As noted earlier, I have six minis from Shapeways' ADB storefront I've been working on, all in 3125 scale Frosted Ultra Detail; a Federation galactic survey cruiser; a Romulan DemonHawk dreadnought; a Mæsron dreadnought, heavy cruiser, and light cruiser; and a Vulpa blockade runner.
This my current work-in-progress attempt at each:
Of the lot, I'd say that, thus far at least, I'm feeling relatively comfortable trying to work on the Mæsron and Vulpa ships.
In the case of the Mæsrons, I've been trying to follow the colour scheme shown in the
cover art for
SFB Module Omega 1, and particularly Adam Turner's
cover art for
Module Omega 5. I've painted the "city" sections of these hulls grey, with silver "buildings" and (on the CA and DN) black for the "recessed" sections. The "outer" hulls are painted red, with a clear red coating added – though it may not show all that clearly in my less-than-stellar picturing attempts.
For the Vulpa, I wanted to do something different, yet still reflecting their "post-Mæsron" status. So, I used the same colour pattern for the "city" portion of the blockade runner, as well as common weapon and engine colours. However, it took a while to figure out a half-decent alternate colour for the "outer" hull; by accident, I found that a coat of clear red over a layer of yellow produced a nice orange-ey look, which I feel helps distinguish the ship from its former Mæsron comrades. (As it happens, the relevant Omega hex maps show Vulpa territory in orange, as opposed to Mæsron red…)
In contrast, I'm much less happy with how the GSC and DMH are turning out thus far.
If I'm being honest, I've never been overly comfortable trying to paint the white (or very light grey) hulls on Star Fleet or Auroran Navy starships. In the case of the GSC, I made a mistake trying to figure out how to colour in the panel lines, and "doubled down" by trying to give the ship an overall "weathered" look, as if it has been away from a major fleet installation for a significant stretch of time – which, I suppose, would be an appropriate thing to say about the long-range survey missions your average GSC is liable to be sent out on.
In the case of the DMH, I wanted to go with a green colour, yet one which avoided looking too "Franchise-ey". One of my problems has been how to distinguish the SparrowHawk and SkyHawk modules, and other details such as the warp engines, without looking too garish relative to the main hull.
In all, I have much to do to try and tidy up even those minis I feel more comfortable with, let alone trying to salvage something out of the others. Oh well…
Has anyone else here tried painting any of ADB's Shapeways minis for themselves - and if so, in which material and scale did you work with?