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Painters Block
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djdood
Commodore


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 3412
Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm in the same boat, as the weather's gone wet and cold (and it will stay that way until June).

I've looked into buying a spray booth, and it's looking likely that it will end up being something I do sooner rather than later (probably a X-mas present to myself). The good small ones seem to run around $250-ish, but they have the filter screens, blower fan, etc.

I'm lucky in that the previous owners of my house had cut a cat-door into the outside wall in the room I use as my "playroom". I can run the exhaust from a spray booth out through it, no problems.

Not an investment for someone who isn't serious about painting, but if you have "about a hundred minis" I'd say you're serious. I have about the same amount and it dawned on me recently that this is a hobby that I'm not going to walk away from. I might even start working plastic model kits and scratch-building those again as well, and the spray booth would be good for that too.
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Scoutdad
Commodore


Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 4754
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

toastie wrote:
The base coat on the Feds and Romulans did not come out even. I'm having a tough time getting light base colors to come out right. I used a white primer so the Kzin came out a bit brighter than the standard 'brick red' you normally see. I sorta like it, so I might stick with it, but haven't decided yet.
\

Just my opinion, but I have 4 flavors of primer and they get used regularly:
White primer - used for all Feds, all Romulans, and some (cat-patterned) Lyrans
Red Oxide primer - Used for Kzinti's only (and ships captured by Kzinti)
Black Primer - used for Orions, Tholians (metallics, like Copper look really great over a black base), and some bases
Gray Primer - used for pretty much everything else.

YMMV Smile
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Scoutdad
Commodore


Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 4754
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PaulK wrote:
I'm currently painting up some Feds and Romulans myself. The first Fed frigate I did turned out well (brush painted) but the heavy cruiser started to look like a big white blob of snowman poo. I ended up breaking out the airbrush and things have worked out much better. From what I've been able to tell, SFU ships are almost made to be airbrushed (at least for the base coat).

To the topic at hand, I routinely suffer from painters' block. I end up getting to the 80% point and just get all "blah" about painting on a particular figure any more. When that happens I typically pull some "virgin metal" out and do all the cleanup, filing, and such.

Cheers!

/Paul

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Scoutdad
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 4754
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

toastie wrote:
I guess I need to find my old airbrush then, and it is time to invest in a compressor. But before that, I've got about a hundred minis that need to be primed. Any suggestion on how to apply spray primer indoors without asphyxiating myself, or should I just give up for the season?


I just take mine out to the garage and prime them there. If you don't have a garage you can use -then maybe ou could prime 5 or 6 at a time and then maybe you wouldn't get a build-up of fumes?

When we were renting an apartment several years ago, I bought a small window fan from Wal-mart (the kind that fits inside the partially open window and has extending panels to fill in the gaps at the side of the window). On relatively, not-so-cold days - I'd put the fan in the window (blowing out), set-up a small table near the window, and prime away. Most of the fumes seemed to go straight out the window.

This may work for you?
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djdood
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Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 3412
Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hopefully that could work for toastie. I know my wife would still take issue with even the latent solvent smell that would hang around. I tried the garage thing once... ended up having to buy a dinner out the next night.
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toastie
Lieutenant SG


Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 120

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No garage. The one room I could possibly use is the basement, which contains the furnace and the hot water heater, both of which are gas. I'm a bit concerned about fumes and the pilot lights. There is one window, but I know I'd have to rig up a vent and blower. I've seen a few plans out there on the internet for home made spray booths.
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PaulK
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Joined: 30 Oct 2007
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd recommend against priming indoors. I'd definitely recommend not doing it near gas appliances. Depending on what the weather is like, I've had okay results priming when it's fairly cold (as long as it's not too humid).

I found that I have better results when the figure and primer are about the same temperature. Try priming no more than two or three figures at a time (all at the same time) then go back inside quickly for them to dry.

You may want to test this out. Keep in mind, I live in north Texas, so cold is relative. Personally I have a much harder time priming stuff in the middle of summer, as it gets too hot, and coupled with the humidity, the primer looks like garbage.

If push comes to shove, you could always use a brush-on primer. Vallejo's Game Color line white primer is pretty good.

Good luck.

/Paul
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toastie
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Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 120

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm in Illinois, but I lived in the Dallas area, and cold there isn't quite like cold here. Of course, here isn't like North Dakota, either. Based on some designs I've seen on the web, I may setup a small booth with exhaust fan, and test it with something relatively harmless, like cheap perfume.

How well does the brush primer go on without showing brush strokes?
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PaulK
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Joined: 30 Oct 2007
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The primer does okay. I've only used it on humanoid figures, not space ships and the like. With a good solid base coat of paint, it doesn't really matter all that much. The main purpose of the primer is just to give the paint something better to stick to than metal.

You still may be able to spray prime some stuff, even up in the frozen land of the North. Just do it in very small batches on nice days out of the wind. You may want to to a test piece on a figure that you're not too emotionally attached to, just in case, though.

/Paul
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Garth of Izar
Ensign


Joined: 14 Nov 2007
Posts: 1
Location: Columbia, Maryland

PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:05 pm    Post subject: Re: Painters Block Reply with quote

Scoutdad wrote:
Has anyone else ever experienced this?

Yes. In fact, I haven't really painted anything in years. I've half-painted a few things, but the last thing I actually finished was... nope, I can't even remember.

But I feel like painting... I feel like creating something... something fun to look at... I feel like painting a starship! And putting some decals on it!

Good decals? Scoutdad, where do you get yours? From this guy?
http://www.starfighter-decals.com/
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Scoutdad
Commodore


Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 4754
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes. Most of them come from Mark Tutton "Starfighter Ace".

Some of them have been salvaged from other minitures or model kits (although it's had to find decals from 1:24 scale cars that fleet the Starline 2400 minis Shocked ).
Some of them have also been created by myself of other miniature hobbists and printed out on decal paper.

Unfortunately, non of us have a white ink capable ALPS printer, so anything that doesn't look right on a clear decal sheet gets printed my Mark.

His decals are top-notch, and very affordable too. His Federation decal sheets (for example) have decals for all of the fiddly-little bitz that I like to paint, but really don't have to any longer.

Mark has decals for sensors, phaser banks, torpedo ports, windows, shuttle hatches, cargo bays, warp cooling vanes, impulse radiators, impulse engine vents, drone racks... and of course the big things - names, numbers, hull pennants, saucer trim, etc.

If you used all of the decals on a single, Heavy Cruiser sheet - you'd have to base coat your mini, paint the warp nacelles orange, the warp radiators blue, and the warp endcaps gray. I think the rest could be done with decals alone.
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djdood
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Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 3412
Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You forgot "paint the sensor dish copper" Tony Wink

But, yeah, Mark's decals are pretty all-inclusive.
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Scoutdad
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 4754
Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

djdood wrote:
You forgot "paint the sensor dish copper" Tony Wink

But, yeah, Mark's decals are pretty all-inclusive.


Wait a minute...y are you saying the sensor dishes aren't painted "Federation White"? Shocked I guess I've been doing it incorrectly all these years by painting them gold. Now I have to strip the whole Federation Fleet and redo it with copper sensor dishes and not antique gold ones... man... and all this while suffering from painters block. Cool
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toastie
Lieutenant SG


Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 120

PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

djdood wrote:
You forgot "paint the sensor dish copper" Tony Wink

But, yeah, Mark's decals are pretty all-inclusive.


You know, I used to think that decals were 'cheating'. Then I I see how good they look, and plan to order some, or maybe try to print my own...
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Scoutdad
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
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Location: Middle Tennessee

PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

toastie wrote:
You know, I used to think that decals were 'cheating'. Then I I see how good they look, and plan to order some, or maybe try to print my own...


Honestly, that's the reason I haven't used any decals but the saucer rings and hull names / numbers. But now that I have nearly a hundred or so Fed ships painted w/o using the decals for the little bits... I have to continue "not using" them, so everything is the same.

If I had them all to do over again, none of thee items that decals are available for would be painted... they would all be decaled.

Wait a minute, I'm getting ready to strip and repaint them all to correct the sensor dish color aren't I? Sad

I wonder if Mark would give me a bulk discount of purchasing Federation decals? Wink
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