Part 3 – finishing the ESU Fleet

I decided to touch up some of the red parts that were a little sloppy.

Now it’s time to attach the bases. Here are all the base pieces.

I used epoxy to attach the base to the ships, because the fit was pretty loose, and superglue needs an exact fit. Epoxy will fill in spaces, superglue won’t.

Here they all are on the bases. I glued the “pole” to each ship, but I only had to glue the “pole” to the hex base for 1 ship, the rest were tight enough to not have to glue them.

I’m getting ready to spray them all over with a clear matte finish / sealer. This will protect the paint, and give them a nice finished look and a bit more contrast. I don’t want to get the sealer on the bases, because it makes them look “fogged”, so I made these little skirts to protect the base.

Here we are in the back yard ready to spray.

And here they are after being sealed. The color seems to stand out more now. Compare with picture #4, where they had not yet been sealed. At this point, they are completely finished.

Here’s a closeup of the battlecruiser. I’m pretty happy with it. Next, I’m going to start on the UNSC fleet. The steps will be the same, so I’ll probably repeat myself some. After that, I will try my hand at custom storage.

Welcome to Part 2 of my GZG Full Thrust Intro Fleet Double painting recap.

I primed them black. This is the 3rd batch I’ve ever painted. This batch was done with Krylon black. In the past I’ve used Rustoleum grey. I don’t know if the Rustoleum was better, or the missed spots are just more noticeable in black than they are in grey. But I had to spot touch up a few area with regular black paint.

Here they are after a 1st coat dry brush of dark grey, and a much more selective dry brush coat of a lighter grey.

Here’s the 2 different greys I used, first coat dry brush and 2nd coat dry brush.

My tools and paint. To make the above greys, I mixed black & white (duh!). I started painting minis just about a month ago (ed: that would be November, 2012, as this is a repost). I bought 7 jars of Citadel paints at a local hobby store. I quickly ran out of white because of mixing. A web page I read about painting suggested Apple Barrel paints, and they are pretty cheap on Amazon.com. So I bought a huge squeeze bottle of white. In the foreground are my stir sticks, they are kabob stick cut into 3 pieces with wire cutters. In the background is my giant flashlight. It is very useful to check details and find little spots missing primer, etc.

Here they are finished (for tonight, anyway). I’m not that great of a painter, so I noticed in this photo that some of my red details are a bit off. I might go back and fix them, or I might decide that would make it even worse. I’ll put that off until tomorrow.

Here’s my post about getting started with starship wargaming.  I originally posted it to Imgur in December 2012.  I’m reposting the series here to get this blog started.

I ordered the “FT Intro Fleet Double” from Ground Zero Games in the UK. I chose the ESU and UNSC fleets. You get 2 frigates, 2 destroyers, 2 light cruisers, 1 heavy cruiser and 1 battle cruiser for each fleet. It took 2 weeks and a day to arrive in CA from the UK.

Here’s the contents of the box. It came with 2 copies of the Full Thrust Light rules, which are also available for free download (as are all the Full Thrust rules) from http://shop.groundzerogames.net/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=130

Here’s the 2 fleets. The ships in the bags need assembly.

1st step: clean up the ships. Remove all the flash, file down the mold lines, then give them a good scrub with soap and water with a toothbrush. Here’s the flash and dust from cleaning up the ESU fleet. That’s my tiny metal file I used.

The ESU fleet all cleaned up and washed. That took about 3 1/2 hours.

Here’s the assembled ESU battlecruiser.

Here’s the whole ESU fleet, ready for primer. That will be in part 2.