WORKBENCHHere, you can see some jobs that liteFX has worked on, and review some of the techniques used. If you are new to modeling and want to make a start, feel free to use this as a tutorial to get you started.
Here's a list of what's on this page - click on a topic to go there. I'll add some more from time-to-time, so check back.
•planning
the job
•scale
•power
supply •lightproofing
•light
sources. •scale
•materials some set
building See how long it takes to
produce a model
Planning
the job. At one end of the spectrum is the Perry Rhodan ship
Marco
Polo. This is a
simple sphere, but by placing the light source (2 wide angle
led's) at the focal point of the ship, an even distribution
of light is achieved. Finding the focal point was a case of
moving a torch bulb around inside until an even image of
each hemisphere was obtained. At the other end of the
spectrum is USS
Voyager. That took
several days just to set out where the lights had to be, and
how the wiring harness would be handled. There were
different voltages to deal with, and the engine hinges still
had to work to let the pylons swing into the up position.
Here's a sketch I used to plan the position of the lights,
and work out how to minimise the number of wires involved -
not for the cost, but for the room. The flasher circuits and
the power supply regulators for the fluorescent tubes were
located either side of the upper tube - see the USS Voyager
detail
page for a
picture. Scale.
On a model such as the USS
Voyager, it's
no good just sticking some l.e.d.'s on the surface of the
plastic - they'd look huge in comparison to the real thing.
Also, you can't just cut some holes and hide a torch bulb
behind them, as the thickness of the plastic means that, if
you look from more than about 20 degrees off-centre to the
window, the light 'goes out'. Here's a trick I used on
Voyager and other kits. It involves bonding an led into
place under the model surface with epoxy resin injected to
fill the space made by a preformed putty plug, then sinking
an acrylic light guide into it. By blooming the 0.75mm
diameter light guide plugs with heat, it's possible to get
sub-millimeter sized light sources. And you thought liteFX
models were expensive? Power
Supplies. For powering a model, I might decide to use
batteries or a mains power adapter. If it's for a display at
a convention or club, I'll use an adapter if I can guarantee
access to power. For a customer in a domestic situation,
batteries are usually best, as the models tend to be powered
up infrequently. As far as light sources go,
fluorescent tubes require optimal power at all times, or
they quickly start to darken irreversibly. For led's, it's
the current that you have to watch. All led's are sold with
power specifications - if you can't find out what those are,
because you shop at a general retail outlet, don't buy them
- select them from an electrical goods retailer that can let
you browse a catalogue. The normal arrangement calls for a
series resistor whoes value is given by the (supply voltage
- forward voltage) divided by the maximum current an led
will take. Lightproofing.
Sometimes it's not possible to have tightly contained light
sources, such as in the Marco Polo. In this case, the
interior of the open space is first sprayed with hi-build
spray putty to seal microfissures, then matt black to
prevent any light leaks, then silver to reflect light back
and give it a chance to come out of the windows again, to
make maximum use of the light source. To help prevent light
leaks between halves of a hull to be glued up, I might use a
thick elastic band or a piece of foam rubber draft excluder
- something that will deform and conform to the shape of the
parts being glued. Light Sources. Here
are the common light sources that I work with - there are
occasionally others on the market, but I can't guarantee the
availability so I tend to use them only on special
jobs....... The wavelengths are marked
beside the colour, and I've coloured the text to represent
the actual colours, as the digital camera was (apparently)
quite deficient in yellow and deep blue, which have showed
up very dull in here...... This is a difficult one.
There's no guarantee that, just because the lights look the
right colour on the inside, they'll look good when the model
is put together. The most common reason for this is that the
external lighting for a model may be deliberatly coloured to
achieve a certain look that can't be done with just paints
alone. A favourite model for this problem is the USS
Enterprise from the original series - the t.v. image came
over as various shades of pale blue or white, but the studio
model was grey-green! When selecting white light sources,
fillament (torch bulbs) often have to have the colour
temperature raised with a blue filter - I often paint them
with clear blue varnish. For blue led's, shorter wavelength
emission peaks (460nm) are usually better - the cheaper
475nm led's are distinctly turquoise. The same goes for
green - the shorter the better, or they look too
yellow. There are a few ways of
describing the colour of light. Longer wavelengths are
redder, and have a lower colour temperature. The colour
temperature of a source describes it's tint - 4700K is a
nice pure white, while 2500K is distinctly yellow. The
temperature, in kelvins (K), is the temperature that
something would have to burn at in order to radiate that
colour of light. Many fluorescent tubes will burn at 3800K,
and fillament bulbs will be down around 2200K, and have a
yellow hue. This can be adjusted using filters - a blue
filter will hold back some of the longer wavelength, lower
temperature, red light, raising the average colour
temperature of the source, but at the expense of light
intensity - it'll get dimmer as well as bluer. External
lighting on a model may have a blue or green tint for tv and
film, to help with the mechanics of image capture, but this
makes 2200K lights look very yellow. It's essential to consider
reflected light as well as radiated light. If you shine
white light on a red model, the model reflects the red light
and absorbs all other colours, and you see red. If you shine
a pure green light on it, it'll look black - there's no red
light falling on the model to be reflected by the red
paint! Find
a sample The best way to start weathering something is to
look at something similar. That means that you have to pay
attention to scale as well - a dirty family car doesn't look
the same as a dirty trawler, for instance. Weathering patterns often
follow panel lines or joins, but not always. If the model is
of something that moves fast, there will probably be
directional streaking, usually at the leading edge of
anuthing raised, but again not always - finding an real
example is the key. On an aircraft, for instance, there will
often be smudge marks in the strangest of places due to hugh
speed airflows, thrust reverser plates on the engines and
rain running down when it's at rest - these will often give
conflicting streak directions. I often add directional
patterns with an airbrush, then run a 10% solution of paint
in thinners down the subject several times, blowing the
layer thin with a straw to make a realistic look. They will also result in
different colours. Some of the nastiest weathering jobs I've
seen (I used to do them this way!) are plain black smudges -
weathering is rarely black. I use greens and browns most of
the time, but any colour can be used if called for. An
airbrush is essential, but so is a good stiff brush,
especially for brushing silver over black or rust over
silver - that's a job that stiff, short bristle brushes were
made for. Ever seen old paint on a
metal cladding? It loses it's gloss finish and the colours
fade in and out because of sun bleaching, acid rain, diesel
fumes, and moss - and none of these will be
black! I usually end up doing a
swatch board. This is a strip of material with the same
surface finish as the subject, and painted with the same
paint scheme, then I add a selection of weathering
techniques to square panels. I'll then look at these in the
sort of light that the model will be viewed of photographed
in, and make a final selection to apply to the
model. Match
the effect Don't think that you have to weather a model with
enamel paint. There's acrylic paint, oil paint, soft
pancils, charcoal, chalk, and even plant materials! To get
the effect that you need, it's often the case that the
colour of the model will have to look odd. This was the case
with a few models I've built so far, and the original series
Enterprise and Thunderbird
1 are good
examples. The Enterprise is quite plainly green, because the
customer wanted it to match the original studio model. This
meant that it would have to be viewed under a lilac coloured
light to look white, which throws off the colour balance of
everything else in the set - but that's what they
wanted. Thunderbird 1 on the other
hand was painted silver with red and brown weathering,
created with coloured pencils, paints and chalk dust, and
sealed with several coats of laquer, then a matt varnish.
This gave it a very accurate finish, very true to the
original cartoon series, and this turned out to have some
peculiar properties as you can see here - it's whatever
colour you want it to be! Real Models Models of real
objects are much more difficult to make, because they have
real surfaces and finishes. This church door prop was for a
test for a small Arts Council funded film, and it comes from
a local church, so I had easy access. The material for the
stone was polystyrene, and the door is made of balsa,
stained with oils. The hinges were cast from a plastic
master with Milliput. The styrene was cut unto
blocks, roughned up then glued together to give convincing
fissures. The shapes for the blocks were worked out on
computer from measurements of key points (every 5cm!) to get
the curves spot-on. The prop has no back - nobody would see
it! The door was made from
individual strips of balsa, again roughned and distressed,
then glued together. The stains naturally gathered in the
bruised fibres and accentuate the look. The polystyrene was blue to
start with. It was surfaced by coating with PVA glue, then
covering with sand sieved to 0.2mm to get the scale right.
It was than undercoated with a stone-coloured acrylic blend,
then weathered with mossy greens, greys and browns in paints
and chalks, by brushing, spraying and pouring, as
required. The producer of Life Goes On makes some last minute
adjustments to my crashed plane in a field, which is
actually set in a field..... Extreme accuracy was required,
with a high degree of surface finish, and yet the engines,
propellors and wheels could be swapped to give flexibility
in shooting on location. The Art Director gets ready to animate my tank in the
same film. The models andf scenery here were historically
accurate, including the colour, and quite demanding. Just about to start filming on the Terminus set. My hut
here is actually about 2 metres tall, and took quite a bit
of carrying round!
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