Spent some time on the Tripod this weekend and finished the masking and painting of the hood. After the masking of last time, a light coat of oily steel was misted over the triangles along each edge. This was allowed to dry and then these triangles were also masked off thus:

The remaining areas of the hood need to be totally opaque. First of all a couple of coats of mid grey were applied, holding it up to the light to see where the paint was still a bit thin. Then a couple of final coats of oily steel were added over the grey. Once dry all the mask was carefully removed to reveal the purple sections and the translucent bits between them.

Holding the hood up to the light, you can see the translucent effects nicely.

This was a Christmas present from Kathy and another project ripe for lighting. The top piece of the hood is moulded in smoky clear plastic which is a really nice touch. Studying the film, there is a pinky-purple light that is visible through the triangles along the edge of the hood, with the rest being metallic – although the triangles between the purple triangles appear to be semi-metalic, semi-translucent if you look carefully!

I started with a light coat of transparent purple ink along both sides of the hood and then started to mask the areas to remain purple with triangles of Tamiya masking tape. After repositioning a few, I found the purple was lifting straight off the plastic. Not surprising really, you would normally use a primer before laying down any acrylic paints on styrene, but you can’t prime clear parts. Well not with regular primer.

I stripped all the purple off again with Fairy Power Spray (great for removing paint from plastic without damage) and then used a light coat of Testors Dull Cote clear matt. This is laquer based and adheres well to the plastic. It also leaves a frosty clear surface that the purple ink was able to bind to much more strongly.

It was then back to masking the purple ‘windows’ – fiddly but made easier by using 2 overlapping triangles for each window, allowing you to get a close fit to each side without having to cut each one exactly to size in advance.

Next is a light metallic coat over the inbetween triangles before masking them off as well for the final opaque top coat.