Shuttleweather

Oil leaks on my shuttle

It was the time when I could start thinking of using something from my less-than-often-enough used arsenal of weathering products. Perhaps my shuttle was being serviced or in dire need of a knowing touch of a mechanic. No matter what the case was, the landing gears had developed some not insignificant oil leaks (VWE / Engine / 73813 Oil Stains). One had a long streak of oil running down the length of it, the other one had a good pool of oil forming on the footpad. The pics didn't show, nor would it be noticeable from the normal angle of viewing, but I also applied some oil stains to the bottom of the cockpit module, where I had added some random cables.

For a fleeting moment I had thought of using some VWE / Environment series grassy muck or something but I chose not to. Maybe if I had the space to house an outdoorsy base for this I could've done that, but for a model of this size I just couldn't go for it.

Air filter or radiator or something

On the original version of the shuttle had a very strongly painted grille on the top of it. This time I decided that the thing didn't really need a heavy darkening anymore, a quick dark wash was going to be just fine. That also worked with my idea of having the armoured plates of the shuttle to be white, some things were just going to have seen more life than some others.

The photo above was taken while the wash (VMW 76516 Grey wash) was still wet.

Rainmarks

The local late autumn weather had taken its toll on me, so the shuttle was made to suffer from some the approaching polar night (nah, we don't get that properly here on these latitudes, I just love to complain). I applied some rain streaks here and there, starting from the edge of the cockpit's viewport and continued to the wings. Didn't go too heavily with them, because I didn't want to make me shuttle look derelict, either. Maybe it was under a badly built, leaky temp shelter, while waiting for maintenance?

Back to the details

As if my face was missing my nose

Now was the time to finally return the cockpit unit onto the airframe. This also let me to check that if the model was properly balanced now - yes it was. I didn't glue the viewport glass on yet, as I didn't want to risk ruining it at this point in the long process.

The landing gear

I simply brushed the landing gears first, then proceeded to the landing gear bays with the same colour. As the main colour I used the same dark grey I had prepped the shuttle to begin with (VMA 71123 USAF Dark Grey). After that had dried I heavily drybrushed the landing gears themselves with the lighter grey (VMA 71120 USAF Medum Grey).

The inner surfaces and the edges of the landing gear bay doors I painted and left dark grey. The outsides I'd later on revisit with the off-white to make sure they looked the way I had designed. The landing gear bays or the doors I didn't highlight at all with the lighter grey, my intention being giving contrast.

Lasergunnery

I spent a good while thinking of the frontside weaponry. Ultimately I decided that the laser guns would be mostly dark grey. First I painted the barrels of the rotating wing-mounted laser cannons, leaving the stems / bases as they were. The fixed, shoulder-mounted twin laser cannons I painted grey from under the shield plate.

They'd need some fixing later on, especially those remaining bits that were going to be off-white. I assumed that the twin cannons would need some fresh white applied, as I didn't leave anything untouched this time, just to make them a bit easier on the eyes (I felt that just leaving them sticking out, dark as night, might make them stand out too weirdly). The general plan was also to leave the dark grey bits that way, not adding any metallics on them at all, nor any lighter grey drybrushing.

Father's day 2019

20th Anniversary Edition Slave I

To celebrate a Sunday in autumn I got to get my hands on a boxful of Lego. In addition to the obvious Boba Fett, Han Solo and a carbonite slab there were also two other bounty hunters in Slave I's box, Zuckuss and 4LOM, and a princess Leia on a small pedestal, as the series has been doing (Darth Vader came with a Revenge of the Sith packet with an All-Terrain Scout Walker or something, that I received in the summer).

*builds*

I spent a couple of hours of that Sunday, when all the actually important things were taken care of. This time my assistants didn't feel like lending a hand, though. As my process has been, I took a few silly wip photos, about after each bagful of bits got done (there were 8 in total). The ship's shape slowly revealed itself and even though the photos can't tell you, the thing weighed quite a bit.

A foldable swooshing handle!

Finished! It was a bit of a shame that Slave I couldn't be set to stand in the flight mode, for that one would need to build a separate stand, that could be connected to the swooshing handle, for example. Now if I only had excess Technic Lego at hand anymore...

From the bottom there's only one way forward

Delaying

I had to admit that repainting the bottom of the shuttle had not been looming in my horizon as the most exciting and wonderfulest of tasks. On Friday I finally pulled myself together and masked off what was to be masked and painted the final major area in three quick runs.

Again I had forgotten how thick my darker grey had gone (VMA 71123 USAF Dark Grey) and that made this process take at least twice as long as it had any business taking. The basic grey and off-white worked just like they promised to and that reduced my overall swearing significantly.

Finally getting up to speed I forgot to take the wip photo of the basic grey (VMA 71120 USAF Medium Grey) before applying the off-white, but I guess that wasn't a big issue as I had already documented the more noticeable parts at this stage properly. Over the grey I blasted a more carefully laid out layer of insignia white (VMA 71279) so that the landing gear bays and the landing gear themselves were left as clear of it as possible.

With the same idea I left the insides of the landing gear bay doors dark grey, but blasted the outsides white. My guiding idea was that the armoured outer shell of the shuttle was painted in a certain way and the less protected bits that were inside were clearly different looking. I wasn't quite sure what I'd do to them on the next painting round but I was thinking along the lines of dark grey base with drybrushed medium grey. That'd also fit the front/back bits of the shuttle that I had already established.

Now I only had to come up with a plan for the engine ports. In the Return of the Jedi and some games they have been, if my memory served me correctly, bright, cold blue-white. Why not? I could prep the ports with a metallic paint mixed with some white and apply a blue wash on them - but what if the engines were not warm and ready to run? Dark ports (almost anthrazite + metallic effect perhaps) to depict turned-off engines?

Whatever plan would eventually lock itself inside my brain it would not be flat black (#000000), that's for sure. I just wanted to do something else than the oh-so-typical white, because some more contrast in this model would not be wrong.

Yet again I noticed that I had put off this task for ages just to notice that it took, in fact, half an hour of work in total. Maybe admitting to my failings this way semi-publicly could help me behave in the future.