I continued construction with the cockpit of the models. The cockpits need to be completed before I can glue the stage halves together. I started by cleaning up the pilot figures. As you can see from the above image some of the parts had quite a bit of flash on them. Once cleaned up they looked OK, particularly for this scale.
I pushed each figure into a block of clay and then sprayed them with Tamiya white primer. I then painted each figure the same way. Each had a blue uniform made by mixing three drops of Vallejo 71.004 Blue with one drop 71.001 White. I painted the boots Vallejo 71.057 Black. The white helmet was Tamiya White Primer. I used Tamiya XF-15 Flat Flesh for the hands and face. The seat was painted Vallejo 71.028 Sand Yellow. When the paint dried I gave them an overall coat of Tamiya Flat Clear.
Next up were the cockpits of the various airframes. I painted the cockpit floors with Vallejo 71.120 Dark Ghost Gray. The back wall of the cockpit was painted 70.974 Green Sky. The inside of the passenger stage was also painted Green Sky since it might be slightly visible through the side windows. The third stage of the Orbital rocket had no windows so the green stopped with the cockpit wall.
The instrument area of all cockpits was also painted Dark Ghost Gray. They then got a light coat of Tamiya Clear to prepare them for decals which are meant to look like controls.
The interior of the cockpits were painted Green Sky as well as the entire interior of the passenger rocket.
The cockpits of the first stages were treated the same way. If you look closely at the one on the right, you can see some small cracks in the paint of the cockpit floor. The Tamiya Flat Clear seems to have attacked the gray paint. I’ll fix that with a refresh of Dark Ghost Gray and a lighter mist coat of the Flat Clear. I’ve had that happen before when applying Tamiya clear coats over Vallejo paints. It usually indicates that I’ve sprayed a coat of clear too heavily.
The instrument panels were primed and then painted Dark Ghost Gray. Then given a clear coat to get them ready for some instrument decals.
The cockpit walls were also painted Green Sky.
That’s all I’ve gotten done this week. It’s not as much progress as I would have liked. This was a very busy week and it was hard finding workbench time. Christmas is coming next week, so I probably won’t get too much done again. After that, I’m hoping to concentrate on getting this build completed.
Thanks for looking in, there’s more to come.
Luhman-ations 