Brainlord's LPR SciFi Spacefighter build thread. (no heavy weapons)

OK, lets get this damn thing finished:

Just back from the HomeDepot, bought paint:




And adjusted the color scheme for putting black decals over color paint, (I am wrapping the fins)



The Home depot website gave me an RGB value for the paint.
This prints out redder than it looks on my LCD panel, but the paint is just wee bit redder than that. (I was surprised to find the RGB value in the first place, I would have more surprised if it had worked. (its a good starting point though) One of my first jobs this AM is to find a CYMK mix that actually matches the paint.

BrainlordMesomorph said:

One of my first jobs this AM is to find a CYMK mix that actually matches the paint.

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If you have a good method for doing this, please write it up! I’ve struggled with this.

Its *a* method, not sure how good it is, because I just spent an hour convincing myself that this RGB value is as good as I'm going to get. (Now I'll spend 20 minutes explaining color space to you guys)

Rule for evaluating color: Look at the colors under several light sources, lamps, florescent, and sunlight, but trust sunlight.

In Corel, I put down a box of the RGB color, and in another I had corel give me the CYMK version of that color (there was a chance they wouldn't be the exact same and I wanted to see. Then in boxes next to that, I added 5% magenta, 10%, 15%... on the other side 5% cyan, 10% etc (edit: print your tests on the actual material at the the actual resolution ... wastes ink and paper I know but its the only way to be sure.)

Then hold that up to a sample of the paint.


I immediately noticed that the original RGB value and the CYMK box that corel made are not the same. Why not? Color space!


What is color space?

Your monitor can show you 256 shades each of red blue and green, that adds up to about 16 million colors. But that is not all the colors, in nature the is an infinite number of combinations of wavelengths of light. Printing colors cyan magenta yellow and black, can give you i think 32 million colors. But there are some colors in the RGB 16 million that are not in the CYMK 32 million. So Corel and most windows apps, work in a subset of RGB colors that *can* be printed. That's called the sRGB color space.

There is also the Hue, Saturation and Lightness color space, that breaks color down to wavelength, intensity and brightness. (much better that RGB or CYMK) Rustoleum gives me the HLS value of this paint down to two decimal places. But in Corel, It rounds those up to the nearest integer, which equals the RGB value.

So I tried goosing the color up and down by 3 or 5% (up to 20%) in every direction in each of the various color spaces, but when viewed in direct sunlight, the original RGB value as close as I was getting. (the rustoleum people were not guessing)

EDIT: In certain lamp light, an extra 3 or 5% magenta did look a little closer, but not in sunlight.



So you may have been trying to nail down a color that your software and/or printer might not be able to make.

So, remember earlier in the thread, when I listed 6 techniques for using inkjet decals. (BTW: there is nothing "DIY" about these decals. I'm a professional graphic artist using a professional 8 color photo printer. It is inkjet technology. but I digress...) so I'm not doing a wrap, but I am using every one of the other 5 techniques ... and I just invented one more:

I don't know whether to call it, "Decal masking decals," or "masking decal masking" (LOL) either way, I've made one decal to be a mask for another decal:



on top, the nose art, below it a simple geometric shape that fits under the nose art, making white under everywhere it needs to be, and then the black space behind her will cover the seam, and the fade will be over the orange paint.


on the model with the masking tape




under the paint.

Will it work? Stay tuned......

Whether has not been cooperating.

With all the rain, its taking me days to get paint on. Doing the gray now. Should be dry by tonight.


The orange is a beautiful color. "Rustoleum Fire Orange." I mean I want something in my living room that's this color. I'm not sure if its a shade lighter than Burnt Orange or just a trademark for it. The difference between the paint and the inkjet color is just a level of "richness." The color is simply more intense that the inkjet output can ever be. Whatever chemistry and materials they're using its just way more solid that anything you can do mixing translucent inks.

Which brings me to an interesting question, if I can't truly match this color on the wings, maybe I should go for a contrasting (or complimentary) color. A mustard yellow looks like it would go nicely, but yellow with black and white lettering on it is the color of a taxi cab. (oooh, "space taxi" might be another sci fi model)

Another question is:
What order do I apply the decals in?
Start with the little ones on the body and then do the big fin wraps? or do the big stuff first?

Gary Byrum said:

I can offer this one bit of input. To remedy the petal wrinkles, use a blow dryer to assist when mashing the edges. The heat allows "vinyl" to form to shape better. Maybe it'll work with this decal material.

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Tried that:
Hair dryer + water slide decals = no sliding!
Just glues them right down,wrinkled.

However you do have a wet 98.6 degree surface heater right at your fingertips ....actually 10 of them.(LOL)

Just holding your thumb over a wrinkled edge for a few moments helps a lot.

I'm really finding this to be quite interesting. I'd like to go back to this for a moment:

BrainlordMesomorph said:

I don't know whether to call it, "Decal masking decals," or "masking decal masking" (LOL) either way, I've made one decal to be a mask for another decal:

on top, the nose art, below it a simple geometric shape that fits under the nose art, making white under everywhere it needs to be, and then the black space behind her will cover the seam, and the fade will be over the orange paint.

Click to expand...

On the one hand, I think I understand everything you said there.

On the other hand, I would presume that the white underlay would need to be on white-backed decal paper, whereas the nose art itself would need to be on clear-backed. And yet you have them on the same sheet.

Or were you planning to just use that underlay decal as a paint mask, and peel it up to remove the orange? That would be a workable approach too if there's a white undercoat *and* that decal will peel off cleanly (?). Could do the same with vinyl mask.

Either way, I think you have the essence of a great technique for mixing white-backed designs with clear-backed decal paper. It does seem like it requires some thought and care in creating the design itself, but I'll bet I can do something like this in some upcoming builds.

neil_w said:

I'm really finding this to be quite interesting. I'd like to go back to this for a moment:

Or were you planning to just use that underlay decal as a paint mask, and peel it up to remove the orange? That would be a workable approach too if there's a white undercoat *and* that decal will peel off cleanly (?). Could do the same with vinyl mask.

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Precisely there's a flat white undercoat on the whole model. then the color art on clear goes on top.

It did peal off "ok" (as most masks do)

Placing it (without any other references) was a problem. Its a little high.

(pics later)

EDIT: OH! Yes I see.
You could also do the underlay in white decal material and just put it over the paint (DUH!) Might be a better idea.

BrainlordMesomorph said:

It did peal off "ok" (as most masks do)

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Did you apply the mask decal normally? I admit I've never tried to peel off a waterslide after it dried.

EDIT: OH! Yes I see.
You could also do the underlay in white and just put it over the paint (DUH!) Might be a better idea.

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I've also never tried to apply decals on top of each other. Dunno why it shouldn't work though.

If the white-backed decal mask is basically unprinted, then presumably you wouldn't have to clear-coat it for protection, and it would be very thin. Or would it need some clear coating just to be heavy enough to be workable? Did you clear-coat your mask decal, and if not did it still work OK?

neil_w said:

Did you apply the mask decal normally? I admit I've never tried to peel off a waterslide after it dried.

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I've been doing lots of that. These peal off perfectly (just don't scratch the paint finding an edge) I wipe the model down w/ alcohol and try again, over and over!

neil_w said:

I've also never tried to apply decals on top of each other. Dunno why it shouldn't work though.

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I'm trying that now. color whiteback flags on top of clearback black words and textures. Edges showing is still an issue.....

neil_w said:

If the white-backed decal mask is basically unprinted, then presumably you wouldn't have to clear-coat it for protection, and it would be very thin. Or would it need some clear coating just to be heavy enough to be workable? Did you clear-coat your mask decal, and if not did it still work OK?

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Must clearcoat first or the ink comes off in the water and /or it stretches during application.

EDIT: (again I understand you 20 minutes after I reply) Yes if you're applying just a white silhouette (knockout) decal then having ink wash off is actually good. so yes, you could avoid the thickness and time involved in acrylic fix.

This is better idea than my masking the paint. It's still limited to shapes you can cut but would be easier and more workable.

Have you seen ‘ghost white toner’?

Since I laser print decals, instead of inkjet, it’s tempting.

The US distributor (uscutter.com) doesn’t stock the cartridge for my model - which makes shipping steep.

Still tempting, though.

Sorry for being AWOL guys.

Weather has been hell here. (if hell is day after day or thunderstorms) It took forever to get paint down. And then when I started decals, I couldn't go outside to clearcoat the decals!

Then I ran out of decal material, and had to order more.

AND THEN my good 8 color photoprinter died! and I had to print the last decals on a cheap CYMK printer. (so there are now three shades of the orange on the model). But all in all, its turning out OK.

So lets catch up guys up:
After paint


I started on decals

Here you see the masked hole (knockout) for the nose art. It's higher than I wanted, and the paint is thick.
Next time I'll just put a solid white opaque decal on top of the paint.- that will be both easier and a better result.


The opaque white material has a white edge that shows, to fix that i tried coloring in the edge with a sharpie before applying the decal. that didn't work. the ink would come off with the water and all the rubbing. So to fix that I had to change the sequence of events.

1. print the decals
2. cut the decals out
3. color in the edges
4. then clearcoat

trimmed decals ready for clearcoat:

but this created a new problem. it glues the edges of the decal to the backing!

So I started lightly sanding the edges of the decal before I put it in the water. That helped, but didn't fix it. Then once I forgot to sand before the water, and tried sanding after the water - THAT WORKED.

5. soak the decal
6. very lightly wipe some 200 grit around the edge
7. apply to the model

EDIT: That's just for the opaque white and covering the edge.
for clear decals its just Print, Spray, Let dry then soak and apply like normal

I learned that there is a "best size" for the decals.
About 1"x 3" or 4" is spacious but still easy to handle. Smaller they are tough to position, and bigger like 3"x 4" they get floppy and tough to handle. I did some of them upside down. Leaning back in my chair holding the model over my head and letting the decal hang down while I plastered it up against the model, like wallpapering a ceiling.

I also did extensive experiments with the clearcoat.
I found that one very heavy coat is what you want. It seals in the ink and toughens the decal without adding too much thickness.

Several thin coats is a bad idea. You might end up without any one coat sealing the ink, and this happens:


Applying went as well as could be expected:





I had to fix the nose art to get it to fit in the hole. I moved the space behind her, lengthened the rocket and changed the shape of the fire.

But I am getting away with it

That looks really, really, cool. Very unique.

I appreciate your documentation of all the decal adventures, I'm taking notes as my own decal adventure will be starting soon. I'd been especially wondering about clear coating the decals, so the advice to use a single heavy coat is especially useful.

neil_w said:

That looks really, really, cool. Very unique.

I appreciate your documentation of all the decal adventures, I'm taking notes as my own decal adventure will be starting soon. I'd been especially wondering about clear coating the decals, so the advice to use a single heavy coat is especially useful.

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+1 That's the coolest looking rocket I've seen in a while. Well done and I love the graphics

With the stated goal that "no detail is too small"
Of course, I had to paint and decal the launch lugs as well:

edit : Oh, print spare decals, especally the tiny ones. You'll be throwing away huge amounts of decal material anyway. having a spare after you miscut one save a lot of time and wasting even more decal material



How else can I make them look like laser guns:

Whats a Sci Fi Model without some Sci Fi?

Ships of the Interplanetary Joint Strike Taskforce

Number One: The Republic of Mars Ares 200 Orbital Fighter/Bomber #304 “The Spirit of Cydonia”

A joint project of Ares Industries, RadLab Corporation, and the Mars Advanced Research Agency (MARA), The Ares 200 Orbital Fighter/Bomber is the top-of-the-line fightercraft for the Republic of Mars Orbital Defense Force.

Standard armament includes dual forward mount HRD354 Heavy Radiation Lasers, upgradable to HRD 1000. Its Ordinance Bay can carry a wide variety of standard and tactical nuclear and antimatter munitions, or up to four Cobalt Bombs, or one Kessler Device.

It is designed for a wide variety of intercept, interdict, patrol, reconnaissance, escort, denial-of-space, and interplanetary first strike missions including interplanetary first strike delivery of The Kessler Device.

Its Promethium/Xenon Inversion Reactor can utilize a variety of propellants, including carbon dioxide, oxygen and water vapor. It can even fly with solid rocket fuel for short, atmospheric missions.

With an acceleration curve and performance ratio the equivalent of Earth’s United Nations TerraCorp Beta 15 Interplanetary Fighter/Bomber, (although smaller and slightly less armed) the Ares 200 fulfills the Republic’s obligations under the Interplanetary Joint Strike Taskforce Agreement, and can be deployed alongside UN Beta 15s and The OutWorld Confederation’s Cobra IV Drones in IJST operations.

(copyright 2018 Ben Margolis, All rights reserved.)

OK where were we...?

When I last posted we were wrapping up decals (if you'll pardon the pun)
From this point it was just a matter of a lot of fixing...There was a lot of sharpie work to do around the edges. Most of that I had deliberately made black for that reason.

The back ends of the fins wraps didn't fit, I had to glue them down.


And I thought, what I really need is some of the orange spray paint on the end of a brush... hmmmm..


I put some acrylic gel medium, which is basically acrylic paint without color, in the bottom of some aluminum foil, and then sprayed a hefty amount of spraypaint on top of that and mixed.

it made a great touch-up paint! I can now turn any rattle can into brush-on touch-up with this technique. (I'll be doing that again.)

EDIT: I should point out that there were sever coats of clearcoat between the various fixing steps. That made the edges of the decals hard so I glue and sand them, and made all the sharpie blend in with the paint better.

A little bit more marker work....

I couldn't hold the model, the ruler , the pen, and the camera all at once, but you get the idea.
(and some more clearcoat)
aaaaaaaaaand we're done! (with the paint job)

The last step was installing my cockamamie rear-blow recovery system


My "shock cord channel guide" and shock cork mounted in the main fuselage


Packed:


From here my next two steps are
1. Static ground tests of the rear ejection system.
2. an extensive photo shoot, before this thing gets anywhere near a launch pad!

That is looking fantastic.

BrainlordMesomorph said:

I put some acrylic gel medium, which is basically acrylic paint without color, in the bottom of some aluminum foil, and then sprayed a hefty amount of spraypaint on top of that and mixed.

it made a great touch-up paint! I can now turn any rattle can into brush-on touch-up with this technique. (I'll be doing that again.)

Click to expand...

Why is the gel medium needed? Just spraying from a can into a cup yields some ready-to-use touch-up paint.

One other question: I asked this in another thread, but no bites yet: did you use Micro-Set and/or Micro-Sol with your decals?

WoW! - that looks fantastic!

neil_w said:

That is looking fantastic.


Why is the gel medium needed? Just spraying from a can into a cup yields some ready-to-use touch-up paint.

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Thanks,

Maybe not.
But I think I tried that before and it went on gloppy and dried too fast. With the gel, it made a nice creamy paint paint. Stayed wet for a good long time too.

I have no idea what microsol is

EDIT: it was acrylic spray paint, which is what made me me think of the gel.

/clear gel medium was Bob Ross' 'secret' for the wet-on-wet technique.

Boy taking (good) pictures of rockets is hard.


(not actually flying)

BTW: Ground tests of the rear deployment system are complete! (today) and were successful!!

video soon.

BM, This is one awesome looking bird... very creative on the design and decal theme. Loving this thread!

Whatever the flight success might turn out to be, you have successfully built a good looker.

Beautiful build! It looks amazing!

Hi guys, I'm back.

Video of the ground tests has been processed. Of course I filmed it at 4k, 60 fps, so I had to scale it down for the web.
And sorry but I'm not joining a video website just to embed vids here so you can DL them from my site.

https://benmargolis.com/TRF/Cydonia Ground Test 1.avi
https://benmargolis.com/TRF/Cydonia Ground Test 2.avi

Here's the best sequence of stills:









I thought the ejection charge was going to be a "pop" like a firecracker, but no, its a lengthy retrograde burn!

Brainlord Mesomorph said:

Video of the ground tests has been processed. Of course I filmed it at 4k, 60 fps, so I had to scale it down for the web.
And sorry but I'm not joining a video website just to embed vids here so you can DL them from my site.

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Looks excellent. Next time consider a slow-mo mode if your camera supports it. Frame rate is more important than resolution for this sort of thing.

I am now officially awaiting flight report and video. I was an early doubter of the stability of this design but it came out beautiful and I'm rooting for it.

So while it is now officially "cleared for flight" I probably won't be doing a flight test until September.

I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but in south Florida, its just too damn hot. I'll spend the next month or two indoors, building rockets and working on my launch controller.

Brainlord Mesomorph said:

I don't know what the weather is like where you are

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Less hot than south Florida.