Still playing w/ the Enterprise

I've really gotta post some pictures... painting of all the detail on the ship is complete, and I'm finishing up w/ decals and then a final coat of dullcote or something similar.  The detail painint isn't perfect, but given the number of tiny details, it's been great practice.  There must be hundreds of the escape pods, and hundreds of windows as well.  I used an ultra fine point white paint marker for the 'lit' windows, which worked well, although even it was a little large.  I used an ultra fine point Sharpie marker for the 'dark' windows, which was really easy and worked great.

I will probably (at the urging of one of my teenagers), try a little weathering powders (I've got a set from Micro Mark) to simulate some battle damage.  Can't have this ship too clean, I guess.  But what does a phaser hit look like, exactly?  Dust, I can do.  Mud, yep.  But phaser hits?  Hmmmm.

On an RGS note, I've also dug out a set of 5 outhouses from Banta I received a while ago, and getting ready to start on those.  My preference for staining the wood is to create several variations of stain with 70% alcohol and brown and black shoe die.  Those are all purchased... more details to follow!

Not much layout work

I haven't been working directly on the layout lately; it's summer and we got busy w/ graduation season around our house (one from high school, one from middle, one from grade school, and a birthday - all within two weeks!).

However, I have been finishing up a model of the USS Enterprise-D, which my oldest son gave me a gift quite a few years ago, and which I thought I should probably finish up before he leaves for college (alarmingly soon, now...).  It's got fiber-optic lighting, and to properly paint it has hundreds of tiny windows, panels, etc.

It's not my greatest achievement, but it's been great to re-discover some painting skills long dormant, and learn new skills I haven't used in building the layout.  Perhaps I'll post a picture if it turns out ok.