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Words from THE MAN
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I sent an e-mail to Paul Olsen, the guy that painted the Enterprise for the motion picture. I suggested he write an article about how to paint her in 1/350 or write a book or something. His response is below.
Hi Drew....
Thank you for such a lovely email....I'm chuffed! (English, for very pleased at the compliment).
If it's 1/350, I'm assuming it's about 3 feet in length? As I recall, the Big E was supposed to be 1,000 feet, is that right? (it's amazing, but you know that none of us who worked on the film were real Trekkies? Terrible to hear, I know....only Andy Probert who designed the model).
To do a great paint job on the model, it is important to prime the thing first...and that is EXTREMELY time consuming....but if a model builder has the time and really wants to end up with a gem, that's what needs to be done.
As Mark Stetson and his crew did all the priming working just ahead of me, I can't remember every detail of the priming as I was concentrating on what I was doing, but I think I remember most of it. The primer they used was a lacquer-based flat white (automobile primer that was airbrushed on quite thick in several coats, and sanded between each coat with 600 sandpaper....and I think they used it wet, to make it real fine....but I can't be sure about that. I'll ask Mark, he'll certainly know---in fact, I've just emailed him, so hopefully I will hear from him within a few days and I'll let you know about that.
I used four pearlescent colors of paint....they were horrendously expensive back then and made by some small company because the labels were hand-made and I bought them at a commercial automotive paint supply store....in 1978 they were $45 for 8 ounces. The pearl paints are probably a lot more accessible and cheaper now, but I'm not sure about the colors that are available...but I would have thought with all the fancy women's fingernail polishes out there now, you can get just about anything.
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.
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 wing-struts. 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 struts).
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.
Then I would begin to spray one panel with various shapes, using various colors, and overlay some of the panels so I would get layers of color, and also spray some friskets lightly, and some a bit more heavily for more density of color....but 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 used a simple Paasche 1-a airbrush---the Chevy of airbrushes....but it always worked and was robust. Spraying lacquers is terrific because the thinner is also the solvent, so not only would the airbrush be self-cleaning (always a problem with airbrushes---keeping them clean and free from spitting), the paints would dissolve into themselves as they were sprayed, giving the surface a perfect sheen. I should think painting the small model will be more difficult than painting a larger one, for obvious reasons, and I would advise anyone who wants to really do this right, to allow a year just for painting if you can spend a couple of hours a night on it. The end result will be worth it if the model is of good quality and you have spent the time to assemble it, sand it, and prime it so it's PERFECT before you paint.
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, and the "engineering" section was done by Ron Gress in model railroad colors that have a weird thinner...I can't remember the name of the paints, but they are the most commonly used ones for model railroaders. The engineering section was in a kind of light sage green FLAT paint.
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.
That's really about it, Drew....it was a very simple process, but very detailed and time-consuming....and when the ship was finished, I went back over what looked like weak spots to charge them up a bit.
Thanks again for your kind letters, Drew......and good luck with your model! Just take your time.
All the best,
Paul
If you want to see something you might find funny and interesting, go here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayISAPI.dl...item=3824106461
Hi Drew....this just in from Mark Stetson in red (in charge of all the miniatures and who worked on the Big E getting it ready for me):
Sorry Paul, I don't remember. 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.
Me again....yeah, I remember the primer was very grainy and thick, but it sanded beautifully as a result, which, of course, is the purpose of primer.
Cheers,
Paul
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I sent an e-mail to Paul Olsen, the guy that painted the Enterprise for the motion picture. I suggested he write an article about how to paint her in 1/350 or write a book or something. His response is below.
Hi Drew....
Thank you for such a lovely email....I'm chuffed! (English, for very pleased at the compliment).
If it's 1/350, I'm assuming it's about 3 feet in length? As I recall, the Big E was supposed to be 1,000 feet, is that right? (it's amazing, but you know that none of us who worked on the film were real Trekkies? Terrible to hear, I know....only Andy Probert who designed the model).
To do a great paint job on the model, it is important to prime the thing first...and that is EXTREMELY time consuming....but if a model builder has the time and really wants to end up with a gem, that's what needs to be done.
As Mark Stetson and his crew did all the priming working just ahead of me, I can't remember every detail of the priming as I was concentrating on what I was doing, but I think I remember most of it. The primer they used was a lacquer-based flat white (automobile primer that was airbrushed on quite thick in several coats, and sanded between each coat with 600 sandpaper....and I think they used it wet, to make it real fine....but I can't be sure about that. I'll ask Mark, he'll certainly know---in fact, I've just emailed him, so hopefully I will hear from him within a few days and I'll let you know about that.
I used four pearlescent colors of paint....they were horrendously expensive back then and made by some small company because the labels were hand-made and I bought them at a commercial automotive paint supply store....in 1978 they were $45 for 8 ounces. The pearl paints are probably a lot more accessible and cheaper now, but I'm not sure about the colors that are available...but I would have thought with all the fancy women's fingernail polishes out there now, you can get just about anything.
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.
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 wing-struts. 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 struts).
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.
Then I would begin to spray one panel with various shapes, using various colors, and overlay some of the panels so I would get layers of color, and also spray some friskets lightly, and some a bit more heavily for more density of color....but 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 used a simple Paasche 1-a airbrush---the Chevy of airbrushes....but it always worked and was robust. Spraying lacquers is terrific because the thinner is also the solvent, so not only would the airbrush be self-cleaning (always a problem with airbrushes---keeping them clean and free from spitting), the paints would dissolve into themselves as they were sprayed, giving the surface a perfect sheen. I should think painting the small model will be more difficult than painting a larger one, for obvious reasons, and I would advise anyone who wants to really do this right, to allow a year just for painting if you can spend a couple of hours a night on it. The end result will be worth it if the model is of good quality and you have spent the time to assemble it, sand it, and prime it so it's PERFECT before you paint.
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, and the "engineering" section was done by Ron Gress in model railroad colors that have a weird thinner...I can't remember the name of the paints, but they are the most commonly used ones for model railroaders. The engineering section was in a kind of light sage green FLAT paint.
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.
That's really about it, Drew....it was a very simple process, but very detailed and time-consuming....and when the ship was finished, I went back over what looked like weak spots to charge them up a bit.
Thanks again for your kind letters, Drew......and good luck with your model! Just take your time.
All the best,
Paul
If you want to see something you might find funny and interesting, go here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayISAPI.dl...item=3824106461
Hi Drew....this just in from Mark Stetson in red (in charge of all the miniatures and who worked on the Big E getting it ready for me):
Sorry Paul, I don't remember. 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.
Me again....yeah, I remember the primer was very grainy and thick, but it sanded beautifully as a result, which, of course, is the purpose of primer.
Cheers,
Paul