Moebius-1 AKA FlatTop
- Thread starter mung
- Start date
mung
Sr Member
Thanks for all the encouraging comments, they really help with the motivation to go that little bit further.
The model has been in primer now for a few weeks but I have only just got around to photographing it.
The next step will be to come up with a suitable paint scheme and commit to all the fiddly masking that will be required.
My current thought is to steer towards the colours suggested by the original Moebius comic (see the beginning of the thread).
Thanks for looking.
More soon...
The model has been in primer now for a few weeks but I have only just got around to photographing it.
The next step will be to come up with a suitable paint scheme and commit to all the fiddly masking that will be required.
My current thought is to steer towards the colours suggested by the original Moebius comic (see the beginning of the thread).
Thanks for looking.
More soon...
TheElfTailor
New Member
Hey Mung,
This looks amazing.
Something just popped to mind for future projects when you said you'd been looking for half clear plastic domes.
In craft shops (Michael's & Jo-Ann's in the US, Hobbycraft in the UK) and online, you can buy fillable Christmas baubles in spheres and flattened domes.
Hope that helps a bit
Claire
This looks amazing.
Something just popped to mind for future projects when you said you'd been looking for half clear plastic domes.
In craft shops (Michael's & Jo-Ann's in the US, Hobbycraft in the UK) and online, you can buy fillable Christmas baubles in spheres and flattened domes.
Hope that helps a bit
Claire
Attachments
mung
Sr Member
Thanks for all the encouraging comments.
Joberg one of the main goals with this project was to see if I could actually capture the DNA of that concept art. Many times I have felt that I have missed the mark and lost what it was that interested me enough in a project to commit to it, particularly from my own design thumbnails. I have many projects that sit abandoned because the result doesn't quite match what I had in my head or on paper when I started. I am most pleased that in this case I think the model does convey the spirit and the outline of the concept art so your comment is very rewarding.
Joberg one of the main goals with this project was to see if I could actually capture the DNA of that concept art. Many times I have felt that I have missed the mark and lost what it was that interested me enough in a project to commit to it, particularly from my own design thumbnails. I have many projects that sit abandoned because the result doesn't quite match what I had in my head or on paper when I started. I am most pleased that in this case I think the model does convey the spirit and the outline of the concept art so your comment is very rewarding.
mung
Sr Member
The last look at this project was more than 5 months ago, when the model was at the primer stage.
It has taken a while to both come up with a paint scheme and to actually get around to doing it but I think now it is finally done.
To re-cap, this project was based on concept art done originally for a background spaceship in the original series of Battlestar Galactica in 1978. That concept art was in turn inspired by a Moebius design in a comic. The eventual model built for the series was known as the flat top.
My goal was to try and realise in three dimensions the essence and spirit of the concept art as I interpreted it incorporating part of the original intent of the Moebius design, namely the bubble two seater cockpit.
I took a side view photo of the primered model into photoshop and played around with various colour schemes. My first attempt was to choose colours something similar to the Mobius comic but I couldn't seem to get it to look any good.
I messed around with a few other ideas most of which were terrible before settling on the rough scheme pictured below.
I decided to try an experiment and break away from my usual paint method of using car paint for the finish colours with my usual poo juice alcohol based wash. This time, very late to the party, I thought I would try acrylic hobby paints with an oil paint based pin wash. One of the reasons for this is that I wanted multiple shades and tints of grey to go with the dark grey primer which I kept as the main colour of the craft. I also wanted a very vibrant red which is what came out of the photoshopped rough. Its hard to find the range of colours in spray cans compared to the endless range of the hobby paints.
I purchased a pile of Lifecolor hobby paints which are made in Italy. I chose these because they have good reviews and most importantly they come in 22ml pots for the same price or less than all the other 10ml or 17ml pots of the other brands. Tamiya paints used to come in jars close to this size but all I see now days are the 10ml mini jars. 10ml might be fine if all you are doing is some 1/35 scale tank kit or figures but my model is 970mm long, 10ml doesn't go very far. As it was I used a whole pot of the fluorescent red half way through and there were no more to be had in the whole of Australia so I had to wait to and order some more from the UK to complete the job.
In order for the red to come out bright on the dark grey primer I sprayed all the red areas white first. The white bits were then masked off and the red sprayed over the top. All the spraying was done with my ancient Badger 150 airbrush.
There was some swearing as it took some getting used to the amount of thinning the acrylic paints need to get through the airbrush without instantly clogging. Eventually I got the hang of it and it worked out well. The oil paint as a wash and filter also worked out well.
The oil paints I got from a large stash from my dad who did a bit of oil painting in his younger days at night school. They are all nearly 50 years old and most of them are still perfectly usable in the tubes except for all the colours that had cadmium, they had all dried solid in the tubes along with a few other random colours over the years. The only colours I used on this model were raw umber which I got a tiny bit out of the rest having gone solid, burnt umber and a bit of ivory black. These colours were mixed with odourless turpentine to make the wash.
I am satisfied with this technique which is very similar to my old technique in that it relies on having the base colour remaining unaffected by the thinner of the wash medium.
One of the main issues I had was with the masking tape. I usually use a no bleed low tack masking tape made by Scotch 3M. I was doing this out side on some of the hottest days so far this summer and the low tack gum refused to stay put. I ended up having to use blue painters tape which has an unfortunate tendency to bleed. I used it as the stickier gum would still be in position by the time I started spraying. On the other hand, in the heat, the paint dried very fast indeed.
My preference is to always securely glue a model together so nothing will fall off in handling and then worry about how to paint it. Masking around shapes that are buried behind other chunks of detail however is not much fun and there was a bit of that on this model. The masking for the big red tanks underneath and behind the side trusses and crossing pipes took hours and then was sprayed in less than a minute. However it had to be done and it looks the better for the effort.
Well here it is, the finished model, started in August 2018 and completed at the beginning of February 2020.
With a bit of luck I hope to be taking this model and the Resilient model to a couple of shows in Perth Western Australia this year (2020) WASMEX on 2nd and 3rd of May and Supanova (which I missed last year) on the 27th and 28th June.
Thanks for all the comments and the likes I really appreciate them and they are a real motivator to improve the work, stay focused and finish the task even if it takes 5 months to eventually do so.
Thanks for looking.
It has taken a while to both come up with a paint scheme and to actually get around to doing it but I think now it is finally done.
To re-cap, this project was based on concept art done originally for a background spaceship in the original series of Battlestar Galactica in 1978. That concept art was in turn inspired by a Moebius design in a comic. The eventual model built for the series was known as the flat top.
My goal was to try and realise in three dimensions the essence and spirit of the concept art as I interpreted it incorporating part of the original intent of the Moebius design, namely the bubble two seater cockpit.
I took a side view photo of the primered model into photoshop and played around with various colour schemes. My first attempt was to choose colours something similar to the Mobius comic but I couldn't seem to get it to look any good.
I messed around with a few other ideas most of which were terrible before settling on the rough scheme pictured below.
I decided to try an experiment and break away from my usual paint method of using car paint for the finish colours with my usual poo juice alcohol based wash. This time, very late to the party, I thought I would try acrylic hobby paints with an oil paint based pin wash. One of the reasons for this is that I wanted multiple shades and tints of grey to go with the dark grey primer which I kept as the main colour of the craft. I also wanted a very vibrant red which is what came out of the photoshopped rough. Its hard to find the range of colours in spray cans compared to the endless range of the hobby paints.
I purchased a pile of Lifecolor hobby paints which are made in Italy. I chose these because they have good reviews and most importantly they come in 22ml pots for the same price or less than all the other 10ml or 17ml pots of the other brands. Tamiya paints used to come in jars close to this size but all I see now days are the 10ml mini jars. 10ml might be fine if all you are doing is some 1/35 scale tank kit or figures but my model is 970mm long, 10ml doesn't go very far. As it was I used a whole pot of the fluorescent red half way through and there were no more to be had in the whole of Australia so I had to wait to and order some more from the UK to complete the job.
In order for the red to come out bright on the dark grey primer I sprayed all the red areas white first. The white bits were then masked off and the red sprayed over the top. All the spraying was done with my ancient Badger 150 airbrush.
There was some swearing as it took some getting used to the amount of thinning the acrylic paints need to get through the airbrush without instantly clogging. Eventually I got the hang of it and it worked out well. The oil paint as a wash and filter also worked out well.
The oil paints I got from a large stash from my dad who did a bit of oil painting in his younger days at night school. They are all nearly 50 years old and most of them are still perfectly usable in the tubes except for all the colours that had cadmium, they had all dried solid in the tubes along with a few other random colours over the years. The only colours I used on this model were raw umber which I got a tiny bit out of the rest having gone solid, burnt umber and a bit of ivory black. These colours were mixed with odourless turpentine to make the wash.
I am satisfied with this technique which is very similar to my old technique in that it relies on having the base colour remaining unaffected by the thinner of the wash medium.
One of the main issues I had was with the masking tape. I usually use a no bleed low tack masking tape made by Scotch 3M. I was doing this out side on some of the hottest days so far this summer and the low tack gum refused to stay put. I ended up having to use blue painters tape which has an unfortunate tendency to bleed. I used it as the stickier gum would still be in position by the time I started spraying. On the other hand, in the heat, the paint dried very fast indeed.
My preference is to always securely glue a model together so nothing will fall off in handling and then worry about how to paint it. Masking around shapes that are buried behind other chunks of detail however is not much fun and there was a bit of that on this model. The masking for the big red tanks underneath and behind the side trusses and crossing pipes took hours and then was sprayed in less than a minute. However it had to be done and it looks the better for the effort.
Well here it is, the finished model, started in August 2018 and completed at the beginning of February 2020.
With a bit of luck I hope to be taking this model and the Resilient model to a couple of shows in Perth Western Australia this year (2020) WASMEX on 2nd and 3rd of May and Supanova (which I missed last year) on the 27th and 28th June.
Thanks for all the comments and the likes I really appreciate them and they are a real motivator to improve the work, stay focused and finish the task even if it takes 5 months to eventually do so.
Thanks for looking.
Last edited:
tarnyloo73
Well-Known Member
Awesome work.
Couchdivot
New Member
Just had to toss a comment out there while its fresh. Love following your builds and the methods of construction. Not to bash your work or anything....from a functional standpoint, how do the pilots get inside the bubble?
mung
Sr Member
I don't know for sure but the way I imagine it works is the blue glowing thing on the back wall of the cockpit pulls back into the hull and slides out of the way. Then there is a crawl space into the inner hull and then access to the rear hatch. For repairs and maintenance the whole front half of the bubble can be removed, which is true of the model as well.
