Yeah, me too. I didn't know there was progress until Neil posted a link here in his other active build thread.
Build thread: NewWay Angled Invader
- Thread starter neil_w
- Start date
Help Support The Rocketry Forum:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Huh, I had no idea it was possible to primer and paint in the same day! I treated the primer like just another coat of paint. (wait, wait, wait....) That's a significant time savings....
Same here!
It only ever occurred to me to try it because I asked the good folks at Rustoleum, and they said it was fine. When you think about it, it makes complete sense.
With the Rusto 2x paint I have mostly given up primer (other than filler/primer) except when I need a particular color undercoat, e.g. for yellow and red topcoats. Rather than sand the primer layer, I get better final results if I sand the topcoat, and then add one more coat to it at the end. That is how I've achieved my absolute best paint jobs. So, when I'm so inclined (which is not usually), I have to do only one light sanding job. But I generally don't bother with this unless the finish is really sub-par. The black coat on this rocket could probably use it, but I'm not going to.
If you're using Tamiya spray cans you can colour coat over primer in ~15 minutes. Each subsequent coat likewise ~15 minutes apart.
Yes, it costs a kidney and change per can but the reduction in paint time is amazing.
Same with Duplicolor. Multiple colors and clear in the same day. Combine that with SEM high build and you can primer, paint and clear in an afternoon.
Can you mask on the same day to do multiple colors (he asked, expecting the answer "no").
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 11,627
- Reaction score
- 6,266
a piece of this cut to fit might come close to your color and protect the plastic tip from recovery rash.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Warrior...yl-Electrical-Tape-Yellow-WW-722-YL/310429641
Well, it looks like my pod masking strategy worked:
Absolutely no spray seeped in. It did leave a bit of a paint dam, which I'll probably try to knock down a bit, and I'll need to run a touch-up brush around the edge of the tubes, which I anticipated and should be no problem.
Overall pleased. Rocket is still in the shed drying. I probably will bring it back in this weekend, after a full week.
Absolutely no spray seeped in. It did leave a bit of a paint dam, which I'll probably try to knock down a bit, and I'll need to run a touch-up brush around the edge of the tubes, which I anticipated and should be no problem.
Overall pleased. Rocket is still in the shed drying. I probably will bring it back in this weekend, after a full week.
Paint Conclusion
Brought it in from the shed and had a closer look. The yellow actually came out pretty good overall, the black not so much. Mostly it is the result of needing to do a million extra aimed quick sprays to get into all the nooks and crannies. I haven't really found any sort of good solution for this with rattle cans. An airbrush would go a long way towards solving it. The paint looks better in the picture than in real life; in particular there are lots of little surface bumps. It'll be fine.
First thing, before decals can get started, is to touch up the pods. The previous post shows what they look like after unmasking:
I knocked down the paint dams a bit with some 800-grit paper, and then got out my beloved Testor's touch-up sponges...
...and ran them around the edge with black Vallejo paint:
The sponges are the only way to go for this kind of work; brushes would make a mess for sure. In just a couple of places I got careless and the paint intruded on the inside of the pods:
I can live with that. Certainly not worth the effort to try to fix.
She is now ready for decals.
Brought it in from the shed and had a closer look. The yellow actually came out pretty good overall, the black not so much. Mostly it is the result of needing to do a million extra aimed quick sprays to get into all the nooks and crannies. I haven't really found any sort of good solution for this with rattle cans. An airbrush would go a long way towards solving it. The paint looks better in the picture than in real life; in particular there are lots of little surface bumps. It'll be fine.
First thing, before decals can get started, is to touch up the pods. The previous post shows what they look like after unmasking:
I knocked down the paint dams a bit with some 800-grit paper, and then got out my beloved Testor's touch-up sponges...
...and ran them around the edge with black Vallejo paint:
The sponges are the only way to go for this kind of work; brushes would make a mess for sure. In just a couple of places I got careless and the paint intruded on the inside of the pods:
I can live with that. Certainly not worth the effort to try to fix.
She is now ready for decals.
Decals, part 1
The decal sheet is small but interesting. And if you've ever been curious about Ghost Toner here's your chance to see it in action. These are laser-printed on clear decal paper, with Ghost Toner used for the white parts:
The big decal is up first. It mounts on top and wraps around the sides:
It turned out to be straightforward. The decal paper is very well-behaved, easy to work with. Normally I like to trim decals as close to the design as possible, but with that one there was only so much I could do.
Then I put the side, um, "logo" on. After double-checking the instructions about a hundred times to check orientation, I *still* put it on upside down:
Fortunately, no one will know the difference in this case.
The stripes decals was a bit more challenging, mainly in getting both straight and conforming to the contours of the body tube. Micro-sol will hopefully convince the decal to lay down into the inside corner.
And finally, here is the completed top side of the rocket, just before Micro-sol was applied to everything:
As I have noted in the past regarding laser decals, the black areas don't match up well with gloss paint because they are very matte. You can see this clear at the seam between the large decal and the black paint behind it. This can mostly remedied with a sufficient amount of gloss coat applied to the decal. There is a lot of Future in my future. We'll see how it looks when it's done.
Done for the night.
The decal sheet is small but interesting. And if you've ever been curious about Ghost Toner here's your chance to see it in action. These are laser-printed on clear decal paper, with Ghost Toner used for the white parts:
The big decal is up first. It mounts on top and wraps around the sides:
It turned out to be straightforward. The decal paper is very well-behaved, easy to work with. Normally I like to trim decals as close to the design as possible, but with that one there was only so much I could do.
Then I put the side, um, "logo" on. After double-checking the instructions about a hundred times to check orientation, I *still* put it on upside down:
Fortunately, no one will know the difference in this case.
The stripes decals was a bit more challenging, mainly in getting both straight and conforming to the contours of the body tube. Micro-sol will hopefully convince the decal to lay down into the inside corner.
And finally, here is the completed top side of the rocket, just before Micro-sol was applied to everything:
As I have noted in the past regarding laser decals, the black areas don't match up well with gloss paint because they are very matte. You can see this clear at the seam between the large decal and the black paint behind it. This can mostly remedied with a sufficient amount of gloss coat applied to the decal. There is a lot of Future in my future. We'll see how it looks when it's done.
Done for the night.
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 11,627
- Reaction score
- 6,266
Looks good to me. What’s the weight?
Wow, those sponges. I've got to remember that. Those are new to me.
lakeroadster
When in doubt... build hell-for-stout!
Agreed. Who Knew? I think we all are sponge worthy.
@neil_w those orange outrigger pods are awesome. I'm not a kit guy, but I must admit I'm looking forward to the launch report on this bird.
It's fun to build a kit once in a while where you don't have to do a lot of hard thinking, you just turn your brain off (well, mostly) and build. This kit has plenty of interesting tasks in it, definitely recommended.
The original Alien Invader is also a classic, designed by the incomparable Wayne Kellner.
And yeah, that cheap fluorescent orange craft paint really came out great.
Neil.
Saw them in Michael’s one day, figured I’d give them a try.
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 11,627
- Reaction score
- 6,266
Now I am sooo glad Neil’s parents didn’t name him Bob.
So, after a bunch of Future-ing, the top decal looks like this:
I got it glossed up good, but realized the the *real* problem is that the black in the decal is simply not very opaque, and there is yellow showing through. This is also true of the white areas, but since I'm not trying to match any white paint it's less of an issue.
I think the lack of opacity in the decals is my only real complaint with this kit. The finished model could look a lot better with better decals. However, I do sympathize regarding the difficulty of producing high-quality decals while managing cost. It's a tough problem for small vendors.
I got it glossed up good, but realized the the *real* problem is that the black in the decal is simply not very opaque, and there is yellow showing through. This is also true of the white areas, but since I'm not trying to match any white paint it's less of an issue.
I think the lack of opacity in the decals is my only real complaint with this kit. The finished model could look a lot better with better decals. However, I do sympathize regarding the difficulty of producing high-quality decals while managing cost. It's a tough problem for small vendors.
Beauty Shots
This build isn't actually done (recovery assembly still to come), but the exterior is finished and so it's time for beauty shots. This is a pretty cool model.
Oops, the exterior is not quite done... still need to hand-paint the tail end of the motor mount black.
This build isn't actually done (recovery assembly still to come), but the exterior is finished and so it's time for beauty shots. This is a pretty cool model.
Oops, the exterior is not quite done... still need to hand-paint the tail end of the motor mount black.
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 11,627
- Reaction score
- 6,266
Looks great! The internal orange in the outboard “motors” (“jets”?) really adds a lot.
Are you sure about white? The same orange as the pod interiors would look good there too. (And it would be dirtied by engine exhaust, but that's because this is a hard working space ship.)
LOL, when was the last time I was sure about anything with regard to finishing?
I had the same thought, the third beauty shot really shows those off well. Very nice.
I can't claim any originality here, the orange internals are recommended by the instructions, and hark back to the original Estes kit. Bright-colored pod internals are almost always a great touch. See also: pretty much every Kraken build.
However, I *can* take credit for the fluorescent orange craft paint regimen I followed, which is way more striking than plain old orange paint would have been.
how did you take such great photos?
Simple: I take mediocre photos and then make them look good in a photo editor.
After years of struggling to take genuinely good photos of rockets in my basement I eventually gave up and decided to just "fix it in post". For example, here are two of the original photos of this rocket, before any editing:
After cropping on my phone (don't know why I do it there but it's easy enough), I load the photos into Pixelmator Pro on the Mac and do the following:
1) Use the "select subject" to select the rocket. This generally does a decent job (particularly for the photos on white-ish background) but still needs a lot of cleanup.
2) Clean up the selection so only the rocket, as precisely as reasonably possible, is selected.
3) Invert the selection and delete the background. Now I just have the rocket on a transparent background.
4) Add a very diffuse drop-shadow to the rocket layer.
5) Add a white background on another layer underneath.
6) ?
7) Profit!
I am the opposite of a sophisticated photo editor but I've gotten pretty good at this process, taking about 5-10 minutes per photo, sometimes quicker if the initial selection is good. I don't mind spending that to create the photos at the end of a build. This way the rocket itself is highlighted, without the distractions from my crappy backgrounds.
Most other photo editors could probably do the same exact thing, just as easily (or maybe more so). MS Paint would be a no-go, and even Paint.net would be tougher sledding due to lack of the extremely time-saving "select subject" function.
lakeroadster
When in doubt... build hell-for-stout!
So it's CGI... Blasphemy!
I'm impressed that "subject select" can work well enough with so much background (like the photo on the left). Or did that take a lot of manual cleanup?
That one took a lot of cleanup in some areas... but it did pretty well on the left side and several other areas. Cleanup is still a lot easier then doing the whole selection from scratch.
Similar threads
