Imperial Destroyer II

 

More Body Detail

My basic method was to either staple or glue the hardboard to the frame and this is a good picture illustrating both. The two big pieces making up the bottom of the ship are stapled to the frame, while all the smaller pieces are glued using Liquid Nails Projects glue. Another pretty standard item here: I filled in all the staple marks with wood putty and I caulked all the seams on the entire ship. This last part was a real pain but it was really necessary for making the ship look nice when it was painted. I hate caulk and I love caulk...it's complicated. 

Did I mention that this project used up nearly 100% of an entire 4x8 sheet of hardboard? 

Another body detail that you see here: the big guns and the 'radio towers' (I think?). These were actually two of the more expensive items on the ship. The radio towers were basically 20 sided dice without numbers on them and cost something like $15 for a 10 pack (couldn't buy smaller). The guns (you can see in lower left corner in this pic) are telephone line connectors filled with hot glue and tooth pics. Again, an expensive item, something like $15 or $20 for an 8 pack and I used all of them. BTW, I estimate the total cost of the project to be around $150 dollars or so, much of that being these items and paint. 

Last body detail: the 'Tower' is a piece of 2x2 that I dressed up with hardboard. When I first built the frame, I decided not to cut the vertical 2x2 because I wasn't totally sure how tall and you can only do that once. That made it a bit harder to cut when the time came (I had to use a hand saw for it), but it was a good decision. You can see from this pic how I would first make cardboard parts then later convert those to hardboard. Another thing at the end: I pulled lots of pieces off of circuit board and often glued them in place on the circuit board I added to the ship to add more detail.

The Back and Lights

The thrusters are basically pill bottles with funnels hot glued to them. I did add a layer of clear plastic to a hole in the smaller ones so I could put lights into the ship. I learned something about lights BTW: if you want lights, plan for that from the beginning. My lighting system is pretty weak. I did the back toward the end and was getting tired: I opted to use some leftover wainscoting panel I had. A little detail, but not too time consuming. I think when I weighed the final version of ship it weighed 14 lbs. Wanting to give myself the option to hang the ship, I did anchor eye pins to the frame in 4 places. 

The Finished Product

It's hard to see here, but I painted my destroyer with two colors: the circuit board panels and back was Rustoleum gloss Phantom Grey and I used Rustoleum high glass Thunder Cloud for the main hull panels. I also learned on this that using Automotive Primer as a first coat is really a great way to go. When I finished, it was a bit of a let-down: The gloss finish with no shade or texture really made this look fake and like a model. My son suggested I 'wash' this and that really did the trick.

The technique I used was a 'dry wash' (you can see this on You Tube) and I washed my ship with wet black acrylic paint mixed in water. What's a wash? You spray or paint a watered down dark or light color over your paint and then wipe as much or as little that you want off with a rag. I learned here that the art is really done with your washcloth, and the effect was awesome! My destroyer looks like it's been through some serious stuff and now it's a bit worn. I decided that this was Darth Vader's ship, and if you think of it, wouldn't Vader's ship get some heavy use? 

I finished with a dry brush technique using a mix of white and yellow for windows/lights. I don't think this pic shows the windows very well, but they came out nice and this pic is another really great illustration of the effect of the dry wash. On the dry brush technique: you use as little paint as you can on your brush and only the highest points you touch retain their paint...the opposite of the dry wash technique where only the lowest points retain the paint. Once I finally finished, I took my destroyer to work where it hangs in my office to this day!

I'm proud of this because I built a pretty big model from scratch and made my own plans as I went. I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot...my odyssey as a craft artist had begun.