1/50 scale Planet Express Ship, Futurama

[ALIEN01]

fantastic work! i ran across this build somehwere on the internet a week or so ago, i dont remember where it was, i found it in a search, i was happy to see it here.

futurama is definetely my fave animated tv show of all time, and the PE ship is just too cool. you really did an incredible job on this build. if you ever decide to make kits, let me know i would love to have one (several) LOL

im actually watchin futurama right now.....season6 ep 8 "yo leela leela"

keep up the good work
cheers
bryan m

 

[Volpin]

So I've been messing around with paint lately, a LOT.

I'm trying out a few new things here. Since the PlanEx ship is sort of unique with its color palette, I wasn't able to find any generic rattle cans to match the colors exactly. Since I've got a new spray booth, I decided to give some new airbrush paints a whirl. I've been working with Createx "Wicked Colors" on this - I think they'd probably be suited to a smaller build, or possibly something that would be okay with a bit of weathering. I've painted a lot of things, though mostly with enamels, and this large volume acrylic stuff just isn't my jam. I'm still plugging along though, but I think next time I'll probably go with the Auto Air series of paints.

I did a LOT of tests with this stuff, and they all went pretty smoothly. Some small fisheyes, but I was shooting unprimed chunks of styrene so that was to be expected. Got a decent feel for the paint, or so I thought...

Putting it into practice went poorly. The paint seems to prefer bare plastic over primer, and any primed parts should actually be rougher than I usually prefer. 400-600 grit pre-scuff so the paint can stick. Paint too thick, and it'll never fully cure. You can just peel it right off...

So I got to paint all the fins twice. Secret here is going in very very very thin passes. This is a dusting at best. 6, maybe 8 coats for full coverage, 2-3 minutes between each pass. I spent about 8 hours spraying and finished all the ship bodies and fins, along with landing gear and turrets.

Here's the first of the guide coats:

Here's seven coats and two coats of flat clear:

Unfortunately, all these thin coats leaves a bit of a pebbly texture, which isn't what I'm after here. The paint itself can't be wet sanded for smoothness, so I'm actually doing pretty thick clear coat build up so I can sand out any imperfections with 1000 grit, then shoot with flat clear again. I finished the bay doors this way, but I've got a lot left to go.

More updates as they happen! I'm doing masking and accent colors next. fun fun fun.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

That paint is looking wicked! The colour of the bay doors you got is pretty much how I remember the ship. You really did a great job matching it.

 

[thorst]

I'm loving every update here!

 

[ALIEN01]

looking good! i think you nailed the color.......according to the feature length episode "benders game" the color is called "electric mucus" LOL

Sal says: "what shade of green is that"? puke?
to which leela replies: "for your information its caled electric mucus"
and Sal continues taunting leela: "look at princess pukarella, in her pukey, puke mobile" LOL

now i have to get out the dvd and watch that one! keep up the excellent work, cant wait to see more of it.

gotta love futurama!
cheers
bryan

 

[Volpin]

More paint! Looking around some scale model builder forums (mostly the guys that do WW2 aircraft) I found a great trick for doing tape lines. First, use good tape - the 3M masking stuff is fine for a living room but for this I'm using Tamiya yellow 1/4" masking tape. After putting your line down and burnishing the edge, shoot the tape edge line with some clearcoat. In my case I'm using Krylon matte #1311 acrylic clear. Once this flashes, follow up with your color, then remove the tape when the paint is about 2/3 cured. Nice, crisp edges every time.

And after pulling back the tape:

Lots more to go, but I'm starting to see a finish line.

 

[RKS]

This thread most definitely qualifies as

"Good niiooows"

 

[moonlightdrive2]

Very nice !

 

[Volpin]

Couldn't resist putting together a quick test fit:

 

[rashielx]

I'm glad you couldn't resist. It's easy prettier than most of the women I've dated

 

[EddieL]

You have absolutely captured its quirky character.

Good work!

Cheers
Eddie

 

[Volpin]

More masking! Since these shots were taken, everything has been clearcoated and is awaiting assembly. It's been a long build, but I can almost see the finish line...

Assembly draws near!

 

[YenChih Lin]

Your fleet of Bessies are looking good! Volpin, did you print the logos I gave you?

 

[Diegator]

That looks amazing! Masking is surely tedious, but well worth the results.

 

[Volpin]

Your fleet of Bessies are looking good! Volpin, did you print the logos I gave you?

I took those and a few other resources to come up with the logos for the rear fin. In most shots it seems to be really squished - not a true circle - but I decided on a more symmetrical logo like the pics you had posted instead.

That looks amazing! Masking is surely tedious, but well worth the results.

Oh man, I'm so over masking tape. In February I spent easily $60 on fancy tape and masking supplies. I'm ready to get back to bondo and sculpting.

Speaking of masking and logos, the fin logos have been started. I had these custom printed, and while they do have a white backing, they're still semi-translucent. That means if I'd just slapped them right on the fin, the dark green would wash out all the color.

So I masked off another shape and made a tan backing.

Much better, though this mask was slightly large so you can still see it at the edges of the decal. The others were painted at a smaller scale to hide this better.

I also started fitting the LEDs to the engine housing. There are 18 of them, and they'll be wired in 6 banks of 3 to give a random pulsing effect, driven by an arduino. I'm using the connectors here to center the bulbs, since the ID on the tube matches the OD of the bulb (5mm) and the OD of the tube matches the ID of the engine thruster. Lucky!

And lit up, no animations yet

Clearcoat is all wrapped up, and damn was that a frustrating endeavor. I'm going to need to find a clear that won't react with Testors enamel airbrush thinner. The red stripe pulled up on the first coat, so I ended up sanding that back down (it was a thick paint layer so I didn't need to respray) then sealing it with matte acrylic polymer medium sprayed 50/50 with water from an airbrush. With enough of that built up I was able to shoot the whole ship in Krylon flat acrylic.

Assembly next!

 

[YenChih Lin]

Volpin Uuuh!:eek You used an online source for the logo, there's a reason why I gave you my exported vector graphic. The font on your used logo is wrong, yours is a simple Arial, while the show's font is "Futura Bold" and the background is a tan. I wanted to contribute to a screen accurate logo.

 

[YenChih Lin]

Here see:


And what about the Dimensional Drift PE ship?

or the Police car?

 

[Volpin]

@Volpin Uuuh!:eek You used an online source for the logo, there's a reason why I gave you my exported vector graphic. The font on your used logo is wrong, yours is a simple Arial, while the show's font is "Futura Bold" and the background is a tan. I wanted to contribute to a screen accurate logo.

While I appreciate the critique, you may want to try working on your delivery a bit. That came off as pretty rude.

The logos I created are on a tan background, but since they've been printed out of house I had a lot of issues with the supplier. I went through dozens of printed logos and barely got 6 good ones out of it. Unfortunately, deadlines being what they are, I need to move forward. I'll give ya the typeface, though at this scale I think the thinner weight of Arial adds to the legibility where Futura would look chunky printed so small.

The dimensional drift variant would take almost an entire reconstruction of the project. After these three are done, I don't think I'll ever make another planet express ship again.

 

[YenChih Lin]

Oh nonono, I'm sorry if it came over as rude… never wanted to come over as such, but you know, it's not easy to convey that over the internet properly, if you can't see your talking partner . I see, I didn't knew you had a deadline, I thought you did it as a personal project. Bummer, that you had to make a compremise.

 

[Volpin]

It's cool, i'm probably being a little twitchy anyway. I've been working on these things so long that they've really started to wear me down and the finishing steps are getting tedious. Believe me I tried to get color match as close as I could.