The Wash!

In order to make the model look more realistic, a technique called "wash" or "weathering" is used to make the ship look used, old, and dirty... which is more in tune with the real life experience.

Ships don't usually come out from a brand new factory/shipyard to look shiny and clean, soooo.... i decided to do a wash on my ship.

(the "weathered" versions are on the bottom/right respectively)

In order to accomplish this, you need to thin out your paint with some sort of solvent, in most cases, they're terpentine based solvents. I used an enamel black to thin out the paint to a water like consistency, and applied all over the ship.

Here are the results!

(clean version on the left, weathered version on the right)

(Close up shots!)

Impulse/Warp Engines part deux!

Just an update with the impulse engines + warp nacelles.

I decided to keep the grills for the warp engines (see previous post), so that means a specific pattern of cutting is require to attach the wings. This is my design =)

The rest is the progress of my cutting of the main hull to allow these engine parts to be light up by LEDs.