# 1/350 Refit Product Advice Needed



## Tiberious (Nov 20, 2001)

I'm slowly edging toward building my refit and am on the cusp of either ordering the Aztec Dummy Paint Masks in hopes that I can manage to paint the detail on or ordering the Aztec Refit 1701 Decals (Green) 1:350 scale from Acreation Models.

I don't see any reviews of the latter on Cult's site. My airbrush skills are nearly non-existent (though I'm willing to learn.) I expect that paint would certainly be more durable..... I also want the decals to be more subtle than the PL decals seem to have been..... The Acreation ones do seem to be less bold....

I have a 1st generation release of the kit meaning no Aztec decals or any modifications that PL might've made after the fact (such as the crappy original stand).

Any helpful advice would be most appreciated!

Thanks,

Tib


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## GT350R_Modeler (Sep 6, 2005)

The best advice I can give regarding the Aztec dummy templates (if you go that route) is make sure you have painted the model well before applying them. What I mean by that is that if you don't sand the whole thing down, apply some good primer, apply some good base coats AND LET IT FULLY DRY...the templates will pull the paint off the kit when you remove them and trust me, you won't be happy. 

You don't really need airbrush skills unless you REALLY want to use one. You can achieve a good looking, accurate kit using brushes. Masking tape can be your best friend when doing so though. 

I'm currently building the newer release of the Refit and plan on using the Aztec decals that came with the kit as I have never really seen many builds that have used them or what they look like on a finished kit. My base coats will be Bright White, then some 'dusting' of Pearl White, then apply the decals and final coat of Gloss Pearl Clear. Hopefully, that will turn out nicely. 

Hope that helps a little. 

:wave:


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

I've read that it's a good idea to apply and remove the templates from another surface before applying to the model, to reduce the "tack" or stickiness of the templates. Now, that may be easier said than done, depending on how finicky they are.


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## Cobalt817 (Mar 13, 2013)

If you paint the whole thing semi gloss white ,and let it dry for at least a week, you shouldn't have any problems with the mask. An airbrush will yield better results, but you must practice until you are comfortable with it, and have a good understanding of it. Get a 2 stage airbrush since a single action will be no better than a spray can. Spray cans will leave a texture which at that scale would be like rocks and boulders. The studio model was painted white, and the aztecing was done in CLEAR paints with pearl additive so as to leave only pearl effect. They were not shades of grey or green. If you can get the white down then you will have time to learn airbrushing ,to a adequate point, to do the aztecing. If you don't feel comfortable with an airbrush, you can photoshop the decals to tone them down, and make your own.


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## Proper2 (Dec 8, 2010)

Cobalt817 said:


> The studio model was painted white, and the aztecing was done in CLEAR paints with pearl additive so as to leave only pearl effect. They were not shades of grey or green.


Actually, 2-3 years ago I remember reading an online article by the artist himself, Paul Olsen, in which he described using RED and BLUE pearlescent, oil-based enamels to paint the aztecing. Today, you have to pay $4 to download that article. I had printed it out then, and later ended up throwing it away... 

Here's the link: http://www.olsenart.com/strek.html


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

Proper2 said:


> Actually, 2-3 years ago I remember reading an online article by the artist himself, Paul Olsen, in which he described using RED and BLUE pearlescent, oil-based enamels to paint the aztecing. Today, you have to pay $4 to download that article. I had printed it out then, and later ended up throwing it away...
> 
> Here's the link: http://www.olsenart.com/strek.html


When it was free I saved it as a .pdf file on my hard drive. It's a great article!


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## Tiberious (Nov 20, 2001)

Thanks everyone. Hopefully someone will still chime in on the Acreation decals so I can pick from both options. I'm not comfortable with 100% coverage of decals but I think if I'm VERY careful it may work out.

Going to try to grab that article, though with the Trekmodeler directions I doubt I'd pay for it.

Thanks again,

Tib


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## Cobalt817 (Mar 13, 2013)

Proper2 said:


> Actually, 2-3 years ago I remember reading an online article by the artist himself, Paul Olsen, in which he described using RED and BLUE pearlescent, oil-based enamels to paint the aztecing. Today, you have to pay $4 to download that article. I had printed it out then, and later ended up throwing it away...
> 
> Here's the link: http://www.olsenart.com/strek.html


Yess, that is the article I read. Here is a quote...
"

I found the pearlescent lacquer paints at a huge automotive paint store in Hawthorne, just south of LA, that sold to the trade and custom shops only. 
I can't remember the brand of the paints, but they were made by a specialty outfit who only produced these paints, because the labels were quite home-made. 
The paints came in 6 colors, in 8 oz. glass jars, and were $45.00 each in 1978! The paints looked milky in the jars, but were utterly transparent when sprayed,
just giving a pearl-like luster to the undercoating---just like pearl fingernail polish today. So you can see where the quality of the preparation of the plastic surfaces and the undercoating is paramount!
I bought four colors: red, green, gold, and blue. When I finished the Enterprise, I still had 2/3 of the paint left in all the jars."

He says they were "utterly transparent" and came in colors. I interpret that as pearl colors in clear. You can buy the pearl additives to put in clear for the same effect. http://www.paintwithpearl.com/pearlstore.htm


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## Cobalt817 (Mar 13, 2013)

Ah heck! I'll just post the whole article for your reading pleasure.

For all you model builders, here are some tips on painting your Big E:



If you would like your model to look as close to the real thing as possible, and are willing to put in the time---and it will take a LOT of time....
.possibly two to four years if you work on it 10 or 15 hours a week 
(but if you are serious, the end result will be worth it), you'll want to paint the Big E exactly as I painted her.


The original model was 8 feet long and I would have thought it would take even more time to paint a smaller one.


First of all, the paints: the primer was a coarse, white, lacquer auto primer...none of us can remember the name of it,
but it was a common primer we obtained from a local auto paint store meant to go on thick so it could be sanded, re-sprayed, sanded, re-sprayed, etc, until you achieved a perfectly flawless, smooth finish.


At any given time, there were two to four modelmakers sanding the plastic surface and making it perfect, as well as spraying and sanding various sections of the Big E,
working ahead of me; so in terms of man-hours, I would say AT LEAST twice as many man hours went into the preparation of the surface than into my finish, which took me six months, working 5 to 7 days a week,
upwards of 16 hours a day! Over the course of six months, I probably averaged 12 hours per day, 7 days a week. The actual job took 8 months because someone tripped a circuit and blew half of the electrics, 
and the model needed major surgery.


The engineering section was painted by Ron Gress, who used Floquil paints....a kind of matte, opaque, pale sage green color.


I found the pearlescent lacquer paints at a huge automotive paint store in Hawthorne, just south of LA, that sold to the trade and custom shops only. 
I can't remember the brand of the paints, but they were made by a specialty outfit who only produced these paints, because the labels were quite home-made. 
The paints came in 6 colors, in 8 oz. glass jars, and were $45.00 each in 1978! The paints looked milky in the jars, but were utterly transparent when sprayed,
just giving a pearl-like luster to the undercoating---just like pearl fingernail polish today. So you can see where the quality of the preparation of the plastic surfaces and the undercoating is paramount!
I bought four colors: red, green, gold, and blue. When I finished the Enterprise, I still had 2/3 of the paint left in all the jars.


Mark Stetson, who was in charge of all the miniatures, and helped prepare the surface of the Big E, just sent me this: 
"Paul, I remember I hated that plastic primer, and it was really grainy. It did stick, though. I remember we had to chase it out of the scribe lines between each coat. It had too much filler in it.
Using common sense, I'd say that we both wet-sanded and dry sanded it, starting with 400 and finishing with 600. In some cases, when we got into areas where we knew the camera would get very close,
we used that plastic sandpaper that goes down to 1200 grit. We used sanding blocks whenever we could to keep it flat. I still have my nifty little x-acto sanding block set of aluminum extrusions. 
And, I think, the same rubber automotive block I used during STTMP."


AIRBRUSH: You HAVE to have a DOUBLE-ACTION, internal-mix airbrush...a single-action one won't cut it...don't even think about it. In case you are unfamiliar with airbrushes,
a double action airbrush has a top-mounted trigger that when pushed downwards, releases air into the tip, and when pulled back,
retracts the pointed needle from the nozzle and allows paint to be gradually siphoned through.
The airflow creates a suction to draw the paint from the bowl, cup, or jar. You essentially control the airflow with a pressure regulator in the air line 
(usually at the junction where you hook up your airbrush hose)
and can then precisely control the paint flow by pulling back gradually on the trigger whilst the full airflow you have determined is correct passes through the brush.


I highly recommend the Paasche V-1, SIDE FEED airbrush...they are reasonably-priced, and very good airbrushes. You can drop them, and knock them about and they will not get harmed. 
Don't use a gravity-fed airbrush (with a built-in cup on top)...they are a pain the ass to use for all sorts of reasons. If you have an Iwata, or more precise airbrush, that's fine, 
but what I like about the Paasche is that you can get little color bottles for it. The beauty of that is if you have four bottles filled with the four colors,
you can switch bottles back and forth endlessly and effortlessly...and trust me, you will be doing that all through the job. They slip in and out of the hole on the side where the paint cups go. 
You can use paint cups, too, but the paints will tend to evaporate, and you can spill them out of the cup. The bottles are much better. During the whole course of the job, 
I never had to clean out the bottles..
.the airhole in the top of the bottle cap would clog up once in awhile and that would need clearing out with a paper clip and some lacquer thinner, but that was about it.
At the end of the day I would simply run some lacquer thinner through the instrument and it was clean and ready to go the next day.


You only need the smallest of compressors, any of which will have a regulator mounted on it. I recommend getting a separate regulator---they aren't expensive---
that you can mount within easy reach of your work area.
Also, you MUST wear a carbon filter rubber respirator and ensure you have adequate air flowing from behind you to carry off any fumes and overspray. 
Lacquer fumes are DEADLY. If you have built, or bought a small spray booth,
then you can do without the respirator if you can't smell any fumes as you spray.


I can't remember the general air pressure I used, but it would have been between 20 and 35 psi. The higher the air pressure, the smaller the droplets....up to a point.
Then things begin get messy because of the high rate of airflow against the model surface.


If you are not used to using an airbrush, they can be quite daunting. Just follow the instructions that come with it, and try it out with some inks on paper until you get the hang of it.
The little tips at the very front usually need some adjusting in and out to get the correct airflow. Make sure the tip is kept clear of paint build-up.
The beauty of working with lacquers is that the thinner is also the solvent
, so the airbrush is constantly cleaning itself and will always work smoothly as a result. Also, the pearl paints will constantly "melt" into themselves, giving you a lovely sheen to your work
....assuming the surface has been prepared perfectly! As you prepare the surface of the ship, think of what you are doing as applying the skin to a naked woman, with all her intimate details,
and the paintjob as giving her a see-through outfit to wear over her perfect, bare skin, and you won't go wrong.


Try to find another piece of smooth plastic that you can prep with sanded primer, and practice spraying the pearl colors on that until you are happy with the results. Remember,
you can ALWAYS spray more color, but you can't un-spray...so always lay your colors down sparingly and keep building them up. Don't try to cover what you are doing in one coat.
Easy does it, bit by bit...that's the secret to using an airbrush for anything. You can't take back what you do unless you wipe everything off with lacquer thinner,
and that will goop up the primer and make a right mess.
...that is NOT an option. 


The colors I used were: red, gold, blue, and green....so those colors would have that color-cast when they pearlesced..
.but would also "flip-flop" to the complement of that color when you changed your angle of view.
..so they were always "moving" as you moved. Incredibly beautiful when the surface is broken up in various combinations and densities of these colors. 
The paints are completely transparent and just "cast" a color of pearl.
..so when the ship was finished, it looked like an opal or like it was made with mother-of-pearl. Stunning.


I would assume there are many more pearl paints out there now....and maybe they all work the same way by pearlescing in the main color, and then when the angle of reflection (incidence) is changed,
they pearlesce towards the complement (the opposite color on the color wheel) of that color, "flip-flopping," so-to-speak, though I'm not sure if commercial "flip-flop" colors are the same thing..
.best to check.


As you know, the ship is broken into etched panels, and then it was up to me to further break those panels down into smaller, "human-sized" panels to give the ship scale.
For that I spent a week cutting friskets (stencils) of every size and shape of square and rectangle, and curved rectangles for the dish, and lightning-bolt shapes for the engine pylons.
I was limited to right-angle shapes because of all the etched panels...but where there weren't any, I was free to use other shapes (as in the pylons).


When I would illustrate an album cover, or any commercial job using an airbrush, I would always spend more time cutting friskets than spraying the job...because essentially,
your stencils give you all the tools you need to paint, and it's important to get them right and spend time on them. I used 5 and 10 thousandths acetate sheets cut with an X-acto #11 knife.
You need to keep the sheets relatively small because they have to bend over compound curves, which flat sheets of plastic don't like doing, of course. 
You could easily end up with 30 or 40 little sheets of plastic with various sizes of squares and rectangles cut into them. I also used "repositionable (low tack) Magic tape" for small, tricky areas.
If you are working on a small model, I could imagine most of your frisketing would be with this stuff....very time consuming and tedious work.


Before I started on the model (read all about it on my website, www.olsenart.com), I tested the colors on scrap bits plastic to get used to them and how they would lay down. 
I freely admit to putting off for days making an actual start on the model---I was "testing!" Ha! I was scared stiff! I can admit it now.


I began to spray one panel with various shapes, using various colors, and overlay some of the frisket shapes so I would get layers of color, and also spray some friskets lightly,
and some a bit more heavily for more density of color....by doing this, and going back and forth overlaying various friskets and spraying them, I would end up with infinite colors and densities and shapes.
I wish I had kept those friskets! What a wonderful souvenir they would have been! But I used the same ones, cutting new bits I needed from time-to-time, for the whole model.
I would have to clean off excess paint from time-to-time with lacquer thinner, laying them down on paper towels, and they would clean easily. Use cling-film to protect the bits you've sprayed with pearl.


The reason you don't see the bright pearlescence on the model in the movie is that the model was so sparkling, that when lit properly, there were too many light "kicks" off the edges of the model, 
and a clean matte could not be made to isolate the model from the studio background so a star background, or other background could be cleanly dropped in behind the model.
Consequently, the model had to be shot in low light,
which substantially lessened the effect of the sparkling pearl finish.


As to reference photos, you'll have to ask your model company or go digging aorund the web....I don't have any good close-ups of the Big E. If I knew then what I know now,
I would have tons! The panels on the dish were an Aztec motif....you'll have to try to find a photo of it, as I don't have any close-ups and I can't remember it precisely. Each panel had the same Aztec design, 
but broken up in different ways with differing patterns and colors.
I was very impressed with the model-makers I worked with....how patient and detailed they were, so when they finished a part of a model it was absolutely flawless from inches away. Total perfection.


The blue parts of the model were already done in a kind of colored plastic insert before I got to the model.


The underside of the rear of the fusilage (I know it has a name, but I don't know what it is) was sprayed free-form with no friskets,
using all the colors and going back and forth along the length of it in "rays" to make it look like energy was flowing from there.


When you are figuring out how to break up any area of the ship into panels, let the shapes you are working with guide you, and always think of jet aircraft.
Imagine laying the metal skin on a 747 and how that would look...and when you get to complex shapes on the stern of the model, around the front, or on the engine nacelles, 
think of the jet engines and the pylons that hold them. Go out to an airport and have a look at jet planes to see how those complex shapes are covered with metal skin. That's what I did.
...I drove out to LAX and took tons of photos of aircraft to understand what was going on. That will be a little tougher to do these days, but you can take pictures from an airport lounge.
I highly recommend you do this, if you can. It will give you a good visual foundation on which to build as you bring your beauty to life.


What I loved about the way the artists up at ILM broke up the skin of the ship on the second movie was that they worked with smooth surfaces,
which gave them carte blanche to use more "alien" breakup techniques
...a more advanced form of construction....but this model forces you into more familiar kinds of shapes, which is why I used the pearl paints to give it that "advanced" civilization,
techy look.
If it was going to look like "familiar" construction, so the mind would see it as a spacecraft (understand the panel breakup), I wanted to give it something extra that would make it "advanced."
Good luck! Just remember to take things slowly and bit-by-bit, and you won't go wrong. You can always go back and build up areas you think need it...
.just keep laying on the colors until you are happy with the result!
You are the artist on this one....you can make it what you want!


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## Tiberious (Nov 20, 2001)

Thanks for posting that article. Wow! The link wasn't letting me look at it so you saved me some effort there. I've exchanged some emails with Acreation and TrekModeler both with some good insights and kudos to Rob for his very frank assessment of my situation. 

As to the paints, I ordered them as a 'just in case I go paint' and they'll be coming from, oddly enough, a taxidermy supply house! I got the paint info from Trekmodeler's guide. The masking, with or without Lou's templates will be extremely difficult and time consuming.  Blast my shaky hands! In any case, I haven't yet decided which way to go but again my hat's off to Trekmodeler for an amazing guide, Acreation for the great advice (I would love to see pictures of the kit using these decals if someone out there'd be willing to share and reflect on their experience) and to AztecDummy, while I haven't heard back from Lou yet, he did send me a sample some time ago that I'm trying to find so I can try out my airbrushing once the paint arrives!

Tib


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## Garbaron (Apr 23, 2004)

Cobalt817 said:


> If you paint the whole thing semi gloss white ,and let it dry for at least a week, you shouldn't have any problems with the mask. An airbrush will yield better results, but you must practice until you are comfortable with it, and have a good understanding of it. Get a 2 stage airbrush since a single action will be no better than a spray can. Spray cans will leave a texture which at that scale would be like rocks and boulders. The studio model was painted white, and the aztecing was done in CLEAR paints with pearl additive so as to leave only pearl effect. They were not shades of grey or green. If you can get the white down then you will have time to learn airbrushing ,to a adequate point, to do the aztecing. If you don't feel comfortable with an airbrush, you can photoshop the decals to tone them down, and make your own.


Yes, those Interference colors Paul Olsen used had a gloss enamel clear coat as a base. The interference particles are very small like make-up powder and completely dissolve in the color you are mixing them into. Paul Olsen's colors where pre-mixed and something brand new at the time. Today you can buy premixed interference colors e.g. from Testors (afair Trekmodeler used those) or get the PeralEX interference powder colors and mix them yourself. 
I used the PearlEX powder to create a more subdued Aztec effect, because to me the full intensity Aztec colors like on TrekModelers TMP Refit, make the Aztec effect look out of scale. Too color full. That is why I chose to do a fainter Aztec effect to give the ship more scale. 

Here are a couple of impressions on my Refit's Aztec.

This is the Aztec in interference mode:








(at daylight and looking towards the light source brings the colors out)

Aztec in complementary / off color mode: 








(at day light and light source at my back shows only complementary colors)

Refit powered up:








(at low light with a spot aimed at the secondary hull to create a studio look)


One misconception concerning the TMP Aztec comes from the term "pearl Aztec" and relates to the first word: pearl. The colors used on the TMP miniature where NOT pearlescent colors, which means "shimmering" like scales of a fish or a butterflys wings. The Aztec colors where interference colors! Pearlescent does not describe the "Aztec effect" of the Refit at all. 

The Aztec colors where/are only visible under certain light conditions, at certain angels and would be invisible otherwise. Olsen describes the effect as "looking like an Opal". An Opal has facets that have one color and flip to another when light conditions change e.g. moving it this or that way. That is what the Refit Aztec was like. You would see e.g. strong gold and blue panels (interference mode) with faint red and green ones behind them (complementary mode). When you start to move towards the rear the blue would shift to a yellow the gold to a magenta grey (going to complementary mode), the red would shift to a strong green the green to strong red (switching to interference mode). Across the hull this looks like a "pearl effect" with constantly shifting and changing colors when in fact one panel can only have two colors interference or complementary and a third which was no color at all because the interference pwoder was used in a gloss clear base and you could look right through the Aztec to the white base color. You can see the above described effect in -this video- I made of the starboard side secondary hull on my Refit. 


Hope this clears up the TMP Aztec effect for you. 

Regards

Garbaron 

Disclaimer: I don't show these pictures because I want to advertise my build, but to show and explain what the TMP Refit Aztec effect is and what it does.


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## Tiberious (Nov 20, 2001)

Yes indeed, wow! <puts model back in the box and hides under the bed>

Nothing intimidating in this build! 

I bought the paints vs the powder but I think if I thin them a bit it might mitigate the color...too much and I'll have a mess though. I think my biggest concern is trying to decipher all the masking, when and where to add/remove additional masking (additional to the Aztec Dummy masks) which is what causes me to consider going with the decals in the first place. This is NOT a project for the timid!


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## Proper2 (Dec 8, 2010)

Now, THAT'S the way to aztec!


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## Proper2 (Dec 8, 2010)

Speaking of the 1:350 Refit, here's an amazing build up for sale for a pretty good price me thinks... if only I had the room/was unmarried, and since I can't build my own like that, I'd jump on this like a cat on a June-bug. The aztecing was painted on—looks like in one color, but looks pretty close to the onscreen look and not overdone: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seamless-1-...032323938?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item19da0acf62


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## Tiberious (Nov 20, 2001)

That IS very nice! Fair price or not, more than I'd be allowed to spend.


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