Sunday, January 7, 2018

'Flight' from ByronM: Dropfleet Commander UCM Beijing Battleship

For the first theme round this year I had a plethora of choices of projects to pick from.  I had several models that I need painted for various games, including a dragon, a phoenix, some planes and helicopters, some jet pack troops, a drop pod, and more.  In the end I did the completely bass-ackwards thing and chose a model that is not even usable in a game...  but one I have wanted to paint since I got it but kept delaying as I was not sure I could do it justice until I had some more practice with my super fine Harder & Steenbeck airbrush.


 

Well, I've had some practice the last few months with the airbrush so, may I present my take on the Dropfleet Commander UCM Beijing Battleship.  Now, it's not the normal version, this is the kickstarter exclusive all resin 2-up version.  Meaning it is not playable in game, and is bloody huge, measuring a whopping 11"+ long, 5" across, and 4"+ tall!



I wanted to get use a very muted pallet for this model that closely followed the official UCM paint scheme of multiple shaded of grey with some accent white panels.  I started with a black base and then highlighted the top half of the model with a medium grey and the bottom half with a dark almost black grey.  I wanted to keep the bottom substructure almost black but still have visible details.

Once the base colours were setup, I went in with a 0.15mm H&S airbrush and worked each upper hull panel up to a lighter grey in the center, careful to leave the edge of each panel dark.  This took a while as I put the lighter colour on as a glaze of probably 1 part paint 4 parts glaze medium and then thinned down and applied with very low pressure.  I did it this way to ensure that I could not build up to a light colour too quickly, and more importantly so that when I inevitably screwed up and went to close to and edge that it didn't show up to badly unless I did it 3-4 times in the same area.  Once all the panels were highlighted, I masked off the ones to be white and gave them a few coats of flat white.

With the airbrush work all done, I went to the bottom of the hull and used a brush to glaze highlights onto each little bump and part.  I didn't want a chalky drybrush look so had to do it this way which was time consuming but simple.  I then clear coated the model for handling and the next step.



With that done I used thinned down black oil paint to create a pin wash.  I did it this way for two reasons.  Firstly, a thinned oil paint wash wicks through the cracks and details 100x better than any wash I have ever used.  Secondly, Greg showed me a great product that is essentially a hardened q-tip used by Japanese mecha modelers, that you dip into thinner after the wash is done and then wipe it over the model.  It cleans up anything that comes out of the details instantly and completely (assuming you clear coated first).  This has made doing models like this far less stressful than using a normal wash.

After the wash I clear coated again so that the oil paint was sealed away and then went to more detail work.  I added some sparse metal work areas (mainly pipes and pistons) and then painted a few hundred (at least is seems like it) blue lights all over the model.  These were done with a simplified gem pattern of only 4 colours (dark blue, med blue, light blue, white) due to being so damn small.  Of course that hardly shows in the images, so it was not really worth the effort, but oh well.


 

So there you go, a huge spaceship that is not even usable in a game, all done just for fun.  That said, I bloody LOVE the scale and wished they had done more than just the UCM and a PHR ship in this scale.  Surely it isn't just me that thinks that it would be amazing to do a fleet battle on a gym floor with ships like this!

Oh, and just for comparison, the small ship in the last picture is a normal DFC ship that is 4" long on a 50mm base.




25 comments:

  1. Wow! I love this ship (especially it's intricate underside). It's freakin' HUGE! The blue-grey and white panels look very sharp.

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    1. Thanks Curt. As soon as I saw the UCM ships for DFC I fell in love with them, and they are even better at this scale. I just think they look like a cross between the B5 and Battlestar Galactica look, and think they look so believable as earth ships.

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  2. My word that's a lot of resin! Beautifully painted too.

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  3. Super cool Byron - and there is always a game somewhere for it...

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    1. Maybe as an objective piece or something. I just so wish there were more of these to do a game at this scale! Of course doing that would be stupid money because if I remember right this one was 40 pounds or something like that.....

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  4. I really like this ship. Great job on it and providing info on technique used.

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  5. Oh, wow, that's a definite contender for the Bonus round prize. You ABSOLUTELY have to use it every chance you can. Even if you change rules, come up with a crazy scenario, or go full on Rogue One Darth Vader on anybody who complains. It's THAT spectacular.

    Absolutely beautiful work, and beautiful photography.

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    1. Thank you, I am very happy with it. You probably could use it in game it would just be awkward, as with many space games the model doesn't even count, only the center post, so technically I could, but moving it around a 4x4 map would cause a lot of congestion.

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  6. Great work here, and I did not know that they made 2 up versions in the kickstarter! Such a great piece and a nice paint work! Great paint for sure!

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    1. Thanks MrLee, I tried to do it justice. And yes, they did a 2up of this one and of a PHR ship. Now that I have this one done I probably should do the PHR one sometime soon.

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  7. That's a big ship Byron - and beautifully painted! Well done.

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  8. A quality bit of space ship painting there 👍

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  9. Terrific work, Byron, that's a great ship.

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  10. Superb! Once again, thanks for explaining your techniques.

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    1. Glad to, hopefully I don't bore anyone with them. I am not very good at fiction and stories like Greg or Curt are, so I figured I may as well try to pass on some of what I have learned while painting, hopefully some find it helpful.

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    2. Awesome job Byron. I'll have to look up that product. I've tried the q-tip method and it works...okayish but I find you really go through the q-tips and risk leaving a bit of q-tip fuzz behind (thankfully easy to pick off)

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  11. Smashing stuff, I’ve got this model but could never do it this kind of justice!

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  12. Now that's a huge battlewagon, no mistaking! A terrific entry and thanks so much for the really interesting post about the background to the choice and the painting. I love the Q-tip idea!

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    1. Q-tips themselves wont work as they are too soft, but that't the closest thing to describe them. Google: gaianotes g-06 and you will find them.

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  13. Wow! This is a very impressive model, Byron! And even with your modest assessment of painting skill...holy heck! That is well done! I like this piece more than the bull you did last year, and I really, Really liked that bull! I seen arena Rex at adept icon and their version wasn't even close to yours, ergo, this is a stunner of a battleship! ;)

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    1. Thanks David. I don't know though, from the pictures I have seen of the official Arena Rex bull, I think its likely much better than mine. I appreciate the vote of confidence though!

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  14. He’s quite the brute Byron, very nice

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