# WIP: PolarLights1/350 TMP Refit



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

*PolarLights 1/350 TMP Refit ... DONE!*

I thought I share this with you guys too since not everyone of you hops over to StarshipModeler.

Two days ago I finished major construction work on my 1/350 Refit, the last big step being the installation of the saucer to the dorsal. 
Always a delicate thing to do. Will it hold? Won't it sag? So far it held firmly for about 48h so I think it will be a-ok. 

The model features practical flood light effects. No Raytheon effect involved. The lighting system is my own, born mostly out of try and error and getting hints of how others did it. 
The positioning lights and ACL strops are realized by optical fibers, but are not working yet; the impulse generating electronics still pending their construction. 

The model has custom made REC-deck and TMP "Spock space walk" air lock, VIP-lounge, Hangarbay and Arboretum are very detailed wihtout the use of after marked kits. 
The dorsal / saucer connection, as well as the dorsal / impulse engine area is being reworked to get rid of light leaks right now. 
So far only the inner warp grills have gotten their final color (purple) and the ship hull is a mere semi gloss white. 

And that is what she looks like: 










































































continued...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Some daylight shots of the ship of the same day:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

The Interior sets: 


*REC-deck: *



















*VIP-lounge: *



























*Arboretum: *


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

*Hangarbay: *



































*TMP air lock *




































For the interested on how things were done:
A complete buildup up to this state of construction can be found at StarhipModeler.


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

It's ... so ... beautiful ...


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## Carl_G (Jun 30, 2012)

Astonishingly gorgeous!

What's a Raytheon effect though?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks on the feedback. 



Carl_G said:


> What's a Raytheon effect though?


It is an internal lighting effect that simulates the Refits spot light effects. The method was used to astonishing effect by Ian "Raytheon" Lawrence on his first PL 1/350 Refit. 

You can find his first build here: http://www.ianlawrencemodels.com/wipplent4.html

The concept is to leave appropriate shapes un masked when you do the internal light block and later from the outside at same shape and location. Applying a light source on the inside will make the light shine through the plastic creating the spot effect.

The Problem with the method is that the spots can have a yellowish color from shining through the plastic. Depending on the plastic used. You are screwed with using the Raytheon effect if your kit is a grey mold, meaning made of grey plastic. 

Another problem is, that most Refit builder use practical spot lights at the base of the warp pylons and dorsal/neck. The mix in practical and "faked" spot effects is noticeable. 

It is however a very good method to get the onscreen spot effect, since not all of them are possible to recreate in the real world. Like the ones on the inside aft ends of the warp nacelles. The lower and top saucer spots are also very hard to do. I went to a lot of work to get them the way they show up now.


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

*faints*


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## hubert (May 3, 2008)

Absolutely gorgeous work. 

Did you make the detailed work yourself (bottom saucer loading dock thingy)?

And as nice as your modeling work, I LOVE that digital cameras have progressed enough today to provide the lights out look you've captured. It looks like camera test shots for a movie.

Beautiful!


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## JGG1701 (Nov 9, 2004)

hubert said:


> Absolutely gorgeous work........
> It looks like camera test shots for a movie.
> 
> Beautiful!


I will have to agree on that.
Beautiful looking build.:thumbsup:
-Jim


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

hubert said:


> Did you make the detailed work yourself (bottom saucer loading dock thingy)?


Yes, the air lock was a scratch build done by me. Here is a photo survey on how I did it:









I used this early Phase II / TMP production picture as a guide. 
You can tell it's early since its before Andrew Probert goT to it, because of the TOS style planetary sensor dome. 

















I opened an appropriate hole at the port side hatch location. Than created a fitting hatch cover. 










Styrene sheet is used for the air lock walls and cut to conform to the saucer curvature. 
A slit on either side to receive 1mm clear styrene as a light element. Then glued in to place.









More strip styrene to form the air lock wall, with a 6mm hole covered by engraved styrene to simulate the hatch door. 
Same engraved styrene used for the ceiling. 

















A trapezoid shape was created out of ever green strips and various Greeplies added to the ceiling to make it busier. 
Then masked everything except for the hatch and primed in grey, which is its true color.

Final look after mask removal and lit:


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

In the immortal words of Han, your skill is extra-ordinary!


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## hubert (May 3, 2008)

Wow...

Thanks for posting the additional photos; I love your attention to detail. 

Keep up the great work!


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## 1701ALover (Apr 29, 2004)

Garbaron said:


> Yes, the air lock was a scratch build done by me. Here is a photo survey on how I did it:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How do you keep the hatch cover in place when it's not displayed as open? Magnets?


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

Amazing work!! 

Thank you Sir, for the inspiring pictures. :thumbsup:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

1701ALover said:


> How do you keep the hatch cover in place when it's not displayed as open? Magnets?


That was my initial plan, some metal at the back of the cover and a magnet somewhere next to the air lock structure on the inside of the saucer. But wouldn't you know. I made that cover fit so precisely into the hatch opening that it just stays in place without any help. I need a needle or use the tip of my exacto to get it out again.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Nice build, G! :thumbsup:


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Nice job on the hatch!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Finaly an Update here too. 

Lots of work since my initial post, or in other words, pre Aztec paint job is done. 
All colors used are based on what you can see on the color Pictures of the Ent-A and some extrapolation 
what they might have looked like before ILM dull coated her down. Some areas, like the lower half of the 
forward secondary hull and most of the deflector housing are the original TMP color. Back paddling form 
there I created the lightbluegray tones of the strongback. Feel free to visit my photobucket album for 
pictures of the color coding I did using TMP/A reference pictures and comparison shots with my colors to them. 

I know am not exactly accurate and don't meet some expatiation with the colors. After all there are lots 
of Refits using the PL or aftermarket decals for the Aztec and that has created an expectation on what 
"it has to look like". But those Aztec colors are PL and after market providers view of the colors, this is 
what I interpreted and extracted from the excising reference pictures of the studio model. 
And that is what I wanted a studio model look! NOT an onscreen look. Please keep that in mind. 

Ok, on we go: 

Strongback and main deflector housing:

























Dorsal:









Bridge and B/C deck area 

















I found a new color and am working on trying to get a more correct mintbluegray color for the bridge area. If it works I will repaint the bridge area, if it doesn't ti stays as is.

continued...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Impulse engine and impulse crystal:
























(DLMs supplied decals have been used since they feature not as prominent grid lines as the kits or PNT decals )

With this finally done the major detail paint work is finished! 
I will order the necessary interference colors to do the pearl Aztec the next few days. 
In the time those need to get to me I will do fix up work with the primary white where necessary 
since there are still some jagged lines and signs of handling her while painting that need to go. 

continued...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

To close it up ...

"Thank you Mr Scott"






























"Maneuvering thrusters on station keeping!" 





























continued...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

"Take her out"








































"Warp Six Keptin!" 












That's it for now


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## btbrush (Sep 20, 2010)

Just like Star Trek 2 : The Wrath of Khan showed what the Enterprise could do in the right hands, this shows what the Enterprise model looks like if the right person works on her. Absolutely beautiful work.


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## JediPuju (Oct 12, 2009)

sensational and very inspiring work. Id love some more info on how you did the spotlight effects. Was this achieved though angling LEDs?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Basically, yes.

The pylon spots (inside and out) are 3mm LEDs mounted to 3mm acrylic rods via shrink tubing. 
I did not want to mount 3mm LEDs directly since this would have illuminated most of the inner nacelles and looks wrong. 
You can see the shrink tube, all smeared up with putty to close light leaks, in this picture: 











The dorsal spots are shorter versions of 5mm LEDs that are mounted to a 5mm styrene rod half covered with plastic 
sheet to not light up most of the rear saucer. 











The lower and upper saucer spots are a pair of SMD LEDs 










For the lower spot the SMD pair sits right behind and little backwards form the forward senor opening. 
You can hardly make it out when looking in. To form the spot light in to shape a brass shutter is glued to the opening. 


















If you don't add a shutter, the flood light will light up almost the entire forward half of the saucer. 











The bridge flood needs some extra tooling. You need to raise the bridge dome about 2-3mm and relocate 
the bridge forward about 2mm as well. You also need to sand down that raised detail surrounding the bridge. 
The SMD pairs sits behind and a little upwards from the spot opening.


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## Warped9 (Sep 12, 2003)

I just took one look of these images then fainted dead away. Awesome! :thumbsup:


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## JediPuju (Oct 12, 2009)

Many thanks for the detailed info! Might be time to blow the dust off the 1/350 box soon .....


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Ever see that dude in Scanners? It almost happened to me when I saw those shots above...:freak:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

[@ NemVia, hope you don't mind me using one of your pictures]


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## MLCrisis32 (Oct 11, 2011)

Chrisisall said:


> Ever see that dude in Scanners? It almost happened to me when I saw those shots above...:freak:


Wow exactly! This thread is inspiring me to build one while simultaneously scaring me away from attempting one.


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

MLCrisis32 said:


> Wow exactly! This thread is inspiring me to build one while simultaneously scaring me away from attempting one.


I have a STV E waiting in a box, I think I'll make it the battle damaged E from III so if I screw it up, I can cover by saying it's Khan's fault!:thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Update:

I am at the process to try to recreate the TMP Aztec paint job. Jason (Galaxy_Jason) did some tremendous research on the subject when he did his scratch build Ent-A and created color panel "road maps" for the saucer, torpedo bay and secondary hull. This is for the secondary hull. 









Top left upper most panel corresponds to the top left deflector grid section housing the three elongated view ports. The underlying matrix raster roughly translates to 3 mm by 6mm squares individually. This also corresponds to the Aztec matrix templates created by Arthur Pendragon at StarshipModeler. 

To get the Aztec effect work you need interference colors that only show their true color when viewed at a certain angel but are transparent when looked at straight on. This effect can NOT be done with pearl color! Those shimmer iridescently but stay a solid color regardless of your viewing angle. The color of choice are PearlEX interference powder colors.









(left to right: red, green, blue and gold) 

To allow for an even dosage when finding the correct powder ratio I cut a lead pens rubber cap in halve and glued it to a styrene tube. The interference powder will be mixed in to Revell acrylic clear coat. 










Through testing I found that a ration of 9 of these crucibles (it holds roughly 0.4 - 0.6ml) in one standard tube of acrylic clear is sufficient to recreate the Azetc colors intensity.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

With all the above sorted out I used Jasons "road map" to mask off the blue areas using 3 - and 6 mm masking tape. 










Blue interference was sprayed one with the airbrush and left to dry for 24 hours. After mask removal the gold areas where masked off. 










Gold interference was again sprayed on with the AB and left alone for 24h. Since the red and green components are much less prominent than the blue and gold ones I opted to remove all masking and went on to mask off panels that would either be red or green individually. It's less time consuming than to mask off the entire side, and also negates the problem of lifting off previous Aztec colors when removing the masking tape. 

The results so far 

Blue and gold applied

















Red and green added

















A nice shot of how the added paneling breaks up the otherwise dull surface









Overall contrast of the Aztec to the rest of the ship









Edit: I can't stress enough how hard it is to get a good shot of the colors to shine! 
You need a hard light source and the correct angel to get the colors to show up in their highest intensity. 
It's really hard to photograph. The colors are in general very subtle, you can guess by the shot that shows 
the ship in total. If you look at the hull and move forward towards the light you can see how the ships 
surface keeps changing color. Like Olsen said "looked like a diamond", ever changing colors. 

The "off color", or how I call it "complementary mode", flips the colors to their complimentary: 
red becomes greenish, green becomes reddish, gold light gray/ cyan and blue turns in to a kind of antic white / yellowish white. 
Keep that in mind when you paint your ship.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Very impressive! I admire anyone who tackles this paint job.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Garbaron said:


> The color of choice are PearlEX interference powder colors.
> 
> To allow for an even dosage when finding the correct powder ratio I cut a lead pens rubber cap in halve and glued it to a styrene tube. The interference powder will be mixed in to Revell acrylic clear coat.
> 
> Through testing I found that a ration of 9 of these crucibles (roughly 2-3ml) in one standard tube of acrylic clear is sufficient to recreate the Azetc colors intensity.


Good, practical information. Thanks! :thumbsup:

... one question, though: what's the volume of a standard tube of acrylic clear? We might not have that on this side of the pond.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

SteveR said:


> Good, practical information. Thanks! :thumbsup:
> 
> ... one question, though: what's the volume of a standard tube of acrylic clear? We might not have that on this side of the pond.


Its says 18ml on the side of the clear acrylic. 
But you would need to test it.
Everyone has a different idea on how strong the colors should be.

Edit: I need to correct myself. 
I just tested it out and the crucible I use to get a constant powder dosage holds about 0.5 - 0.6ml. 

*So that's a total of 5.4ml powder in 18ml clear acrylic.*


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Garbaron said:


> *So that's a total of 5.4ml powder in 18ml clear acrylic.*


Thanks again -- that gives me a starting point. :thumbsup:


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## JediPuju (Oct 12, 2009)

looking good - will you be able to lightly sand out the raised edges of each paint stage?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

JediPuju said:


> looking good - will you be able to lightly sand out the raised edges of each paint stage?


I have already done that after I had added the last missing green and red panels. 

This is the forward section before and after wet sanding. 
















(dont worry color intensity is the same, light conditions are different)


The ship in her (almost) "white" state


















and her complementary mode










I also made a comparison to one of the B&W TMP pictures










I think its pretty close


A short video of the Aztec effect, although I don't think it shows very much. 

(click the picture it will open the video)

It's really hard to capture without special light setup. I don't know how Trekmodeler made it show so good in his videos. 
But I guess he used more of the interference color than me, therefore his colors are more intense.


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Garbaron said:


> It's really hard to capture without special light setup. I don't know how Trekmodeler made it show so good in his videos.
> But I guess he used more of the interference color than me, therefore his colors are more intense.


That's the way it is supposed to look. One thought I had, I noticed that the base coat is a bit orange peal. 
I wet sanded mine to a semi-gloss before applying the pearl. 

But again the affect is subtle until you hit it with a spotlight. 

Note that on mine and the original, you don't see much pearl, only the gold..

http://galaxyphoto.com/ent/approach_final.jpg

Now, hit it with a flash in a dark room...

http://galaxyphoto.com/ent/final/top_bot_lighted_final_med.jpg

boom.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Nope, there is no peal on the base coat. It may appear uneven because I sanded over the surface where some color had gotten during the strongback work, thus the shine of the surface is not even. 

The Aztec is the same on mine, gold shows the most, blue second and red and green the least. I just tried the "flash in a dark room" thing and yes it comes out. But it also proved what I had suspected. It's hard to get on the secondary hull. Due to the curvature you can only get a fraction to shine. 

Also, how can you use a flash and the flood lights show up like they do in your full view pictures? Wouldn't the flash wash out the flood lights? Did you use a trick, like the focus stacking on your hangar bay pictures?


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I used a flood on some of my final pictures. The one
I showed in the post above was flash only.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

galaxy_jason said:


> Now, hit it with a flash in a dark room...
> 
> http://galaxyphoto.com/ent/final/top_bot_lighted_final_med.jpg


Did you leave the shutter open to let the ship's lights show up?


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Yes, about an 8 second exposure with the aperture stopped down and the flash power adjusted to give the right exposure on the hull. Don't remember the flash setting, maybe 1/10 or so.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

OK Guys, update time! 

After the side wall was done I turned my attention to the area above the hangar bay. 
There are not many pictures that show the details, neither color nor B&W. But from a 
publicity shot and a rear angel view of the TMP Refit I know it's a strip pattern. 
Here are both pictures combined.










If you followed my build so far you should be able to tell what colors are used: the dark thin strips are gold, the yellowish/brownish areas are blue. There are four distinct gray squares 
near the top center ridge, tow on either side. Those are golden too. You can also make out 
two darker areas, next to the strongback and about in the middle. There are about 14 "planks" 
separated by golden separation lines. 

Since I set up a 3 mm x 6mm matrix with the 6mm ones being the vertical elements, I used the 
6mm tape to create the "planks". I started off with a 6mm strip right where the strongback pattern 
ends, next to it 1mm masking tape and then alternating 6mm tape, 1mmm tape and so on, resulting 
in 10 individual "planks". If you want 14 you should probably use 4mm tape. I than removed the 1mm 
tape and brush painted 4-5 thin layers of gold on to the now unmasked 1mm strips. Let dry for about 
an hour and wet sanded to remove the masking ridges. Afterwards I masked three planks to paint 
them with the interference blue. Three because Jason has three blue strips and I liked the look of it  
The four gold rectangles was realized by using one of the various AztecDummy templates he offers 
for the secondary hull pattern. I removed the square and used the "hole" as a mask. 
You can see that particular mask here:










After another 1h curing time I wet sanded again and did touchups on the gold lines where the color had 
rubbed off a bit too much. Rinse and repeat on the other side and this is the result:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Next on the "to do" list was the upper belly section around the arboretum area. From pictures of the studio 
model we know there is a brick wall like pattern there, mostly vertical strips and horizontal separation lines 
to break it up. But the studio model is somewhat of a split persona when it comes to the color pattern. 
The port side shows a distinct alternating dark/light patteren:










The starboard side has only some random panels in a darker shade











Since the dark/light patterns can be seen on various pictures form different angels that's what I was going to do. 
First step to achieve this was to lay down the brick wall as to speak. For this I cut a lot (40, 60 ?) of 145mm 
sections off the 6mm tape, again staying within my defined matrix. The logical starting point would be at the 
front near the deflector, but it proved that the two kit parts deflector/secondary hull are not joined parallel 
to each other but at a slight angel. Thus when I started to lay down the pattern it quickly veered off course. 
So I looked for a better spot and found on: the deflector grid right in front of the docking port lines up perfectly 
with the one on the lower belly. I placed a 6mm tape at the deflector line and started to build my brick wall. 

30minutes in: 









About 2.5h later:








(bit blurry, sorry for that)

Than spay painted with the AB with two layers of gold. 
Since the Refit does not have such a strict brick wall pattern I randomly removed about 50% of the horizontal 
bars with the tip oy me Exacto knife. Acryl colors can be removed like that really well and don't leave a residue 
like enamel colors do.I let this dry over night, than did several wet sanding passed to remove the ridges. 
Afterwards, like on top of the hangar, I masked the individual "planks" that would become blue. If there was a 
gold separation line in the middle and/or horizontal bar, this was masked with 1mm tape. Following the reference 
picture as a guide on what would be light (white) or dark (blue) colored. Since all blue was a bit too monotone 
for my taste I decided to paint the strip at about midway in interference green.

Some drying and wet sanding later: 

























(shot at daylight)


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

(shot with flash)

Obligatory comparison to reference: 









And a short video of the Aztec effect "in motion" 

Click the picture to get to the video:


Next will be the lower belly pattern which is mostly strips in alternating color and width. 
BTW: You can tell that at some point Olsen and co had had enough. 
The lower belly has the most simplistic pattern of it all. 
The fantail... they did not even bother to "Aztec" it anymore.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Holy freakin' cow...!

That's amazing. I am awed by your patience and skill. :thumbsup:


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## harristotle (Aug 7, 2008)

This is simply amazing! I sit in awe... :thumbsup:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Update: lower secondary Aztec. 

I only have one picture where you can actually see some of the patterns 
of the lower hull: 










Noticeable in comparison to the pattern on the sides are that there are mostly lines of varying width, less squares and flash shapes. There are some but mostly lines. I wanted to try to capture this look for my Refit and also get some of the more prominent features like the brick pattern at the rear. As always: the darker lines are golden in color. That was my starting point. 
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures up until I was almost done. 

This is what the gold pattern mask looked like:









If this does not have an Aztec touch I don't know what else has ... 

After the masking was done I added two layers of interference gold with the AB, let it dry and removed the mask. After about an hour I did some wet sanding to get rid of the masking ridges. 

This is what the belly looked like before wet sanding.










At this point there was no real concept on how to proceed for the blue panels. I had already used most of the visible dark lines for the gold layer so doing a full mask for the blue seemed a bit over the top. After a night's
sleep I decided to treat each deflector grid section individually, panle by panel, line by line. 

This pictures stands for how I proceeded: 










This tactic would guarantee randomness of the patterns along the belly, although I did mirror some shapes and copied some of the patterns ... a little continuity had to be retained. 
To cut it short, I spend most of Sunday and the early Monday to mask off lines and shapes and paint them in red, blue and gold.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

This is the result of my efforts:










The Aztec color "pearling":
















(I very lightly watered the surface for the color to better show up. The camera still eats most of the color intensity. 
If you are using a TFT, look at the picture from below! The colors should appear more intense. That's what it looks like)


B&W mirroring the angel of the reference picture










Port side and from a distance


















After three days and 5 hours masking and painting lines and strips each, I'll have a break! 
Than continue with the brick wall pattern on the starboard arboretum level. 

Meanwhile:

I mustered the guts to contact Paul Olsen, the man who painted the Refit for TMP. 
I wanted to ask him, if the Aztec effect I have done somewhat resembles the 
one seen on the filming in miniature during TMP. 

His reply:



Paul Olsen said:


> * Yes...but much more subtle than what I did...don’t forget, they toned it down even for the first movie by shooting the model in low light so the pearled edges would make “light kicks” to cause problems on the edges...the actual model was much more lively than in the film.
> 
> Your colors are quite subtle, so it’s hard to really see them, but they look right to me.*


So here you have the approval by Paul Olsen: the PearlEX interference powder does give the correct color tone and "pearl" effect. The subtlety is a matter of taste and scale. With a ship as big as the Refit studio model you can go for more intense color, with a model about six times smaller you need to paddle back on contrasts and intensity. To me what I have done looks absolutely "in scale". I mean take the two Aztec color pictures above and scale it up by a factor of six ... that'd be pretty intense colors right? 

Anyhow, on asking Paul what he thinks of my model and paint job ... 



Paul Olsen said:


> *I’ll tell you what...what you’ve done so far look a hell of a lot better than what the model looks like now... you are doing a great job...take whatever time it takes, and take it one little step at a time. Once you spray, you can’t go back... but what you’ve done so far is great.*


What is more to say? Paul prefers my paint job over the one the original model (Ent-A) shows today ... WOW!!! 


PS. Am pretty sure Pauls original TMP colors where gloss lacquers! You can tell in some of the TMP shots by the shiny of the surface. In his FAQ he compares the color to today nail polih. Those are usually gloss! Also because of the way my colors behave when I water the surface: the colors immediately show. Thirdly because of Trekmodelers color tests! He used gloss clear coat and in his tests the colors are more intense. 
But in the end its for nothing, since who wants a glossy Refit? Semi gloss? Yes. All gloss? Nope. 

End of line for today.


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## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

That's awesome, can't ask for anything better than that! Haha!


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## Dr. Brad (Oct 5, 1999)

Those are terrific compliments! And you deserve it! Well done!


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## Prowler901 (Jun 27, 2005)

Incredible work! She's gorgeous. And, to have those compliments from Paul... WOW!


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## aljf (Nov 16, 2012)

Wow !!!! that is just excellent work


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Top Starboard side Aztec done:

*click me*


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Beautiful paint job! Wow.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thank you for your feedback. 



Here is a "how the starboard side Aztec was done": 

The port side was done with two full masking steps for the blue and gold panels as AB work, but when removing the gold mask some of the blue panels got damaged by lifting off the 
color. When I moved to the belly Aztec I tried to fix this and only applied the gold panels 
with air brush. Those panels and the defined deflector grid were enough ground work for me 
to stay within the "plank" matrix so I could mask the blue, red and green panels individually 
while retaining the patterns and reduce color lift off to a bare minimum. I did the same for 
the starboard side, only here did I do a full mask for the blue panels










I then added the gold, green and red panels for each deflector grid pair [top/bottom 
square section] individually per brush. 










and moved bow to stern.


















Until I was done


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

This is a shot of the rear in interference mode 










and complementary mode











To the naked eye everything is more subtle so some of the panels are so faint you think 
there is nothing but the base color. On certain angels she looks completely white, on 
others you see the colors come out. The color that shows up strongest is gold. The 
color that impresses the most is blue because depending on the light source and intensity 
as well as the angle you are looking at the surface it can change from a very light blue 
to a deep blue to a purple. That looks really cool. 


I also did a slight change to the strongback too. I really like the strongback I was able to 
pull off but there was something about the forward pair of light graygreen panels at the 
pylon base tip that bothered me. 

This is what it looked like









I could not tell what it was that bothered me. Taking the reference B&W pictures I used 
those are about the same color and that was what I did, but still... 
Then it hit me and made a change to this










The two section above and below the pylon base tip are a bit darker than before at an 
intermediate color between the greenish beige and light graygreen. 
The new color has a little twist to it ... 


















The new color has a slight greenish tint [like the back of a large fly] that only shows 
when you are moving around the ship or light hitting it at the correct angle. 

To me this is it! 

The darker panels mark the area where the area of more contrasting colors between 
the pylons changes to the lighter colors of the forward strongback. 
As I saw it the "bingo" bell went off in my head. 


As for the next phase in the Aztec paint job: I'll be doing the brick wall pattern at the 
arboretum level and then move on to the dorsal. When it's done a new update follows. 


That is if, with the arrival of the 1/350 TOS, anyone is even interested in the 1/350 Refit anymore. 
I'd really like to get feedback on this if you want me to post here. 
Otherwise I'll let this thread die.


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## lizzybus (Jun 18, 2005)

Garbaron, the work you've done thus far is nothing short of inspirational! Please keep posting updates, as this thread is as close to a builders bible as we're likely to get!

I'm especially impressed with the level of patience you've shown, there are a lot of horror sections on this model and you've tackled them one at a time, and if you're still not happy, you go back and do it again . That takes courage and dedication.

The paintwork, while a little too subtle for my tastes, is glorious! The attention to detail, the drive to replicate Enterprise's panel structure is commendable.

I personally can't wait to see more!

Keep the faith!:thumbsup:

Rich


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thank you for the vote of confidence and encouragement  


lizzybus said:


> The paintwork, while a little too subtle for my tastes, is glorious!


Well the issue of how much color you see of the Aztec is of course a matter of taste. 

Trekmodelers did a much more colorful version for his TMP Refit then me. I have spoken to Paul Olsen as you may know, and he too said my colors where faint/subtle, not as colorful as the actual studio model paint job had been for TMP. I think Trekmodelers color intensity is about what original model has looked like. But it was 3-4 times larger than the PL 1/350! If you scale down the ship you need to scale down the colors too. And, Trekmodelers work not diminishing, to me his color choices for the Aztec are wrong for the scale, simply too colorful. 
Also you need to factor the complementary colors in to your mixture! You'll see those more often than the interference blue/gold/green and red. The blue complementary is a yellowish color. The Refit has a lot of Blue, especially on the saucer. If you use too much blue you'll get a yellow ship! Galaxy_Jason had warned me of this before I started and he is right. Trekmodeler did an excellent job photographing his Refit without the complementary yellow showing too often and too much. But if you know what to look for you'll notice. 

But. 
As I said.
It's a matter of taste. 
He liked it more pronounced. 
I wanted it be in scale and look more subtle.
Nothing right or wrong about that choice.


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

This is inspiring and one of the top pieces of work done I think! Apart from going with TMP green instead of blue, as appropriate, this is exactly where I want to take my paint job when I do it. The complexity is the major factor to why I hesitate. 

Thanks you for posting all these details!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks on the feedback, glad you like it and it may even help you with your build. 
As for the paint job: yes very complicated and complex. The solution to your hesitation: do it slowly!
Doing a TMP styl Aztec takes alot of time, so take your time. Its not a contest who is first. 
Its your model, you build it for you. No matter if it is done three or four weeks earlier or not. 



Model Man said:


> TMP green instead of blue,



Its in reality more a green hue than seen on the pictures. Every color on the strongback/defector area has light green mixed in to it. The two modified strongback panles at the pylon tip have a pronounced green effect. The thing is, like with the Aztec colors the strongback green only shows with the right light setup and is hard to capture with the camera. Digital cameras only capture this much of the optical spectrum.


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## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

I was wondering, are you going to give it a light sand and sealer to get rid of all the ridges around the masking? That's the only thing that has me in fits about trying to paint this model.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Please keep posting. I'm amazed by the work you're putting into this and the results you are getting. Even though I have already built a refit and am unlikely to do another anytime soon, this is still a terribly interesting thread to me as the techniques can be applied to many projects.


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

Clip


Garbaron said:


> Thanks on the feedback, glad you like it and it may even help you with your build.


Absolutely! This is bookmarked for later reference. You are one of three folks that are my painting inspiration. Aztek decals are no substitute.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Nova Designs said:


> I was wondering, are you going to give it a light sand and sealer to get rid of all the ridges around the masking? That's the only thing that has me in fits about trying to paint this model.


Yes. After every masking step I lightly scrap the resulting masking edges away with the reverse tip of my hobby knife, then wet the surface and wet sand over it. Yesterday I bought the finest sanding paper I could get for a final pass when I am done with the engineering section and move on to the dorsal ... should happen today. When the paint work is done she'll get a layer of satin clear coat, some light wet sanding, then apply decals and another layer of satin clear. It's my hope to reduce he masking ridges to a bare minimum, but still some will be visible. But that's okay with me ... remember, the hull is made of "planks" and plates so having some surface texture is only "logical" . 




Model Man said:


> Clip
> Absolutely! This is bookmarked for later reference. You are one of three folks that are my painting inspiration. Aztek decals are no substitute.


Thanks for the compliment. 

And no, decals are not a substitute. They are a snap shot of what the Aztec looks like form one point of view at one single moment. With the secondary hull almost done I can see what the guys who create the decals tried to do. Capture the look of the interference and complementary mode. But it does not work. With the real thing these colors change into each other and intermediate states all the time. When you have a larger segment of same color you can have three to four colors shifting and moving while you move your point of view. And this is true for all the Aztec colors. How can you capture this with one panel having one color all the time? You cant.

But the Aztec paint job is really complex and takes a lot of patience and time. Granted, some may be able to do it faster than me, but I this is a work that I'll have to do for weeks, month to come to get it done and I don't want to burn out on it by doing it too fast, or ruining it because I want to finish faster. Paul gave me the advice to do it slow and take all the time it needs for a better end result and that is what I am going to do. One step at a time. If she starts to annoy me I'll put her aside and pick her up a day or two later again. And then one day, probably early 2013 I'll be done. 

As for a status update: the brick wall pattern on the starboard side arboretum level is done, just need to color in some of the sections with blue to mimick the look of the port side. Afterwards I'll do the torpedo bay and dorsal.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Update: 

- starboard secondary hull arboretum level Aztec
- torpedo Bay Aztec 
- backboard dorsal Aztec.

I left my last update with the starboard side arboretum "brick wall" unfinished, so this 
is where I picked the build up again. At the sport side I had masked the entire side in 
its brick wall pattern and later removed about half of the horizontal bars. Since I knew 
what the result would look like I only masked the brick wall where I wanted it on the 
starboard side and used bare 6mm tape where none should be. Saved me some time, 
masking tape and sanity. 










After wards I applied two layers of interference gold with the AB and removed the mask 
to let it dry over night. The next day I wet sanded the surface to remove the masking 
ridges and masked the vertical areas that would become blue individually. On pictures of 
the studio model you make out clusters of tiny squares and rectangles scattered over the 
lower secondary hull, so I took some of the AztecDummy Temple mask squares/rectangles 
and added randomly where I saw fit; after some more wet sanding it looked like this.










Next n the agenda was the torpedo bay Aztec. Again I have to thank Galaxy_Jason for 
his research work which saved me a lot of time to do this myself and went right to 
work using his work. Here is the pattern Jason had identified. 










Looks easy enough right? Some angled strips in various colors. 
How hard can it be? Piece of cake to do, right? Well. No. 

Almost every panel has a different color, some have their top half shifted or change from 
one color to another. To do this with a full mask made no sense so I masked the strips 
individually and mostly one at a time. But first I needed to find a starting point. I chose 
the blue strip right in front of the docking port as my anchor and left the masking strip 
at place and applied new ones next to it in parallel going to the front and aft, by this 
maintaining the angle the strips needed to have. To have port and starboard look alike 
I worked on both sides in parallel. Several hours later the starboard side (and port) looked like this:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Meanwhile I had created a color road map for the dorsal. I could have used Jasons work again, 
but his shapes did not match what I saw on the studio model and was not what I see in 
my mind. Basis was the darkest grey which would be gold on color mode, while the lightest 
grey would be red or green. With this I mind I drew out the shapes I saw on one of the 
B&W pictures of the Refit dorsal and came up with this:









(this is by no means the true original color map but about the patterns that where there).

The underlying pattern on the dorsal are parallel planks (in my case of 3 or 6mm width) 
that follow the angel of the dorsal rear leading edge. There are some horizontal elements 
interwoven in to this. The important feature is that the top and lower ends of each vertical 
element have to end parallel to the ships x axis! There is also a prominent "H" shaped profile 
lying on its side near the rear leading edge which is broken up in to several colored subsections.

Like with the torpedo bay doing a full mask made no sense to me, so again I realized each 
element by individually masking it off. To maintain the rear leading edge angel I applied a 
6mm masking strip at the edge first than applied multiple 3mm strip parallel to it going to 
the front and always left at least one as my anchor. 









(angeled strip at the left is my anchor at that moment) 

When an area looked too barren to me after mask removal and following the "road map" 
I added some more at my own free choice, but always maintaining the angled look of the previous ones. 

Here is the port side at

daylight









with flash









Aztec color 








(really bad weather here so colors are not showing much)

The starboard side is not finished yet. It got so overcast and dark that I can hardly see the 
difference in the wet Atzec colors anymore and artificial light makes it even worse so I stopped for today. 
When the starboard dorsal is done I either move to the pylons or the saucer. Not sure yet. 

That's it for now.


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## jasonalun (Jun 23, 2009)

Yes, thank you! Excellent, amazing work. Like someone else noted - some of these look like test shots for a movie! I only hope I can get mine somewhere in this ballpark when I get mine going finally.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

small update 

-starboard side dorsal" Aztec

Today I finished work on the starboard dorsal Aztec. I realized it be repeating 
the steps I had taken on the port side starting by applying 3mm masking tape 
along the rear leading edge angle and adding more 3mm and 6mm tape in parallel. 
The main "plank" pattern senn on the port side was to be repeated although 
with slight variations.

Why not a 1:1 copy? See idea is, that the duranium - steel plates used in the ships 
construction where not necessarily manufactured by the same vendor and/or 
produced from the same shipment of raw material, hence the different coloration 
aka Aztec. So much for my nerd logic 


Anyhow, this is the mask for the rear tumbled "H" and two section of gold near 
the warp core cover. The 6mm tape at the far right is the anchor point to 
continue at the forward section of the dorsal. 










As you my note, the "H" is not finished at this stage and divided, the missing 
section where later aded in blue and red. This is what the finished "H" looks 
like after initial wet sanding to reduce masking ridges. 










A view on the middle and forward section in interference mode 









A rear total view on the dorsal in complementary mode









Unfortunately it's heavily overcast again so I can't take better picture with the 
color showing without using flash. But I think its recognizable that I managed to
paint the starboard side in a similar fashion as the port side with good results. 
I always find it tricky to replicate your work you have done without firsket masking 
using tape. Will it look similar enough, or worse? Well I thinkt it looks good enough. 


I'll do the pylons next and will cut a frisket template out of overhead foil, that's 
what Paul suggested to me. Will see if I can cut a clean enough pattern and do a 
test with the AB, if I dont like it I'll look for another solution to this. 
But for now I think I'll try this on Friday or the weekend. 

Have fun.


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## Dr. Brad (Oct 5, 1999)

This is one impressive build! Thanks so much for sharing your pictures and your descriptions!


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## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

Amazing work.. and thanks for the response!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Since I'll be busy try and error my way through making "lightning bolt" friskets for the pylons, 
I put her nacelles back on and placed the pearl Lady pack on her spot on the shelve. 

As she stood there I figured it would be interesting to take a shot of the secondary hull from 
both the port and starboard side at same angle and distance to compare the Aztec, its overall 
appearance, the contrasts, similarities and where it differs. For the comparison I photoshoped 
the mounting rod out of the picture because it distracts from the object. 





















The contrasts of the Aztec appear to be very similar, I was afraid one side would look more light 
in tone than the other, since there lies a couple of weeks between painting the 
two. Form the overall Aztec pattern I believe I managed to give it enough similarities and above 
all continuity in the scheme to give the impression of an underlying engineering reason behind it all. 

Something to note is the reason why Paul Olsen back in his day created this complex pattern for 
the Aztec, the model looks much bigger on "film" than it really is!

I also could not help myself to create a comparison shot between the above starboard side picture 
in B&W mode to a TMP reference picture. 











Not 100% identical, but close enough to the TMP look I would say. 


Last but not least, after all these weeks on her back .. would the lights still work?










Seems so ... 


Okay guys, that was it for the near future since I don't know how long it will take 
creating the plyon friskets, do a test and all. 

While I'm gone, feel free to ask question to keep the threat alive. 
I'll answer, I promise. 

 

Cheerio 

And thx for all the fish


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

How much did you deviate from my templates on the dorsal? It looks spot on compared to the b&w photos.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

I did not use your template for the dorsal at all, so I deviated about 100%  

Ok, honest, thanks a lot for providing them, they are a BIG help and timesaver so far, but as soon as I saw your patterns for the dorsal I knew it was not what I remembered from the B&W pictures. So I took a B&W TMP picture showing the starboard side dorsal










And identified the darkest areas first, which would be gold in most cases, sometimes blue if you apply it in a thick layer, but I went with gold and highlighted them in yellow fllowing the visible shape. Then took the next plates in lighter grey as blue and the even lighter ones became red / green. This provided me witt a "road map" of my own. 










Following the 3mm and 6mm matrix for vertically and horizontal patterns I used all the time all the shapes fell in to place by themselves. You can see it on this picture showing the starboard side.










Left to right and bottom to top it's always steps of 3 - and 6mm tape and the tumbled "H" and two areas near the warp core cover are where they need to be. Like I said at SM, 3mm and 6mm masking tape seems to be almost exactly "in scale" for the Aztec plating on the 1/350 Refit.


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## Yojimbo007 (Dec 1, 2012)

Hello Garbaron

I have bought some pear ez pigments. And i intend to mix them with clear lacquer gloss/dull mix and thin it down with lacquer thinner for spraying.

Do u know if these pigments can work with lacquer? How would it be different from acrylic that u have used?

Would lacquer offer better resistance to peeling from removal of the mask?

Thanks and cheers


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

No, I have not tried it with laquer, only acrylics, but it should work. 
Pearl EX sells theier own laquer so another brand should do it too.
Don't know if it will help with the peeling issue though. 

The differnce ist: acrylics dont stink!
And you can moderately thin them with water. 
You dont need alcohol bases cleaner for your brushes.


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## Yojimbo007 (Dec 1, 2012)

Thank you Garbaron 
Cheers


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

small update 

- Backbord inner pylon gold Aztec 

Like mentioned before did I want to try to realize the pylons "lightning bolt" pattern 
with frisket instead of masking tape. I figured it would be near impossible to recreate 
the same pattern eight times. Eight? Yes, eight, you have two pylons, two sides each 
and each gets a gold and a blue Aztec layer. Using frisket would guarantee for an 
identical pattern each go around. The mentioned "lightning bolt" pattern, as Paul Olsen 
calls it, can be seen here: 










I used  Carlos Zangrandos Aztec templates (link leads to the download) to draw the lightning bolt pattern on to the pylon matrix he provides (follows the 3mm x 6mm Matrix I use). 










To cut the pattern I fixed the paper template to a bread board and laid overhead foil 
over it, also fixated so it would not move when cutting using my EXActo knife, fresh 
blade included. This worked surprisingly well without hick ups and shortly after 
I was done: 


















I had planned to use the frisket like this, just trimming it in to pylon shape, but when 
fixing it to the pylon the middle section would lift off thus creating a larger gap which 
would have resulted in a distorted pattern. So I cut it in two parts to be able to fix it 
from both sides. This is what the frisket looked like on the pylon. 










This was after I had already applied the interference gold with the air brush (three layers) 
since I forgot to take a picture before I started spraying. Had I, you would have seen the 
protection to mask of the surrounding area. But I'll have to do the same on this pylon for 
the blue and can take the picture then. 

Enough talk this is the result 



















I think it worked out rather good. I need to give it a wet sanding pass to remove residual 
mist that got underneath and surrounds the Aztec patterns (only visible form flat angels). 
I'll do this tomorrow for the color to have enough time to dry and me not accidentally 
sanding off part of the still soft color. The blue Aztec will be located on step forward and 
below the Gold Aztec, hence directly connecting to it. With the remaining area the pylon 
should have three "lightning bolt" patterns: blue, gold and basic white. 
BTW, for the other pylon I just need to flip the frisket. 


Well that is the plan and what will keep me busy for the next days. 


* whispers: I may forgoe the blue and just leave the gold pattern. 
I really like the looks it has now and the gold is the one that is visible. *


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## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

Yeah, looks great!


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## Dr. Brad (Oct 5, 1999)

This is going to be one incredible build!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

*digs up his thread* 

Ok.. where was I here .. ah right.. the gold on the inner pylons was added. 
The blue Aztec was added by individually masking off the "lightning bolt " pattern. I did not strictly follow the pattern 
since I do not like the way it starts to curve like you can see on Jasons extraction of the true pattern 
(clikc on it on the left to get a bigger view). What I did was trying to create an about equal amount of blue and white 
"lightning bolts" to complement the gold ones, but also added random pattern to break it up. The overall look and 
effect of the pattern on the pylons is not altered by this:

port side inner pylon









B&W to accentuate the patterns "feel"










After this was done I spend a couple of hours to paint the planetary sensor using the AztecDummy templates for 
most of it using a reference picture of the Ent-A (planetary sensor still shows TMP paintjob). 


















The sphere is painted gold like it is at the studio miniature, but the PL spheres size is a lot smaller so the complementary 
blue strip at the middle does not show up. I'll paint some Aztec blue in this area later to mimic the look.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Next on the list was to paint the outboard pylon Aztec. Originally I wanted to create a new frisket for this, but opted to use AB 
masking foil instead to prevent color to leak underneath the frisket, as has happened slightly on the inside pylons (hardly visible 
with the blue added). The nice thing about frisket is, you only need to cut one mask and can use it on the reverse side by 
simply flipping it over. Using the AB foil I needed to cut two masks, one for each side and pleas as identical as possible. 

To find the pattern I used this TMP reference 









Mask cutting









Finished:









Three layers of Aztec gold where sprayed using my AB and the blue again masked off individually. This should have gone 
differently since I wanted to reuse the AB foil, but it kind of self-destructed when removing after the gold was on. 
Anyhow that's what it looks like



















Comparison to reference


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Some shots of her with the lights on and an off light source to kick the Aztec a little.
I resized those to 16:9 to get more of the ship in to the picture. 














































Some of them (minus the background) have a a certain look to it that makes you go "yepp!" .. just a little .. no?

Warp nacelles are next.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Nice window brightness: just right. :thumbsup:


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## hubert (May 3, 2008)

Beautiful work - I love the color 'lighting' photos. It's good to see someone posting work through the holidays... LOL.

Your effort and attention to detail is really paying off on this magnificent model. It looks more like the studio model every day.

How many hours do you have in it now?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks guys. 



hubert said:


> How many hours do you have in it now?


I can't really tell. I've been working on her on and off ever since February 2012. Let's say 3-4 days a week average, at about 4h each, so circa 800h probably more thus far.


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## BOXIE (Apr 5, 2011)

Absolutely fracking beautiful!!!The painting step by step is fantastic.I hope I have the patience to do the same kind of work.


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## Borz666 (May 17, 2004)

Bump!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Oh ... so you say you want to know where I am at?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Well okay. 
Let me see... 

I finished the warp nacelles.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Went on to paint the bridge dome, B/C deck and D-Deck Aztec:











Small video showing the effect

[click image for the video]


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Painted the impulse deck Aztec:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Tried to get a good impression of the I-Deck Aztec that surrounds the lower planetary sensor dome:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Went on working on the lower saucer main Aztec.





Right now I am cutting the masks for the secondary patterns to break up the blue main Aztec in to gold/green/red sub sections. As far as I can tell there is no real secondary pattern. There are elements that repeat but overall it's a random pattern.

If you want more detailed info, just ask


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## GT350R_Modeler (Sep 6, 2005)

(raises jaw off floor) I can't believe the talent and ability of you guys. This is just....


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## 1701ALover (Apr 29, 2004)

Garbaron said:


> Tried to get a good impression of the I-Deck Aztec that surrounds the lower planetary sensor dome:


So...something I've always wondered: Where do the external doors that cover the airlock dock go when they open? (On the "real" ship, that is.) Do they retract into the hull, somehow? That was something that was never really explained in TMP. When Spock took his little EVA stroll and Kirk went after him, the doors just disappeared.


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

zenomorp said:


> (raises jaw off floor) I can't believe the talent and ability of you guys. This is just....


LOL... I second that. What an immense conjunction of talent, patience and meticulousness.  This is so far away from me...


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Fernando Mureb said:


> This is so far away from me...


No way, it's just a matter of how dedicated you are. These guys WANT it badly. Creating art is an act of will. And need.:thumbsup:


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

Yeah, I know. I can only hope to have all this in my spirit when I finally open the big box that is sitting right there on a shelf, waiting for me.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

1701ALover said:


> So...something I've always wondered: Where do the external doors that cover the airlock dock go when they open? (On the "real" ship, that is.) Do they retract into the hull, somehow? That was something that was never really explained in TMP. When Spock took his little EVA stroll and Kirk went after him, the doors just disappeared.


I always assumed the doors would retract sideways into the hull in a simmilar way they do insde the ship. Same with the hangarbay doors, they slide in a spaceing between hull and hangarbay wall. 



Chrisisall said:


> No way, it's just a matter of how dedicated you are. These guys WANT it badly. Creating art is an act of will. And need.:thumbsup:


Thats right. Dedication and patience is what you need. Painting the Aztec, even if yo have TrekModelers guid will take forever if you want to mimic the complexity of the studio model. You really need to want this to happen and must be willing to see it through to the end. Take all the time it takes, it will be worth the effort when its done.


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## Borz666 (May 17, 2004)

Amazing!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

I wanted to see what the Aztec looks like in contrast to the registry decal:


[decal not in place]


Yap ... that's it  

Currently cutting the firskets for the secondary Aztec.


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## 1701ALover (Apr 29, 2004)

Garbaron said:


> I always assumed the doors would retract sideways into the hull in a simmilar way they do insde the ship. Same with the hangarbay doors, they slide in a spaceing between hull and hangarbay wall.


So they'd have to "sink in", then separate, since they start out flush with the hull. Depending how thick the hull is, and how thick the doors are, is there room for that to happen?

(I know, I know...I'm over-thinking it, again!  )


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

1701ALover said:


> So...something I've always wondered: Where do the external doors that cover the airlock dock go when they open?


Explosive bolts. (Lowest bidder.)


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## GT350R_Modeler (Sep 6, 2005)

SteveR said:


> Explosive bolts. (Lowest bidder.)


They bought a gross of self-sealing stem bolts.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Yep. Sinkin, then seperate. The idea comes from "Mr Scotts Guide" They show the Trapdoors on top of the saucer (the ones Deker, Ilia, Kirk and Co use to walk to V'Ger). The schematic shows the rail track the doos slides on and it clearly slides down first, than retracts in a space between hull and ceiling.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Lower Saucer secondary Aztec is in place:


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Pretty!


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## Prowler901 (Jun 27, 2005)

Beautiful work, sir! Beautiful. :thumbsup:


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

What can I say... super-amazing?!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Top saucer AZTEC WIP:


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## Borz666 (May 17, 2004)

Looking mighty fine she is!


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Studio perfection.


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## Blufusion (Jan 30, 2010)

How long have you been working on this masterpiece? It looks great! I have had my model for 7 yrs in the box in the closet and after 20 yrs of not modeling. I'm getting back into doing so. But gonna start small to get my skills back. But hopefully in the next few yrs I hope to have mine built. GREAT WORK!!!!! I'M Impressed!!!!!!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Main construction work started February 2012 and was finished end of June the same year. Afterwards paint work started in July and am at it ever since. But its slowely coming to a closure. 
Just the saucer rim and some pick up work and the Aztec will be finished. 

BTW, the colors are more vibrant in person, the camera just can't capture the full spectrum they have.


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## lizzybus (Jun 18, 2005)

Truly wonderful work, i would say inspirational, but you've set the bar so high now, i'm scared to build another!

May i ask why you kept the phaser rectangles raised instead of sanding them flat? I'm not nitpicking, just curious.

Once again, amazing job!

Bravo!

Rich


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks guys: 



lizzybus said:


> May i ask why you kept the phaser rectangles raised instead of sanding them flat? I'm not nitpicking, just curious.


A little Time saver, really nothing more. I knew from the start I would spend ALOT of time building it and everything that wasn't necessarily a bad detail remained. On top of it I kind of like the idea of true phaser locations. Imagine they need an upgrade and just lift out the whole rectangular phaser assembly and plop in the upgraded version. To me the red marking around them suggest it can be removed as a whole. 
In reality the Refit looked much more like the TOS Enterprise in the beginning and they added those little phaser bumps because on the TOS it wasn't clear where the phasers are. In the numerous changes till she was ready for TMP the phaser locations where highlighted with those square areas.

And to give you something to look at at the weekend

Small clip of the finished top saucer Aztec: 

(click picture to view the video and bring to full size)


Some pictures: 

With flash:




Studio light setup:








[/URL]











continued...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Daylight:





B&W comparison to TMP studio model:


Enjoy.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Excellent. Got any dental mirrors?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Nope, I decided to do the real thing:


(shot before Aztec work was started)

But might try to add some missing spots (rear of lower saucer, secondary hul pennant) by mouting mirros and LEDs in to the base. 
Not sure yet, Depends if those belnd in with the real ones.


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## JediPuju (Oct 12, 2009)

sensational. shes looking stunning. 
like blufusion mines been in the box for ~7 years. this is the kind of effort I aspire to when I finally take the plunge


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

Garbaron said:


> Nope, I decided to do the real thing:
> 
> 
> (shot before Aztec work was started)
> ...


She makes justice to the original ship. At first sight I thought it was a picture of the movie.


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Fernando Mureb said:


> She makes justice to the original ship. At first sight I thought it was a picture of the movie.


Me TOO!


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Garbaron said:


> Nope, I decided to do the real thing:
> 
> (insert excellent photo here)


That photo is excellent for many reasons (angle, for example), but one is that we can see the _hull_ of the ship, not just the lights: if the room were completely dark, we would not see the front of the primary hull, just the lit windows. This also allows us to see the contour (shape) of the ship against the black background.

If we squint, we get a better idea of what the ship would look like without that fill light: we start to lose the contours of the ship into black.

So when we shoot pictures of the ship with its LEDs on, it's good to add a bit of dim light so we can see the model as well.


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## BOXIE (Apr 5, 2011)

Beautiful !!!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks to JT- Graphics the sensor bands are back on:





Turn on the lights you say? 

Ok.


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

I'm throwing away my Refit kit right now....


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Hey! You lit the docking ports! :thumbsup:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Chrisisall said:


> I'm throwing away my Refit kit right now....


Nope, you don't

Dont try to copie what I did, take is as a reference. 

Above all, take yout time. 
What you see above is the result of ~16 month of work. 
I bet you can do a simmilar good job at the same time.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Awesome build. I love seeing everyones interpretations of these big kits.


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Garbaron said:


> Nope, you don't
> 
> Dont try to copie what I did, take is as a reference.
> 
> ...


Okay, thanks for the pep talk... I'll try, and I'll give myself a year. If it doesn't look at least half as good as yours by then, THEN I'll throw it out!:lol:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

-click me-


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## MLCrisis32 (Oct 11, 2011)

Garbaron said:


> Nope, you don't
> 
> Dont try to copie what I did, take is as a reference.
> 
> ...


First off your Refit is pure sci-fi eye candy of the greatest kind and I applaud your results. Second I couldn't agree more on trying not to copy and taking your time! While my kits don't look nearly as good as yours, Trekworks or Mr. Steve Neill I'm getting better with every build and all the matters if I am happy with the results. 



Chrisisall said:


> Okay, thanks for the pep talk... I'll try, and I'll give myself a year. If it doesn't look at least half as good as yours by then, THEN I'll throw it out!:lol:


That's the spirit! Or, at least a step in the right direction! 
Honestly don't hold your work up against others.. it's a recipe for disaster. I watch Boyd's vidoes and then it takes me 3 days to mimic what he did in minutes. But again I've been doing this as a hobby on/off for only 2 years (maybe 6 months of actual modeling), he's been professionally fixing auto bodies for years. Different league.

My ERTL Excelsior took me 4 months of earth-shattering frustration but I ended up with a nice finished model. I had to shelve it 3 times but I'd cool off and get back to it. You can do it!


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

MLCrisis32 said:


> That's the spirit! Or, at least a step in the right direction!
> Honestly don't hold your work up against others.. it's a recipe for disaster.


I'll take my time, and I'll actually spend more time on the paint job than any single other aspect. Anyone can _build_ an Enterprise. Fewer can make it look, just sitting there, like it's straight out of the movies. :thumbsup:


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## jgoldsack (Apr 26, 2004)

Build like this inspire me to do better on my own builds. Doing my current Galaxy class build has shown me that I can do more complex things in my builds, and seeing other builds gives me ideas for how to do other things in my stash... maybe even my own aztec patterns when I make my next refit


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## interstellarmodeler64 (Feb 17, 2013)

Wow....great detail. Love all the detail in the shuttle bay.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Improved Version of the video:

-click me- 

[sound on please]


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

THAT's impressive.


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)




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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

That's even MORE impressive!


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## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

Absolutely fabulous!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

*U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (unlit) *

It's done! Never thought I would actually finish her. There were numerous moments when I wanted to quit, or take a long break from it. Something always went wrong at any stage of the build. parts are not fitting, lights stop working, paint not matching the reference good enough, Aztec paint work driving you mad, decals even madder than that because you need a microscope to see some of them. But. Its done. The Refit Enterprise is finished 

And here she is .... 













continued ...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

continued ...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

continued ...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

* U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (lit)* 













continued ...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

continued ...


----------



## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

continued ...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

And last but not least a familiar beauty shot:







She does have her flaws, plenty of them if you get close and personal, like dust issues and color defects, but it's the overall effect, the general appearance that counts. And on that part she looks exactly like what I wanted. After today's photo shooting (about 2.5 hrs and 150 pictures) and viewing them I went "WOW" in my head more than once. If the light is right and you get a good angle she looks exactly like in the movies and the way I remember her in my mind. I think that last picture above is prove to that. I am also happy that I managed to get the magnetism from looking at her, like you know you look at the secondary hull, follow the lines and so on and when you stop you realize about an hour has passed. Refit in TMPs dry dock scene, or any of her shots, always had this "can't look away" effect and I am so happy that I managed to get that with my rendition of her. 

This project was a learning curve from the get go and I did a lot of stuff where I wasn't even sure if I could pull it off. At the start I'd never imagined I would paint the full Aztec. My goal was to do a two color veryion, basic white and an off white. But. Full Aztec it was. Never thought I could realize practical floods for the saucer, always only wanted to hit the lower registry with an LED and let the top side be top side. I'd do a lot of things differently if I had to build her again. But looking back at what I have accomplished I don't mind her flaws. Everything has flaws. And Ians "wont build the prefect model" mantra really helped me get through this. And of course you guys, who encouraged me and gave feedback that kept me going. Thanks for that.  

With the conclusion of work on the Refit this project isn't over. I will start work on the base soon and will keep you posted on the progress. When the base is finished I intend to create a little movie chronicling the entire build pimped up with some TMP stile flybys of the Enterprise. I also need to get some clear pictures of the Aztec colors. Sun was hiding behind clouds again and again so I focused on getting some movie style shots and clear pictures instead of trying to get the Aztec colors to pop. 

So stay tuned for more on this WIP of NCC-1701 Refit.  


Regards

Thorsten


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## MLCrisis32 (Oct 11, 2011)

Simply stunning work. The fact you can take macro shots and not notice anything out of place is amazing. You built one hellova pretty lady.


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## 1701ALover (Apr 29, 2004)

She's truly stunning, man! Now, if you could just box her up and ship her to me, that'd be great!


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## crowe-t (Jul 30, 2010)

Thorsten, It looks fantastic!!! It's great seeing it finished. 

BTW, I don't see any flaws.

Mike.


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

I could line thousands of adjectives here and even so I wouldn't make justice to she and to your almost one year work.

So, receive my simple and sincere congratulations. :thumbsup:


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Garbaron said:


> And last but not least a familiar beauty shot:


Pardon me if I say this is my all-time favourie build of this model. Sir, you have both instructed & astonished me. From your choice of colours, to the practical lighting, to the smallest docking port, THIS is my proof that it can be done right!:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Wattanasiri (Aug 15, 2010)

Very nice. The paint work is fantastic.


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

Clip


Garbaron said:


> She does have her flaws, plenty of them if you get close and personal, like dust issues and color defects, but it's the overall effect, the general appearance that counts. And on that part she looks exactly like what I wanted.


That's the inherent beauty, those odd little quirks. Seeing these near flawless applications of decals and the azteking going on, you'd never know it. But even a few tape lines or dust hits here or there can't detract from the impression! I'm not a fan of cool white leds for living areas, but even that doesn't sway my view.

The single most refreshing feature of this build is the bare minimal use of duck egg freaking blue. Real nice choices and so distinct from the common normal.

Whether you like blue, green or gray, decals or pearls, lit or unlit, hangar bay open or closed and so on, this build is a benchmark with unique choices throughout that any modeler can check against on procedure and outcome -and photography and lighting too! Now a Top 5 reference build for me amongst the likes of an Ian Lawrence or a Nemvia. ... There's a third name I should know cos it's right there at the tip of my brain. He finished his here last year, the year before... Well, this is a thread to bookmark and re-read a couple times before starting my own. (Thinking a Scout in Alclad Metal Azteks. Shiny!)

I wish I followed more of the day to day of this thread these past few months I've been at work. It's been brutal hours. I'm looking forward to some summer reading time and getting this thread again from the start.



Garbaron said:


> ...you look at the secondary hull, follow the lines and so on and when you stop you realize about an hour has passed...


I'm doing that with your photos now!



Garbaron said:


> This project was a learning curve from the get go... I wasn't even sure if I could pull it off...


The other beauty of tackling an entirely new subject, especially at that scale and detailing.



Garbaron said:


> ...Never thought I could realize practical floods for the saucer, always only wanted to hit the lower registry with an LED and let the top side be top side...


Yeah, congrats on that. Encouraging to see that it can be done. For me that is going to be the main focus of my build. Looking at your photos, I was dissecting the ship and pieces into how I would set up the lights inside. I also want to hit the fwd nacelle's shooting the read saucer, rear saucer enterprise and the others as follows.

Really fantastic job on what you did decide to tackle. The lit thrusters with the decals with the aztek i just beautiful.



Garbaron said:


> ...with some TMP stile flybys of the Enterprise. I also need to get some clear pictures of the Aztec colors. ...So stay tuned for more on this WIP of NCC-1701 Refit.
> Regards
> Thorsten


There's more coming?!? Wicked! 
Congrats, again.:hat:


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks for your detailed response, I appreciate you taking the time to answer to certain subjects. 
Am honored that you consider me among your top 5 references when it comes to this kit. 

Color choices where tough, like really though and sometimes I repainted parts of the ship three to four times before I was happy with the look. For example the bridge, nacelle vertical fin. The strongback was a hard nut to crack too because I did not want an all green or all grey strongback. It should marry the look we see in TMP to what can be seen on the B&W pictures as well as carry some traits of the Ent-A and on top of it add a personal touch that is in line with the previous. Above all I wanted color continuity, so no colors that appear only once and everything had to be based on the same color scheme, created from the same base mixtures. I think I succeeded in that.

Regarding the cool white LEDs. I tried with warm white first, but they created yellowish view ports and that is not what I wanted. If you look at stills form the movies the Refits viewports always have more of a white /blue white color to them then tungsten yellow.

Yeah the nacelle floods. At one point I wanted to do the tip floods too, especially the on for the pennant at the secondary hull. But in the end it did not work out the way I was happy with and I scrapped the idea. Though I could have realized the one that hits the saucer rim, but at the time I just wanted to get finished with the nacelles. I have some ideas for the display base that might help me get the missing spots ... 

Regarding further updates. Yes. Some more is still going to happen here.


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## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Impressive work. Especially the photography mate. Hard to photograph this ship at 1/350 and get the perspective right. 

Not entirely aligned with you on the choice of some of the colours, the strongback shades for example, although you have done some monumentally good research on the shapes - I still reckon it should be much more subtle, but there's criticising and there is actually doing, and you have actually got on and finished this wonderful model. Many (like myself) start, get so far and begin to panic as the stress of making a potential mistake begins to build. Well done.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks Flux Chiller. 

Well like I said above, the strongback was a particular though nut to crack. We have a wagon load of pictures of the Ent-A strongback, but not one showing the TMP Refit strongback in clear detail, not one. You can look up the movie and you'll have this blue that dominates the scene when Kirks shuttle pod passes the forward secondary hull, you see almost no colors. But there were. There are some B&W distant shot that clearly show different shades and contrast between them. 



So how do you recreate something you have no clear reference on? 

I compared the pattern of the B&W pictures and found that at the lower forward starboard side things had not changed much, almost all the detail you see on the B&W picture are still present on the Ent-A Christies color pictures. So I concluded what we see there must still be the original TMP paintjob + dull coat. These are the comparisons I had made, I labeled colors by numbers on the Ent-A and assigned them to their TMP counterpart: 



This lower section was also the basis for my color choices.



I thought that since ILM added a dull coat, which wasn't just some semi gloss clear coat, but had white mixed in, that is for sure since the strong Aztec colors are extremely subdued, so it's a given they had a milky mixture that was sprayed over the hull for TWOK. My reasoning was that the colors you see in the above picture originally for TMP must have been more colorful and stronger if you lift the dull coat haze on the above picture. 

That is why my colors at the forward secondary hull are more vibrant. Since we do not have any true color reference for the TMP Strongback, just the famed "engineering green" description, I made the decision to follow the color code of the forward section all the way for the secondary hull. As a result I used the forward secondary hull colors as my base to create the strongback colors. 

It might be too dark, I grant you that, but the strongback colors are very light depending and it looks much lighter in color and also takes on a green hue that is almost not visible in the pictures. 

Same for the TMP Refit. This shot with Andrew Probert in it shows a very pale strongback. 



In this original TMP publicity shot it appears very dark 



So what do you do? 

You make a compromise since you don't know what it really looked like. 

Hope this clears things up for why I used the colors I used.


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## harristotle (Aug 7, 2008)

Words do not do this justice. I'm just now diving into my first Star Trek build... a 1/2500 TOS Enterprise. Builds like this inspire me and give me something to strive towards some day. Simply amazing!


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## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

sound reasoning on those colours, they must exist like that, and yet one remembers the ship being essentially white in the film..Paramount's over-exposed rendition on VHS probably did us no favours for years and years!

That Probert pic is superb. Whatever happened to Thomas Sasser's rumoured stash of colour images. Did they ever see the light of day?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Flux Chiller said:


> (...) Whatever happened to Thomas Sasser's rumoured stash of colour images. Did they ever see the light of day?


Not to my knowledge. Not even Andrew Probert nor Paul Olsen are in the possession of color pictures of the Refit in her final paint job configuration. Paul only has some where the hull was in its original shape (TOS bridge and lower sensor and so on) but none like the known B&Ws just in color. It's so hard to believe there wasn't anyone who took color pictures of the finished model. If they exist, why haven't some of them surfaced over the years?


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## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Garbaron said:


> If they exist, why haven't some of them surfaced over the years?


Indeed. My memory recalls Thomas posted one picture suggesting he had more to show, but he was holding them back for some reason. He might have been bluffing, not sure....I will have a dig through my files. I don't recall it was an especially useful pic..

Any ideas what your next project will be Garb, maybe a original series 1/350 1701, or do you fancy a go at a JJPrise?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Somthing with "NX" of same scale was floating my mind.


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## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Excelsior? Ouch, that would be immense..


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Am talking this NX ...


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## Flux Chiller (May 2, 2005)

Ahha, that's more sensible, I forgot about that one!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Update:

- custom display base. 

Some of you might remember that my initial plan was to create a V'Ger bases diorama as my Refits base. But over time the idea of a diorama seemed to become less and less attractive so I scraped this idea and sought for an alternative. On morning, couple of month back, I took a piece of paper and drew a rough sketch on what I thought might make for a good display base.



The idea was to give the control unit a TMP stile layout for the switchboard, a schematic view on the Refit that would point out key locations, as well as add six base mounted flood lights to illuminate the ship hull in a TMP Drydock fashion, but more to the point of a sculpture being bathed in light at night. I wanted to be able to accentuate the ship without the need to power her up herself. 

Weeks of wood work, a detour to graphics design, more use of our all favored work material styrene, as well as about a square meter of structured paper (lots of miss cuts here) I got this... 










continued


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Switchboard graphic:


Schematic view:


Base- Logo:




Enterprise mounted in place:


Refit illuminated with base flood lights:




This was the first time I ever really build a base totally from scratch. So far I always modified the base that came with the kit. And for a first timer I think I did rather well. Am really happy that I could translate the rough sketch i drew month ago in to a real object that turned out much better then I had hoped for. Am also glad that I got enough creative energy left to add some highlights to the base, like the M-9 Logo. Two days ago this was just a white rectangel and was supposed to counter the white board where all the connectors are mounted to. Suddenly I thought of "The ultimate Computee"and M-5, but since this is the movie aera M-9 it was. 

I really like the flood lights too and they create the look I wanted, though I had hoped for smaller spots at the hull, especially the saucer, but there is just so much you can do without loosing too much intensity to the spot and the saucer is way up from the base spots point of view. 

What annoys me by now is the cabling that comes from the ship and runs over the bases. I need to find a way to bundle them in a flexible way so it becomes one strand and fix it to the base so it won't distract so much. Should have gone wiht a hollow rod. Anyway, will solve that puzzle too. 

Well that's that for now, hope you like my new display base.

Thorsten


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## Prowler901 (Jun 27, 2005)

That's really sharp, Thorsten. :thumbsup: I love the graphics. And, the flood lights set the ship off really nicely. Great job!


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## John F (May 31, 2001)

Very not bad, love the spotlights


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## harristotle (Aug 7, 2008)

That is so cool!


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## jgoldsack (Apr 26, 2004)

That is awesome!


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

LOVE IT! A unique base for an awesome Refit.


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## lizzybus (Jun 18, 2005)

Marvellous design and implementation!

However, is that a load of wires coming out the the bottom of the 2ndary hull behind the stand pole?

Rich


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

It is. Remember, I had a different display base in mind, a V'Ger themed base where I intended to incorporate the wiring in to the diorama. But over time I did not like the idea of a diorama anymore. 

Hiding the wire in a way that I like is one of the last things I need to do for this build. I'll find a solution. Don't worry.


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Wow! Love that base control board. That's just awesome! :thumbsup:

If they ever make touch-screen interfaces affordable, would you re-do that control board?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Yes


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Griffworks said:


> If they ever make touch-screen interfaces affordable, would you re-do that control board?


Hmm ... an iPad app that controls a device, maybe? But how would they talk to each other ... ?


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## hubert (May 3, 2008)

SteveR said:


> Hmm ... an iPad app that controls a device, maybe? But how would they talk to each other ... ?


Bluetooth - 

something like this...

http://www.mikroe.com/add-on-boards/communication/bluetooth-stick/

Or a small Arduino with control.


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## hubert (May 3, 2008)

BTW Garbaron, I meant to tell you - FANTASTIC work on this base. With the model, it looks like something mass produced. Just Beautiful.

You need to sell them -- LOL.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks for all the flowers. 

Well you know .. if would sell that base it would not be unique anymore. 

But ... if someone wants to copy the base or use as the design a template for a similar thing ... go right ahead, just drop a line where you got the inspiration from. 

BTW almost done working on hiding that rod and do something about the wires.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Update

- Base fine tuning.

After considering a variety of alternatives, like fat cylinders to encompass mounting rod and wires, as well as box shaped constructions, I was lost on how to hide the rod and wires in a manner that would not have some monstrosity sit beneath the secondary hull. I always liked the look of the slim rod after I had removed the support I had in place during construction and wanted to retain that.

So what to do? 

Watch a documentary on history channel of course! 
Feature of the day : ancient Egypt. 
What are the Egyptians famous for? Pyramids and .. Obelisks! 
As soon as I saw the Obelisks I knew how to do it. 

Construct an Obelisk that is at its base wide enough to cover the screw at the base, encompass the mounting rod and wire and taper to be only slightly larger than the support rod at the top. It took me three days and three iterations until I had it figured out. 

Afterwards the wire that reaches sideways to the connectors at the rear of the base had to be hidden as well. I did not want to re rout them inside of the base because a) I did not want to risk ruining the base since imho it turned out too well to risk damaging it and b) there is lots of wires and the switchboard where I would have needed to create an opening. Not worth it. Since the base flodd light wire is visible anyway I saw no problem in the ships power wires to be visible too. All it took was to make them look better. So I got some spiral wire tubing, re soldered the main connector to shorten the wires and that's what it looks like now... 


[The display foots starfleet delta was a "last minute" idea ... hope you like it]


As and where she is standing in my living room:









Ship and base in "TMP Mode" at widescreen format




As a send off till next update a short movie with everything powered up.
 
[yep, NAV lights still missing their color, will fix that tomorrow]


That's the best I can do for the base with regards to hiding the mounting rod and wires. I really like the Obelisk approach since it's a classic shape that fits well to the overall simplistic and industrial base design. Like I said I have no problems with the wire reaching to the side, since the flood light wires are visible too. Its not the ideal solution nor the best but the best I can do right now and I, and you have to live with this solution 

As for the future. I am going to film place holder clips to start constructing the movie that is to bring a closure to this project. For that I have to find a way to film the model with smooth and even camera movement (impossible to do by free hand), as well as get some large black backdrop on two sides so my living room and / or bed room seen in the background won't distract from the ship. Feels like I have to reinvent what Trumbull, Dykstra and Co did way back for TMP just to get some nice shoots of the Refit. This will take some time, so I dont know when I am done shooting and editing the movie. 

Until then... take care and if you have questions about my build ask here in this thread to keep it alive, for special questions you can also send me a pm. 

Regards

Thorsten


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

So beautiful..... *gasp*


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## harristotle (Aug 7, 2008)

Words do not do this project justice... :thumbsup:


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

This is one of the finest builds I've seen of this kit. I love that you plan on making a movie of it.


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## PixelMagic (Aug 25, 2004)

That is amazing. Beautiful.


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## eagledocf15 (Nov 4, 2008)

*Fantastic !!!!*

Absolutely fantastic !!!!!


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

I typed these three letters on my knees.

*O M G*


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

Fernando Mureb said:


> *O M G*


I know, right?


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## 1701ALover (Apr 29, 2004)

Fernando Mureb said:


> I typed these three letters on my knees.
> 
> *O M G*


My thoughts, exactly! It's absolutely fantastic!! I love the base, and the obelisk idea is terrific! I have that same poster, and that's my plan, as well, once I get mine done...although I can already tell you mine will not look nearly as amazing! Great work, man! :thumbsup:


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## barrydancer (Aug 28, 2009)

Great looking build, Garbaron. Your pics of masking the secondary hull are going to be a big help to me as I do mine. You may have the right of it regarding the deflector/strongback colors, but I'm going to do mine in greens and greys. The numbered color match pictures are great, too.


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Your build, you decide. Its always in the eye of the beholder anyway.


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## DCH10664 (Jul 16, 2012)

An absolute thing of beauty ! I'm amazed !!


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## barrydancer (Aug 28, 2009)

I was gonna ask how in the world you painted those sensor stripes on the saucer, but the close ups make them look like decals, correct?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Yep, those are JTGraphics decals. I could not save the original strips in a way I liked so
I decided to sand them flush and replace with decals. Would do it again, saves a lot of headache and looks great .. though having those engraved sensor bands would be nice too.


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## kdaracal (Jan 24, 2009)

Ok, the work is great. But I would LOVE to have a whole area devoted to the display, like yours. Yea. Words just get kinda lost. Thanks for sharing and having big, clear pictures to enjoy...


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Hey Guys,

Since I won't have access to an HD camera in the near future I decided to go along with the one I have to finalize this Refit Adventure while still in 2013.

I spend the last three days filming the model and sorting through the clips I already had in order to get the best shots to make a finale video of my Refit a reality. I had to sift through about 2GB of video clips (~ 80 clips in total, each about 10 - 20 sec running time) to find the ones that best suited what I had in mind to finish this. I added a couple of construction pictures in the initial "build up" of the video, but those are following the flow of the music, so they do not linger on for too long to look at but to get the show rolling. After the "mid section" pictures of the finalized model can be seen at a slower pace to look at the details, they are all showing the un-powered ship due to the main body of the video which makes lit pictures redundant.

Creating this video was a learning curve in film making (at an amateur level of course). You need a "shot list" to fit your vision of the movie (there are 16 individual shots in this video). You need to find the correct camera angles that match what you want aka find the correct camera positions. Make sure the lighting stays the same, for this I had to reposition the model several times to make sure light hit her form the same direction, although she was facing a different direction. You need to shoot several "passes" of the same in order to later have options to choose from. Each shot needs to have the same pace, or at least as close to the same as you can do without havin access to motion camera setups. Editing the videos in length and running speed to flow with the music score and make color and brightness corrections so it feels this is the same moment in time, not shot days later. All of this created a HUGE respect for Mr. Probert, Mr Trubull, Mr Wiese and coworkers who worked on TMP!

To cut the video I had acquired "The Lightworks" a professional edit-software that was used e.g. to cut Mel Gibsons "Braveheart". Unfortunately it did not import my MP4 PAL clips correctly; I had sound but no picture. This forced me back in to useing WindowsMovieMaker. In some instances I had to slow down the video clip just a tiny bit, in order to better fit the pace of the moment and music cues. This slowing down by MovieMaker resulted in a slight stuttering, because instead of doing exactly that, slow the movie down, Moviemakers solution for slowing down is to stops the video for the fraction of a second at regular intervals, that is what creates the slight stuttering in some shots. Since I knew MovieMakers works like this I wanted to avoid it with Lightworks, but it did not let me do it. But all in all I don't think it harms the overall picture of the video that much. 

When you watch the video in full screen there will be some picture noise. My veteran 4 Mega pixel IXUS camera has issues to maintain a clear picture in low light conditions and I do not own "After Effects" or any other FX software to reduce picture noise. If you really insist on full screen: paddle back a bit form your monitor.

Since I do not have a youtube channel and because in the past people where having issue with longer videos not buffering fast enough on Photobucket, I provide the video via download link (38MB, tests it 3 times, worked fine):

*PL Refit Video (Download)
*





(Thanks to Gadgetron)


Hope you like the video, even though it is not HD quality. 

Regards and happy 2014

Thorsten 

P.S. Once I own a HD camera there might be an enhanced reboot of above video


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Very slick! Great recreation of angles!


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

That's so sweeeeeeet!


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## colhero (May 18, 2006)

The lighting job is fantastic :thumbsup:


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

Super nice!


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## usna2k (Jan 11, 2004)

Such amazing work - I should have commented much sooner but never did. I will be posting photos of my own refit soon - I need to reach 5 posts, I guess.


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## harristotle (Aug 7, 2008)

Finally got a chance to watch this video... beautiful job and excellent way to showcase your work! :thumbsup:


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## stryker (May 29, 2012)

Great, great work. Excellent video and pictures!


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## hubert (May 3, 2008)

Thorsten, 
Work of this caliber makes it hard to believe you videoed a model only 3 feet long. I'd swear this was the real McCoy. You've done an amazing job of modeling, wiring, painting and the video was great. 

Congratulations! I could watch this over and over.


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

Garbaron - the video doesn't show the blue-to-orange deflector dish transition that you talked about in another thread. Was that done separately?

Also, I've ordered an Arduino Uno to begin experimenting with doing this with an RGB - would you be willing to share your sketch for what you did if I return the favour once I convert it to use a single RGB LED?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

@ all 

Thanks for the positive feedback, glad you like the video, although it came in mighty late. 


@ RossW

Well see, this is supposed to reenact the „Leaving Drydock“ sequence from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture“ and this does not show the blue dish on the Refit only the amber one, that is why there is only the amber one in the “movie” section of my video too. I also do not have a transition from amber to blue it just hard switches between the two. You can see the blue dish here:

http://s92.photobucket.com/user/Garbaron/media/PL Refit/AllOnTest_zps7cc45cdf.mp4.html

Am not a fan of too many “animated things” on these kits, like shuttle bay running lights, transition from impulse to warp with dimming off and on and such. IMHO it makes them look too much like a toy helicopter I once had which blinked moved and made lots of sounds. Only exceptions I make are the running lights, because I love the look of the fast ACL in tandem with the NAV lights.


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## MartinHatfield (Apr 11, 2004)

Why hasn't somebody done resin decals of the sensor strips? Like the decals that Archer does for armor and such of rivets, weld beads and such. The design is simple, and could be done for a decent price. 

That way, we could get our saucer edges looking perfect and then add the raised bands back to the model for that perfect effect!


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## Manatee Dream (Jan 2, 2014)

MartinHatfield said:


> Why hasn't somebody done resin decals of the sensor strips? Like the decals that Archer does for armor and such of rivets, weld beads and such. The design is simple, and could be done for a decent price.
> 
> That way, we could get our saucer edges looking perfect and then add the raised bands back to the model for that perfect effect!


Gah! Why must you torment me with new ideas before I officially start my model? This would make everything so much easier!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

MartinHatfield said:


> Why hasn't somebody done resin decals of the sensor strips? Like the decals that Archer does for armor and such of rivets, weld beads and such. The design is simple, and could be done for a decent price.
> 
> That way, we could get our saucer edges looking perfect and then add the raised bands back to the model for that perfect effect!


Would not help much since the sensor bands on the Refits / Ent-As saucer rim are an engraved detail! Not raised. 



It is possible to retain them on the 1/350 but it takes extra special care when aligning the saucer wall pieces and hiding the seam between two of them. When doing "dry fitting" it worked very well for me, once glue came into play I had issues. After long debate I decided to sand the rim smooth and go for decals. The resulting look of the rim is the same, though I admit I'd love to still have the engraved detail there.


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

Garbaron said:


> @ all
> 
> Thanks for the positive feedback, glad you like the video, although it came in mighty late.
> 
> ...


Sorry, I meant blue to amber transition. Guess it was someone else who did that.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

I've just gone through your photobucket, Garbaron. It was a good idea to choose the Aztec Dummy templates for the primary hull. They're more accurate than the Orbital Drydock version!


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Yeah I know. I told him what to change but he would not listen. He wanted it that way. 
Dont get why people say its the "most accurate" if they include "their" ideas!


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Garbaron said:


> Dont get why people say its the "most accurate" if they include "their" ideas!


Hah! Anyway, thanks for sharing your techniques and research with us. :thumbsup:


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

Are there any shots of the yellow nav dish apart from the drydock scene in ST:TMP? I can see it 'power up' or fade in to a not-very-bright orange, but I would like to know if there is a better shot in the film. I'm working on the lighting for the nav dish and I need to figure out:


The colour value of the orange so I can replicate it with a RGB LED
When does the dish switch over to blue - is it when the E goes to warp? Is there a shot in ST:TMP where you see the transition (i.e. does it just immediately go blue or does it fade from orange to blue?)
The ring of small lights around the circumference - are they white lights or do they have the same colour as the nav dish (i.e. orange/blue)?


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

TMP is the only movie we ever saw the amber dish, it’s never shown again after ILM took over FX work for most of the Star Trek movies. The “power up" sequence is the best you’ll get. There are some another shots of the amber dish when the Refit enters / is inside V’Ger. 

We never see the dish transit from amber to blue. AFAIR at the end of the “leaving drydock” sequence Refit goes past Jupiter and the dish is already blue. 

The dish is amber when at lowe speeds, presumably when she is powered by the maneuvering thrusters and powers up to blue as the impulse engines kick in. At least that’s what you get from TMPs leaving scene: amber throughout leaving and the sunrise shots, impulse engines kick in, goes past Saturn at an aft shot, goes past Jupiter port side front with blue dish.


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## Opus Penguin (Apr 19, 2004)

On top of all that the "Navigational Crystal" or whatever you would call it on the back-top part of the saucer (Just above the impulse engines) section is red in the Jupiter scene then blue when seen later.


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

Garbaron said:


> TMP is the only movie we ever saw the amber dish, it’s never shown again after ILM took over FX work for most of the Star Trek movies. The “power up" sequence is the best you’ll get. There are some another shots of the amber dish when the Refit enters / is inside V’Ger.
> 
> We never see the dish transit from amber to blue. AFAIR at the end of the “leaving drydock” sequence Refit goes past Jupiter and the dish is already blue.
> 
> The dish is amber when at lowe speeds, presumably when she is powered by the maneuvering thrusters and powers up to blue as the impulse engines kick in. At least that’s what you get from TMPs leaving scene: amber throughout leaving and the sunrise shots, impulse engines kick in, goes past Saturn at an aft shot, goes past Jupiter port side front with blue dish.


Thanks Garbaron. I noticed the switch to blue too when watching the leaving drydock scene so I guess we can assume it goes blue when the impulse engines power up (as you say).

What about the lights on the outer circumference of the dish? Do you know if they're white like the windows or blue like the dish?


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

Opus Penguin said:


> On top of all that the "Navigational Crystal" or whatever you would call it on the back-top part of the saucer (Just above the impulse engines) section is red in the Jupiter scene then blue when seen later.


Really? I'll have to look at that again - I always thought the 'crystal' was blue.


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## Opus Penguin (Apr 19, 2004)

RossW said:


> Really? I'll have to look at that again - I always thought the 'crystal' was blue.


Look here, especially at the 2:18 mark:


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## barrydancer (Aug 28, 2009)

RossW said:


> Thanks Garbaron. I noticed the switch to blue too when watching the leaving drydock scene so I guess we can assume it goes blue when the impulse engines power up (as you say).
> 
> What about the lights on the outer circumference of the dish? Do you know if they're white like the windows or blue like the dish?


Those do light up blue, just like the dish. http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0911.jpg

It's hard to see when the dish is amber, but I can make out some lighting in this screen cap. http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0742.jpg


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

Thanks guys!


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## Owen E Oulton (Jan 6, 2012)

Garbaron said:


> Thanks on the feedback.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And, of course, the company Raytheon wants to distance themselves from it, as they think it confuses their customers (yep, of course defense contractor are dummies, or so they think) but they can't do diddly-squat about it legally...


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