Re: Airbrushing Chronicles Part II

Painting Kra'Vak Stripes

Step 1: Order Chinese takeout dinner (General Tso's Chicken by
preference) in an aluminum tray with clear styrene lid.
The lid is about 3/4" high.

Step 2: Eat dinner?  No, my 11 year old wolfed it all.	Salvage
an eggroll.

Step 3: Cut 1/32 to 1/16" wide strips out of the lid, parallel
and spaced about 1/4" apart.  Use a razor knife, and make sure
the strips are substantially longer than the ship is wide (I
neglected this important consideration).   I cut three strips
out for this attempt.

Step 4: Position a KV Hunter cruiser under the lid so the
cut-outs will produce stripes in the desired direction.

Step 5: Spray.

The stripes turned out exactly as I wanted, i.e. the edges are
"fuzzy", it was easy, and I can make a standard template and put
the same pattern on all my KV clan ships (except for the
strikers and other tiny little ships, one stripe would cover
them).

I primed them Krylon grey to start with.  The base coat is
burgundy metal flake--which I'm not totally pleased with, it's
lighter than I really wanted.	I found a dark purple acrylic,
but it's not metallic, so I'll add a little liquid gold to that
and see how it works for the next one; I'll also try priming
with black instead of grey and see what that does..  The stripes
are pearlized teal, from a model car paint rack; it was perfect
as far as color, I just wish it was acrylic instead of enamel so
it would dry today.  I'll finish it tomorrow with a light wash
of bronze.  One of the guys at work has a digital camera, so
with luck I can post a photo next week.