Question NOT YET ANSWERED for Ian, about miniature effects

Tom Luca

Hi Ian! I have two questions for you that you can either contact me here at thomasluca@gmail.com or right here in this post, it is pertaining to your wonderful Building Miniatures: Small-Scale Model Making series, 1.) where did you get that orange air hose and purple HVLP spraygun? And 2.) do you paint miniature buildings exactly the colors they would be in life or gather reference from an actual town or city building, or do you paint them a certain color or colors and tones that register a certain way on motion picture cameras and in what set-up of lighting? I ask because I seen a video or footage that had the jet or bird as pilots call them, on the movie FIREFOX (1982), and the crew had to repaint the model from black to blue or yellow was it if I recall? So it would register on camera, and another case was the picture ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997) that you worked on with your gang, the ship or craft Betty was painted a yellow or bright similar tone of yellow? My question again is, do modelmakers come across situations like that where we must paint the buildings a certain color or tone so it will register a certain way on camera? Thanks Ian, you are a #MasterofMiniatureEffects

Matt Winston

Hey @Tom Luca Thank you for the question. Stan Winston School instructors who've shot a course with us in the past, like Ian, aren't on call for questions that have a time deadline. Our instructors are working professionals, not professional teachers. We do, however, pass questions along, and we will let you know when and if we have advice from Ian to share. Thank you for your patience.

Tom Luca

Matt Winston said:

Hey @Tom Luca Thank you for the question. Stan Winston School instructors who've shot a course with us in the past, like Ian, aren't on call for questions that have a time deadline. Our instructors are working professionals, not professional teachers. We do, however, pass questions along, and we will let you know when and if we have advice from Ian to share. Thank you for your patience.

Hi Matt. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to help me. I'd figure as much, well, Thanks for passing along my question to Ian. Now I wait patiently for his answer hopefully if he would be so gracious. Once again, Matt, Thank you. SWSCA are #MastersofCharacterCreation 

Matt Winston

Hey @Tom Luca - here's some guidance from course instructor Ian Hunter. Hope it helps! - Matt

1 - The hose (I think) and purple spray gun came from Harbor Freight - yes, Harbor Freight! The purple spray gun has become the industry standard because it sprays fine, is rugged, easy to clean, and inexpensive.

2 - Colors to paint buildings (or any miniature). So we start with the real color as a reference, but then we will lighten the color because of something called “scale-effect.” Basically, a full-sized building, airplane, ship, etc. will be the actual color, but because of its surface area, it reflects a lot more light, and therefore, the surface will appear to be 1/2 or 2 stops brighter. Scale models don’t have as much surface area and do not reflect as much light, so the surface will be a stop darker. To compensate, we lighten the paint color to bring the light value up. For example, black should not be pure black but a very dark grey, etc.

One way to test this is to paint a 12” square board with the real color, then place the board the model’s SCALE distance away - say 12 feet if the model is 1:12 scale. Then mix the base color lighter with white, for instance, and hold the lightened color close to your eye, with the actual color 12 feet away. When the lightened color and the distant real color start to look like the same shade, you know you’ve lightened the base color enough for scale. The smaller the scale ( 1:100 is smaller than 1:10 scale), the more lightening is required to increase the scale effect. Also, we will often weather or age the paint by adding dark washes of umber or grey over the model base colors, so you can add even more lightening to the color so that the dark washes added over the base color bring the tone back to the scale effect tone.

Tom Luca

Matt Winston said:

Hey @Tom Luca - here's some guidance from course instructor Ian Hunter. Hope it helps! - Matt

1 - The hose (I think) and purple spray gun came from Harbor Freight - yes, Harbor Freight! The purple spray gun has become the industry standard because it sprays fine, is rugged, easy to clean, and inexpensive.

2 - Colors to paint buildings (or any miniature). So we start with the real color as a reference, but then we will lighten the color because of something called “scale-effect.” Basically, a full-sized building, airplane, ship, etc. will be the actual color, but because of its surface area, it reflects a lot more light, and therefore, the surface will appear to be 1/2 or 2 stops brighter. Scale models don’t have as much surface area and do not reflect as much light, so the surface will be a stop darker. To compensate, we lighten the paint color to bring the light value up. For example, black should not be pure black but a very dark grey, etc.

One way to test this is to paint a 12” square board with the real color, then place the board the model’s SCALE distance away - say 12 feet if the model is 1:12 scale. Then mix the base color lighter with white, for instance, and hold the lightened color close to your eye, with the actual color 12 feet away. When the lightened color and the distant real color start to look like the same shade, you know you’ve lightened the base color enough for scale. The smaller the scale ( 1:100 is smaller than 1:10 scale), the more lightening is required to increase the scale effect. Also, we will often weather or age the paint by adding dark washes of umber or grey over the model base colors, so you can add even more lightening to the color so that the dark washes added over the base color bring the tone back to the scale effect tone.

Thank you Matt! I knew I could count on you. And Thank Ian for me! You have most assuredly answered my questions to the letter. I am grateful for SWSCA and all Masters of Character Creation and Cibema such as Ian. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 👏🤝