[barrydancer]

Hi, all. I'm new here and looking to start a build of the Round 2/Polar Lights Enterprise refit soon. She's sitting in the box waiting for my new house and man-land to start construction.

I have what's prolly a noob question, though. I see a lot about using aztec templates for the aztecing pattern on the model, but I can't figure out how they work. Is it something along the lines of: primer, basecoat of white, then place templates and paint another shade of white, then peel off templates?

Some of the pictures I see make it look like using the templates creates raised surfaces after they're removed. Are these sanded down afterward, perhaps?

I'm not skilled enough to do all of the reds and blues to do the pearl color, so I was thinking of either using Tamiya pearl white or doing different shades of white and following up with Tamiya pearl clear after it's all done.

Thanks for any info/thoughts y'all may have.

 

[Magesblood]

my understanding of how it works is:

you primer and paint the surface of the model. Shoot it with clear coat. Let cure completely. Adhere the masks to where they go and spray (preferably with an airbrush at 10-15 psi) the same color as the base only with a drop or two of something darker (for the negative) like silver or aluminum or even gray. I've even seen people do a base coat of plain white and do the aztec in a nice opalescent white or even do a gloss white base and sprayed flat sealant as the aztec. they all have their distinctive looks and all are equally impressive.

Watching the director's cut, remastered TMP DVD the other night, I saw some nice prismatic colors in the secondary hull; some yellows and pinks and blues near the belly.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0295.jpg

Here's a very nice example if perfection:
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=246126

basically, it's to taste.

A tip on the masks themselves: they're sticky for sure but sort of feel them up for a while. Let the oils in your fingers break down the adhesive a little to make the lifting easier. Otherwise, you risk lifting up some paint. Don't take away all of the adhesive though. You don't want it to not adhere to the model and let spray get under the mask. That's just crazy. :tongue:

 

[Raist3001]

You could also do the following:

Prime than paint basecoat. Over the base coat, spray a mixture of pearl blue (or what ever mixture you decide).
Lay down your azteks.
Respray the base coat.
When you remove the azteks, you will be left with your custom mixture.

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/Raist3001/?action=view&current=pearl_finished3.jpg

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/Raist3001/?action=view&current=pearl_finished2.jpg

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/Raist3001/?action=view&current=Pearl_finished1.jpg

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/Raist3001/?action=view&current=P1010281.jpg

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/Raist3001/?action=view&current=P1010271.jpg

 

[barrydancer]

Thanks for the tips. I can't wait to get started, but that's at least a month away!

Since I'm building the Refit and not the Enterprise-A, I'm going to use the supplied secondary hull bottom for the A as my guinea pig to try some different paint/layering combos. I'm thinking I'll just do two similar shades of white and finish it up with the clear pearl, but we'll see what I can come up with.

 

[barrydancer]

Now if I can just figure out how to do the greens on the secondary hull in a similar fashion as Disillusionist's build posted above. Friskets maybe? Unless all those little lines and triangles and different colored green squares were hand painted. I'm afraid mine won't be that detailed, but an approximation would be cool.

 

[bragstone]

Or you can cheat and use decals

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/newshop/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1293

 

[barrydancer]

Or you can cheat and use decals

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/newshop/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1293

No need for that, since the reissue came with a set. I don't know if I want to use that many decals anyhow, and the secondary hull details are blue and have the Enterprise A pattern.