor.

This is where we cross over from amateur modeling skills to pro level skills. The best models make the viewer think, “Damn, that looks real as heck. Like it could take off and blast a TIE fighter into a million shiny pieces.” Detailing can go a long way towards suspending the disbelief that you’re looking at an actual machine rather than just a model.

Truck parts and pipes used to build the interior of a 1/32 scale starship bridge. They suggest a working, mechanical ship.

That same bridge in the finished cockpit, complete with weathering and lights.My creations are usually built to be photographed for my book covers. So I build them with that purpose in mind. My models don’t have glass cockpits and sometimes they are unfinished when viewed from behind. Why detail and paint what is never seen? So far I’ve only done this once with a large scale KiV-3 model for the cover of The Rising. Usually I complete the model because I never know from what angle I’ll be taking the picture. Or I want to give myself options to photograph it from any angle.

Here you see more than one mount point inside this fighter using a block of RenShape and set screws.

My models always have more than one mounting point and each mounting point has to be hidden from the eye. Display models typically only have one mount on the bottom or through the engine exhaust. But I need the flexibility of multiple mount points. This is why models are more like movie models or Studio Scale models. Typically a model is built to the scale needed to photograph or film it. Most of them are much bigger than you’d first expect. Some of the Star Wars models were measured in feet not inches and they weighed hundreds of pounds.

The massive Star Destroyer model built by ILM for The Empire Strikes Back.

I can’t build my models that big. I’d have no way to move them and no room to store them! So I usually stick to 1/350 to 1/32 for starships and starfighters respectfully. Sometimes I’ll build a smaller fighter in say, 1/72 or even 1/350 or a larger fighter in 1/24 scale to show off more detail.

The large scale KiV-3 model’s cockpit was super detailed because you can see it on the cover quite well. Behind it is not even finished because you would not see it.

Non-Kit Parts

Don’t limit yourself to just model kit parts. You can use any plastic or even some non-plastic parts. I prefer solid plastic pieces and not flexible pieces that are more rubbery, because they don’t stay glued on. I have boxes of greeblies that are collected from all aspects of my life. If it looks interesting, I’ll save it and maybe I’ll use it or maybe not.

Can you ID all the non-kit parts used in the cockpit from above? Even a hair beret!

Glues

Up until about a year ago my go-to blue was Tester’s Model Cement in the iconic red tube with a white cap. I used it to glue ALL THE THINGS. However, it was not the best tool for gluing tiny, detail pieces.

Standard Tester glue is my old faithful.

In the past few years I’ve come to really appreciate Gorilla Glue. I use it for binding metal, and wood to plastic or PVC. This stuff is magical. It doesn’t stink, in fact it’s odorless. It takes about thirty minutes to dry a night to cure. And it’s easily available at hardware stores. LOVE this stuff. But it does have a tendency to expand and explode out from under where you put it. But I can deal with that now and it doesn’t bother me.

Need to glue wood and plastic or metal and plastic or PVC? Gorilla Glue is golden.

Whenever I come across a troublesome piece of plastic I go back to that magical red tube of glue from my childhood. Tester cement. Below is a starship frame with gray plastic and white strips of styrene. The gray stuff, will not take a decent bond with cement. You have to sand it dull to give the glue something to hold onto and you need to use some kind of Cyanoacrylate based glue.

Oh look, it’s good old Tester cement!

My latest favorite glue for model pieces is Revell’s liquid glue with a metal tube applicator. It’s not found on the shelves in US based hobby stores. I order it from Amazon and it comes from Germany. I now reach for that glue more than any other glue for attaching greeblies. It dries clear but can leave clumps if over applied. However, it does put the glue where you want it pretty accurately. And that is pretty awesome. I’d love to get a syringe with a metal tube instead of a needle. I know they are out there, just need to find one.

Revell’s liquid model glue is my new favorite. But what’s that in the background? Testers cement. *sigh

Finally, I’ve been using Mr. Cement’s liquid glue which comes in a clear square bottle with a blue brush cap. This is comparable to Tamiya’s Extra Thin liquid cement. Apparently everyone building kits switched to these and didn’t tell me. Using capillary action, it goes on sloppy and then evaporates from around your part. I’m not a big fan of this stuff yet. But it’s growing on me. Check back in a year to see if I’m using this more than the Revell liquid.

Here we see all three glues in one shot. Also, just off camera right is, you guessed it, Testers cement.

Size and Details

The golden rule for detailing is: the bigger the ship you are modeling, the more detail you show. So if you are building a starfighter, don’t get too detailed outside of the cockpit. You can show panel lines, but not tiny ones. Keep them consistent with airplane panel lines at the same scale. If you are building a starship, you can have some larger panels but then also show much smaller ones that are perhaps smaller than a man in size. Ships are made from smaller parts and larger parts. So go hog wild.

Starfighter panel lines are usually larger at 1/32 scale.

Here are larger panel lines on a Swift model. It looks very much like a modern jet fighter.

On this warship model 1/350 scale, you can see medium sized panels and small panels. This works to help create the scale of the model.

In the warship model above, you can also see smaller plastic pieces as well as larger pieces to the left, on the ship’s neck. Use larger pieces to cover larger areas that have lots of machinery. Use smaller pieces near windows and such to once again, create the impression of scale.

Another thing to keep in mind about panel lines is that you should make some of them angled and some could follow the lines of the vehicle. Look at airplanes and ships and other Sci-Fi models for ideas and patterns that look natural.

One last note on smaller size panels. There is another method of detailing related to scribe panels and that is added panels of different thickness. It’s important to not use raised panels that are too thick for the scale of your model. I’ve built many fighters and sometimes I used strips of styrene that were far too thick for the scale of the model. This breaks scale and looks poorly to the trained eye, much less the untrained eye.

Look at the strip above the wing root. It’s way, way, way too thick for the scale.The strips of plastic below the model are much thinner and would have been preferred to the thick one I actually went with. In fact I’d even go so far as to say that just about every raised panel on this model is too thick for the scale. How do I know this? I’ve built a lot of scale models in my life and I know what looks right. It’s a feeling based on years of experience. If you have no experience building scale models then you won’t have that eye for what looks right.

So why did I use that thick strip on the above model? I was covering the sloppy wing root area gaps. Sometimes even people with lots of experience can screw it up.

The ILM Universal Greeblie

If you’re a model builder who likes to scratch build Sci-Fi stuff like myself, you have no doubt heard of ILM’s Universal Greeblie. A greeblie is a piece of plastic, usually a model kit piece, that is used to decorate a starship model or similar creation. This term originated from the Visual Effects shop created by George Lucas, called Industrial Light and Magic. ILM modelers built most of the iconic models created for such films as Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and many others of that time period.

ILM model makers adding model kit greeblies to the original, three foot diameter Millennium Falcon model. Below is a close up of the six foot Star Destroyer model replant with thousands of model part greeblies.

You can find many references to these early ILM days in which modelers talk about a certain greeblie that seemed to be used just about everywhere. They called it the Universal Greeblie. I’ve heard Fon Davis and Adam Savage, both former ILM model makers, talk about this greeblie but was never able to actually see which part they were talking about. It took some researching but I eventually found out which model kit had the part and exactly what part they were talking about.

There was a model kit of the WWII German Leopold rail gun in 1/72 scale produced in the 70’s by Hasegawa, and this kit contained several dozen of these “Universal Greeblies”. Recently I did a search for this kit and found that they were still making it. So I purchased it for use on my SF models. These kits are never cheap and I only buy kits that have a bunch of parts in them that I can use. So it was with good fortune that this Leopold gun had more than just the interesting ILM parts to use.

Have I kept you waiting long enough? Okay, here’s a picture of the actual part of the real train that the greeblie is modeled after. It’s a journal box, and part of the roller mechanism. Four massive bolts hold on this round metal cap that covers the end of the train’s axle. Now on a model that same scale as an HO train, that part is going to be pretty small and not very refined.

This is what it looks like on the model tree.

Here is the reverse side of Part 19, from the kit.

Here is where you install it as per the directions.

Now that we know what the Universal Greeblie looks like and what model kit it comes from, we can spot it in the wild, right? The studio scale model of the Cylon Raider from the original TV series had a few of these pieces on the wing attachment roots. Here is a shot of Moebius Model’s kit version that clearly shows them.

Once you know what certain parts look like, you start to ID them all over ILM models. The Cylon Raider was notorious for having highly recognizable greeblies. In this shot of the bottom of the model we can also clearly see other parts from the Leopold rail gun as well as tank treads, and many more. Can you spot the two UG’s on this model below?

Modelers of these SF vehicles often spend hours looking at detailed pictures of these models trying to ID all the parts so they can recreate them to the last detail. That’s crazy, but I do enjoy looking at them for ideas. The best studio scale movie models used off the shelf kits for parts but the modelers did their best to disguise them. There is definitely an art to detailing models. It’s not always done to perfection. Just watch Star Crash, where the modelers laid entire kit trees with their parts still attached to the model. In all fairness to the modelers on that film, they were rushed for time and could not afford to do it any better. Still, this is exactly how it’s not done.

Below you clearly see the model trees with parts and you can even recognize the Eagle from Space 1999 as well as some TIE fighter windows.

Detailing models in a manner that tricks the eye into thinking it was all designed that way from the beginning is much harder than the average person would think. Trust me. I’ve done it poorly and I’ve done it well and I still struggle with it on every model I build. I’ll leave you with some shots of my models, built in the ILM tradition.

Corvette Draft One Complete

Yesterday morning the house was quiet with everyone asleep, so I wrote the final two scenes in my latest novella, Corvette. It feels good to have that behind me. I was thinking it might stretch out to be a novel, but at under 50K words and about 215 pages, its a decent sized novella. Corvette is my attempt to write to a market and create a prequel to the Star Saga. The structure and tropes that I used are similar to what is selling right now in Military SF. I hope to have it out in ebook form early next year.

Right now my writing sprints are focused on the second draft of K’nat Trap. This is the novella that I wrote earlier in the year and its set a few years after Starstrikers, Book 4 of the Star Saga. Looking forward to making the changes my beta readers have suggested and tightening up the second draft. With any luck, it will be out before Corvette, sometime next year.

In other news, I’ve nearly completed the K’nat fighter model for use on the novella’s cover. Here are some shots of the model on my bench.

This is a 3rd Generation Votainion starfighter and appears in Starstrikers and K’nat Trap. It has a standard engine and two NexGen space/time drives that let it move through space and time for short duration.

It’s quite the challenge to paint and weather an all black fighter. The canopy in these shots is just primer gray. Eventually it will be painted.

GCU Griffin

This weekend it was cool outside so I busted out the blue screen and a finished model and took some pictures of it. That of course led to some Gimp action with some pretty background images. Since my brother was visiting, he got a chance to watch me photograph the model and then helped me tweak the photos in Gimp. The results are below for your viewing pleasure.

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Shadow Fighter Showdown

My latest scratch built starfighter model is the K’nat fighter or as they call it in STARSTRIKERS – the Shadow fighter. While I’m building my model from plastic and Renshape, my son is building his model in Blender. He’s much faster than I am. It’s going to be a race to see who’s fighter will make it to the cover of K’nat Trap, my next novella.

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At this point, he’s winning.

Triak Starfighter Build, Part 5

Weathering

This is one of my favorite steps in modeling. I love making a model look like it just came out of the real world where it has lived a long and hard life. Weathering sounds like it should only be for machines that live inside an atmosphere, but all machines get worn and used, even in space. So it really refers to damage, chipping of paint, fading of paint, grease and oil leaks and sometimes dirt and grime.

All of my models have that George Lucas look of being in a well-used universe. Because my models are also built specifically for my book covers, sometimes I don’t put unit marking on them or anything too unique, so that they can be copy and pasted into many fighters for cover art. But with this particular model, I decided to get individual. Which meant I could do unit badges and make unique mods like the starboard engine nacelle being removed.

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In this wide shot you see the whole model as it stands now. Decals are applied and paint chipping has occurred on the painted areas and we have some dusting with artist’s charcoal.

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I applied a light wash to the stern details but I will be going back over this area with more grime and oil as it looks too clean for my tastes.

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The paint chipping was achieved by – wait for it, actually chipping the paint. I used my finger nail and a hobby knife. 

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I think the nose art is from a WWII airplane kit. I just have a stack of decals and pick and chose from it randomly.

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You can see the chipping details around the black area behind the pilot. Panels get chipped by ground crew constantly removing them and handling them with dirty fingers.

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I think this engine art decal was from a Japanese F-1 kit.

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I painted the blaster tips a darker gray since I had to do some gap filling on them post primer. I also made some of the raised panels different shades of gray.

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Below we see a more extensive wash of black for the back details.

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More wash applied to the intakes and exterior. 

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Oily stains on the bottom are a bit of a trademark for me.

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Another look at the bottom details. Even if I don’t model landing gear, I include the landing gear doors.

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And here she is, complete. I don’t have any Votainion Empire symbols on it or any of my models, actually. That’s because I don’t have the ability to make my own decals. Easier to let graphic artists apply them in post.

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This might be the last model I work on until winter releases it’s icy grip on my garage. Right now the temps are in the teens and my garage is just too cold to be in, even with an electric heater at my feet.

Triak Starfighter Build, Part 1

The Triak starfighter was derived from the Two Piper design from the start of the Great War. The design goes back to the 1980s when I was still in High School. I always imagined there were dozens of starfighter designs during the war, just like there were so many different fighter plane designs in WWII. The First Generation or Starforgers Trilogy evolution chart below shows the Two Piper design.

Starfighter Evolution Chart

Here is a line art drawing a friend did of the Triak a few years ago. I really like this kind of profile art for fighters. Anyone want to volunteer to draw all my designs like this? Contact me, I’ll give you full credit!

Terror Diver

I had some 1/32 scale jet models laying around and decided to build the Triak fighter from them in a process called kit bashing, instead of my usual scratch building. I had an F-104 Starfighter and a F-14 Tomcat, from Hasegawa and Tamia respectively.

I cobbled together two engines from PVC pipe and then used the intakes from the Tomcat and the fuselage from the Starfighter model to rough out a possible shape for the Triak starfighter. I held everything together with yellow camera tape and took some pictures. The model sat on my shelf for a while until I had the time to actually build it. Below are some shots of the taped up version of the model.

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For a short time I pondered just doing a scratch build. But then opted for the kit bash route.

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First step was to take apart the taped mock-up.

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Terrox Starfighter Build, Part 2

Continuing with the Terrox build, we start to focus on detailing. I started with the hidden area between the missing engine covers and the fuselage. I used some F-104 bits in silver and various bits of scratch plastic to add some interest. You know, for when someone shines a flashlight in there to make sure I’m honest. ;-)

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Some strakes are added to the top of the fuselage because it looks cool and it’s a bit of a call out to the old MiG-15. I’ve also added some interest behind the pilot with some plastic greeblies.

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The engine details started with this child’s whistle from a dollar store and continued with landing gear bits from the Tomcat model. Lots of them. Oh, and some scratch tubing.

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Added some pipes to the whistle and suddenly the engines are beginning to look interesting. I used more Starfighter parts for the cover plate on the left in the shot below. I knew the open area where the fuselage meets the engine nacelles was going to be a greeblie pile. So I started with some grooved plastic.

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Backing up a bit we look at the boxing in of the fuselage.

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I used some braces inside. I was going to put some LED’s and a nine volt batter in there, but opted for a static build to save time.

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Here’s the Tomcat cockpit with some F-104 instruments and various other greeblies.

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I needed to fill some gaps behind the cockpit so I used pipes. I like the look.

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I like that silver piece from the back of the F-104 on top of that block behind the pilot.

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Now we have the engines glued on and you can start to see what this puppy will begin to look like.

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Here we are with some more engine details. I covered the one inch PVC engine parts with thin, .010 plastic but not everywhere. Some thicker areas too for interest.

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Next time we’ll focus on fuselage details and get some primer on it,

Weathering the Terrox Model, Part 2

There’s not much to add about my weathering techniques. I just go slow and make multiple passes, each with a different layer of gunk or scratches or in some cases, battle damage. To this point I’ve mostly done none invasive stuff like painting, rubbing pastels or a bit of light sanding. But I have also done some pits and tiny holes around the port nacelle where some panels have been removed. Presumably due to battle damage. But not everything was removed and I may even put on some patch squares in different shades of gray or perhaps the blue-gray interior color. Which I imagine is some kind of rust protector coating.

For small nicks and pock holes I use a hobby knife or my hobby grinder. I lightly sand over the burs and nicks. The battle damage from fighting would require forethought and internal detailing, so I’m keeping it light. Surface damage only.

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I also sprinkled some on hand decals around the model. I’m usually dissappointed with decals and avoid them as much as possible. I like this German unit decal and used the pre-weathered version.

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Here is the other side along with a decal placard, too small to read.

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On the shot above you can also see some nicks and bumps on the leading edge. This was done with my variable speed hobby grinder on low.

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I had a triangle decal next to the canopy but it came off. The underlying lighter shade of gray is fantastic, so I’m leaving it off. I may use this technique again on the bottom for panels. Just cut squares of random decals and then pull them off after I weather.

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The back side of the model is full of nice details and all I did was a black wash and some black pastel dusting.

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I do like the contrast between the gray details and the blue-gray. I’m thinking the blue-gray areas are usually covered, but the covering was removed for ease of maintenance or perhaps as a weight savings field modification.

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I like the nose and canopy weathering. I might like more fingerprints and such from ground crew. My inspiration for this is modern Navy fighters on carriers.

Okay, below are the beauty passes. Part three will show the bottom and whatever else I add in terms of damage.

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Modeling Update – Terrox Fighter

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This is my latest modeling creation – a Votainion Terrox starfighter from the Starstrikers Era of the Star Saga. This is one of several primary, or front line enemy starfighters the Alliance faces during the mid-war time period. This model is built from PVC tubes and plastic and is detailed with greeblies from kit models. There are two mount points, bottom and rear and no lighting. The scale is my standard – 1/32.

The above photo is what the model looks like at this point in time. The basic shape is finished and now I’m moving on to detailing. After the details are applied, painting begins, followed by weathering.