Starfury - First shot at weathering

The building instructions for the Starfury also contains a section on suggested weathering techniques. Bascially, you hold an index card against a panel line and lightly spray against it. Remove the card et voila!

I gave it a first shot (on the underside of the model), but the paint I chose (US grey) was way to dark in contrast to the basecoat (light grey). I kept working, just to get the hang of it. it was also the first time I tried the slightly finer nozzle (the black one) on my Aztek airbrush.

I'm going to go over it again with the basecoat and make the second attempt a lot more subtle, e.g. by mixing the colour I used in the first attempt 50/50 with the basecoat.

Just one problem : in order to have more control over the amount of colour you add to the model, it is suggested to heavily thin your paint. I did that, with a generous amount of the Vallejo thinner. Problem was that the paint was then too runny and created spiders on the model.
Do I need something else to thin the paint without making it run, add acrylic medium or something transparent like varnish or do I just need finer airbrush control? (suggestions welcome)

Starfury - Priming

The Starfury has been on hold for far too long, so I started priming it this week. The body is primed in grey, the rear thrusters and associated fins primed in black.

I handpainted the thruster nozzles and recessed details on the fins with silver. The idea was to lightly "mist" the basecoat over this, so the thrusters would be darker than the body and the silver effect would shine through in the details.

I see the term "misting" often enough, in several methods. The idea is to spray a heavily diluted paint over the entire body, covering it with the tiniest possible layer of paint, so everything is still it's original colour, but somewhat toned down.

1. After a three-tone camouflage, to blend the colours and soften the contrast. 
2. After you've pre-shaded the panel lines and other details, the base coat needs to be very thin, so the pre-shading can shine through. 

Alas, my first attempt at "misting" paint was not what I had hoped. The paint-droplets intended as mist were way too big to even suggest the idea of light coverage, so all I could do was spray it all up in one fully covering coat of grey.
I'll have to practice some more on getting the paint to the right consistency. Its difficult enough to spray normally sometimes, so this is going to be a challenge.

Starfury - Which sheet shall I take?

The Enterprise and the Mustang are slowly getting there. The M60 is somehow not managing to draw my attention, even though it only needs some final black and white camo spots.  Progress is slow as I can't spend as much time at the workbench as I'd like, but slow progress is progress nonetheless.

Tonight, I felt like some simple and straightforward construction. I admit it, I like the smell of glue. The Starfury caught my eye and it's about time we do something about this one.

The fit for the inner wings isn't perfect, but this model was never gonna be my masterpiece. It's a shame to let it sit unfinished, so instead of worrying about seamlines that are neigh unreachable or other imperfections, I'm just gonna finish it up as is.

Time to show off my new set of clamps :

And now for the hardest part : which decal scheme will I choose? There are 6 options! I already decided NOT to go for Sheridan's tiger. I'm currently leaning toward the Delta 7 (the green one).

Babylon 5 : Starfury

One of my works in progress is a Starfury Mk1 from the Sci-Fi show "Babylon 5". The model was partly assembled, but then discontinued.

The fit of most parts is terrible and requires heavy use of putty and sanding. This is the first time I'm using putty, but as you can see on the pictures, a lot of it is needed to fill all the gaps. (The instructions even suggest where you should use it)
Some of the gaps are difficult to sand, teaching me to do this one step at a time and not wait until it's almost fully assembled.