Starship Avalon: build thread

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I'm feeling less confident over time that the finished rocket will look nearly as good as my renders, but I still feel the need to optimize my decal design so I am at least happy with what I'm shooting for. With that in mind, here's an updated nose treatment, along with an improved render of the entire rocket. Almost ready to order the vinyl.
avalon_new_paint4.png
 
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That looks really NICE Neil, I got my fingers crossed for you :wink:
What are the specs on this rocket ? LxWxmm ?
 
OR says 28.9" long, outer diameter of the helixes is about 5.25". BT50 in the narrow parts and BT55 in the larger. Thinking of an upscale? :) (actually, an upscale would probably be a *lot* easier to paint...)
 
You know, your concepts have "contest winner" written all over them. It's too bad you'd prolly never get one finished and flown by the Labor Day deadline. Your builds are so involved and there's no real quick way to build one of them. Unless you're Joe who seems to have the ability to whip one out. FWIW, I think you've done a helluva job. Paint be damned. Just sand it smooth and repaint.
 
Thanks for the kind words. I don't worry about the contests because I know there's exactly zero chance I can complete a scratch build within the allotted time. So I just observe and enjoy.

As for this thing, I'm gonna do some sanding but I'm probably not going to apply any further black paint, as there's little reason to believe I won't suffer the same problems again trying to get in the various nooks and crannies. My hope is that it'll all look OK after the accents and clear coat are on.
 
Upon completion I was somewhat inclined to throw the rocket into the woods.

Whatever you do don't do that! (unless its done by way of burning rocket motor or drifting parachute. Those exceptions are allowable)

Sad to hear the rings are gone, but its still going to be fantastic when complete.
 
After some back and forth with Mark, it appears that some of my designs are not really practical to cut in vinyl. He suggests a full-color print, and I will combine this with my APRO Lander order and get everything done together.

The good news is this will make finishing this rocket soooooooo much easier (even though the fins will present some challenge). The messy paint on the outside helical pieces won't matter since they'll be completely covered with the window pattern vinyl. Also, I might be able to add in a few fine details that I couldn't even consider if I were just cutting.

The bad news is that I'll have little chance of matching my green paint to the printed green parts, and can't predict whether I'll even be close. This leaves two parts of the design in flux: the green outlines of the helical pieces, and the green strakes.

Neither have any realistic chance of being vinyled. And so, in each case, I have three choices how to proceed:
1) Keep the design, paint them green, and don't worry if the color matches the other green parts.
2) Change them to white, which I can paint to match the white vinyl well enough
3) Change the design.

I'm not enamored of any of these choices, but need to try anyway.

The helical piece edges should not be white, of that I'm sure. I'm going to put a green outline on the window vinyl, so it'll be on the outer surface rather than the edges, which is not as good but hopefully OK.

The only other alternative I can think of is to eliminate the green altogether. Bleh.

The strakes are not awful as white, although it still seems Wrong:
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I'm leaning towards this design (or something similar), which leaves the strakes black:
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The strakes kind of disappear in this design, although it still looks OK.

Hopefully this'll all look decent when it's done. At least I won't have to worry about a horrible masking job, or poorly applied fluorescent paint...
 

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"The strakes kind of disappear in this design, although it still looks OK"

Yeah, but isn't that what you want "small elements" like that, so when one looks closer they go, OH! COOL,,,,,,,
I like it
 
Here is what I'm going to do.

I shall order the vinyl both ways (it only changes a few small things). When it comes in, I'll see if I can get a close enough match between the paint and the vinyl. If so, I'll go with the original color scheme; if it looks like it'll be too different, then I'll go with the new.

Onward.
 
FWIW, I think the white/grey strakes in the image above looks better than the green triangles between the strakes below it. :wink:
 
you might have already ordered the vinyl, but another idea: instead of green triangles on the tube between the strakes, could you make them rectangular to fill the space between the strakes, but have them fade-to-black at the strake tips?

or instead of fade-to-black, have progressively thinner green strips as you go down the body tube until the last one is very thin at the strake end. roughly like this

decal.PNG
 
you might have already ordered the vinyl, but another idea: instead of green triangles on the tube between the strakes, could you make them rectangular to fill the space between the strakes, but have them fade-to-black at the strake tips?

or instead of fade-to-black, have progressively thinner green strips as you go down the body tube until the last one is very thin at the strake end. roughly like this

View attachment 321022

Vinyl is not yet ordered, I'm still working on it. :p

strake_schemes.png

I feel like the fade looks good, although I'm not sure it really matches the rest of the rocket. I tried a couple of variations of the second option (just one of which is shown above), but didn't like the way any of them looked. I thought putting some white highlights on the fade would work better, but those white rings (third image) are not a good choice.

While fiddling I also realized that there might be a missed opportunity to put something on the forward transition, but I'm not sure what and I'm probably too exhausted from thinking about this to come up with anything good. So that opportunity will probably remain missed.

Where's that art department when you need 'em???
 
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Paint.net. The tool is fine, although if I were fluent in a vector-based drawing tool certain things might be easier.

I just have a lot of details to work out. For my current task I printed out a sheet of the designs on plain paper and will temporarily apply them (or just hold them up) to the rocket to confirm size and fit. The cockpit will probably require some adjustment; I know of no easy way to account for the curvature of the nose cone, so I'll probably require a bit of trial and error to get it right.
 
Corel Draw would be right up your alley. It's a suite that has photo editing and some other significant proggies as well. I'd be lost w/o mine.
 
Remember how I said the black had gone down terribly? Here's the evidence. First, a fin:
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It almost looks like fine foam in the paint. Blech. Here's the biggest of the runs on the outside of a helix, along with some foamy bits there too:
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I don't know why it happened (the foam, that is; I know why I got the run), but the cure is pretty obvious: There Shall Be Sanding.

On the other hand, the nose section, which had already been painted and sanded before this coat went on, came out perfect:
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Hopefully after a sanding and re-coat the rest will come out equally good.

Here's the best news, though. When testing out my decal image fit, I became re-energized about how good this thing *could* look when it's all done. Here's a shot of the windows on the helix (blue-taped on temporarily), with me hand-holding one of the rear fin decals.
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Even this small glimpse kinda psyched me up again. I don't miss the rings anymore, or for that matter the old paint scheme. The old one would have been good, but this will be good too. I am a bit concerned that positioning those fin pieces is going to be a challenge, but I can always cut them into three pieces and then it should be easier. I'll deal with that later.
 

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Those decals are going to look awesome,
as for the paint :confused2:
seems like every time I paint there is always something that makes me say "now how did that happen?" followed by "OH!! MAN!!!"
 
Sanding is underway, lots of nooks and crannies to deal with. One additional final coat of black should be sufficient.

And finally got my order in:
avalon_decals_small.png

These will not be easy to apply, should be an interesting adventure. Should look really nice if I can get them on successfully.
 
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The good news: I got the vinyl. It looks good...

The bad news: ...with one exception. The green came out quite dull compared to what I was expecting, and compared to my fluorescent green paint:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497366436.932978.jpg

I'm a little bummed about that; brighter would have been nicer. More importantly, though, I'm going to need to figure out a way to get a closer match with the paint.

I'm gonna check my existing key lime paint (used on the diamond cutter) which should be closer. Otherwise I'll need to start playing mad scientist. Or else come up with another plan.
 
Mask off the black part and spray paint over the green with the matching color. You CAN spray paint vinyl if you're careful. We used Krylon with success. I used 2X on my Alpha stripe, but with 3-4 very light layers. The paint CAN wrinkle the vinyl if you go too heavy. I'd experiment on any scraps you may have.
 
While that's possible in some areas, I ain't goin' there. A huge amount of masking work and I'll likely irreversibly mess the whole thing up. Also, there's no way to do that with the green lettering.

Nope, will just have to figure out a way to deal. I'm going to also have to talk to Mark so I can understand the color behavior of the vinyl a little better.
 
I'm going to also have to talk to Mark so I can understand the color behavior of the vinyl a little better.

You may ought to anyway. I know there are fluorescent vinyls available. Did you specify the Fluorescent Green when you ordered it? Maybe he overlooked it and cut the wrong thing. It IS possible.
 
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