AkiPla circa 2006
Here’s my current target: A strip mall under Akihabara Station called Akiba Station Plaza, or AkiPla for short (note: Since my trip to Tokyo, it’s become an Ishimaru, a chain of electronics and home-appliance stores). You’ll need to click on the pathetically small thumbnail to see it clearly. It’s plastered in ads, and has merchandise practically spilling onto the street. Not only is the interior lit, but there are lots of little spotlights at the top illuminating…well, what they are meant to illuminate isn’t quite clear. They are directed at the corrugated metal. There’s lots of great modeling possibility in this little scene.
The unpainted facade of Plastic AkiPla
And, I’ve begun work on this building. Here is the facade. I’ve used a variety of styrene to achieve the various textures (which are admittedly a little hard to see in this photo). Since this structure is sufficiently generic to be useful in lots of places, I’ve drawn up some handy plans for the interested: AkiPla Facade Plans. unfortunately, the plans are larger than will easily fit on a sheet of paper. You will have to print them twice to use them.
The painted facade of Plastic AkiPla
I’ve even painted it! It still needs another coat to smooth the colors out a bit, and maybe lighten and cool the color. I gave it a first coat with a 50-50 mix of Citadel Boltgun Metal and Citadel Codex Gray. This gave it a dark, metallic sheen. Once dry I then heavily drybrushed the facade with a 50-50 mix of Citadel Mithril Silver and Delta Ceramcoat (not a typo) Hippo Gray. Citadel is a line of very nice (and very expensive) acrylic paints from Games Workshop. Although the paints all have goofy names, their metallics are some of the best I’ve ever seen, and mix very nicely with non-metallic paint. The Delta stuff is cheapo paint from Wal-Mart, but it’s a nice warm, light gray that, to my knowledge, isn’t available from Games Workshop.
It looks great!
Something I’ve been using for metallics is a product called “Rub ‘n Buff” by Amaco – it’s great stuff, you can find it at Michael’s craft stores pretty inexpensively – I think it’s around $3.25 for a tube. A little bit goes a long way.
It’s a wax based metallic finish that a lot of people use to fake an antique patina. There are around a dozen different finishes available, I’ve been using their plain silver for my Grey Knights. I’ll try to get a photo of my minis that I’ve been using it on. I’m much more happy with the finish I get from it than I am with paints. I learned about it here: http://www.kan.org/michael/mkp/rubnbuff.php
Here we are: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trjames/3443827120/
All metallic finishes are Rub ‘n Buff. There are some bumps on the dreadnought, but they’re in the acrylic gesso I use as a primer. The Rub ‘n Buff always goes on completely smooth.
Those look great. Actually, I like the texture that the gesso gives the dreadnought. I’ll have to try that stuff on some of the other metallic structures I’ll be building.