I have several scratch built structures which I am about to paint. They are made from white styrene. I am going to light the structures. My question is what methods would you suggest to prevent light from leaking through the walls? I have experimented with painting one structure flat black inside and out (which blocks the light very nicely) but the black is very hard to paint over with a light colour. Should I paint over the black with white before the colour? I am concerned about paint build up if I use too many coats. How have you dealt with this problem?
On a website article about lighting starships with LEDs, the author used foil tape as a light block.
He just stuck it onto the inside of areas he wanted to block the light from, in some cases making light boxes covered in the material.
In some areas, he used silver paint as a lightblock.
Otherwise, painting on the inside would cut down on the number of coats of paint on the outside of the structure and having to paint light colors over dark.
Go with quality light and medium gray primers, depending upon the topcoat color you will apply on your structure. On something like this, I apply one thin coat of medium gray primer followed by 2 thin coats of light gray primer (allow 5 minutes between each coat). The final result should be an even light medium gray appearance. If your top coat is going to be a brick red or brick brown add 2 to 3 drops of red (for brick red) or yellow (tan or brown brick), for every 2 ounces of the primer.
You can go with white, however you may actually wind up applying more coats of it to achieve hiding.
For acrylics Testors Acryl and Polyscale primers work well and if you prefer solvent based paints you can’t go wrong with Scale Coat 2.
Thanks Eric. The only problem with the foil is that I want to be able to lift the roofs off to see the interior.
Thanks Antonio. Sorry but I am a bit slow. Will the grey primers block the light leakage sufficiently without the use of black? If so, thank you for such a simple solution.
Go ahead and apply the flat black. That is your light blocking foundation. The purpose of applying the grays on top is to act as a color foundation base that will prevent your topcoat color from appearing too dark because of the black bleeding through.
In this case you would be applying a color base transition from dark to light in gradual steps:
Flat Black paint,
Medium gray primer,
Light gray primer.
Apply in thin, medium wet coats. Pretty easy to do. Hope this helps[;)]
Though I have never heard of painting both inside and out, it may be necessary. I would suggest painting only the inside and put a light in to test to see if you need to paint both sides.
I do know that some folks put fillers in the corners to be sure that there are no gaps in the glue joints. Most seem to use square stock.
I’m not sure if painting both inside and out is neccessary but my family has a tradition of overbuilding so why quit now! For the corner leakage problem I use Testors glue in a tube like caulking with as small a bead as I can manage to cover the joint. It is less obvious than square strips when detailing an interior and once painted blocks the light quite well.
I just had a brain storm (rare event!) Since I am laminating two pieces of styrene together to form both the inner and outer walls, the next time I am building a structure I will paint one of the wall surfaces that will end up in the middle of the laminated wall black before assembly! That will leave both visible surfaces white with the light block buried in the middle. Wish I had thought of that several structures ago.
I found that painting the inside wall with gray automotive primer as a base coat, then painting it the final color. The two layers of paint is sufficient to prevent light leaks. And, since I prime and paint the exterior, as well, there is never the “glowing walls” effect.
I like to put interiors into my structures along with the lights. I print wall and floor surfaces on cardstock and trim them to size, including cutouts for the windows. This is a very effective light-block. If you don’t want to bother with the interior pattern, just using blank cardstock will block most of the light.
I put a piece of balsa wood strip (about 1/8 or 3/16 inch) into each of the corners. This strengthens the corner joint and provides an effective light block in case the plastic pieces don’t meet perfectly.
I feel that it is not so much the color, but how opaque the layer of interior paint is. I generally paint flat black, seal corners etc to seal light leaks. Another good thing to do when placing interior lighting is to build light baffles and diffusors. This can be made from card stock, styrene ect. I have even placed floors and interior facarde walls and place more than a single bulb. If you find you need to place bulbs in a spot difficult to change if burns out, a plastic drinking straw used as a conduit to fish the bulb wiring works great. These can be hot glued in a corner or other inconspicuos place within the interior. All the bulb wiring can be fitted w/ a plug to disconnect to remove the structure.I hide any excess wiring and the plug under/ behind a baffle.
The most opaque paint for using as a light block would be a metallic. You’ll note how hard it is to look through metal. Aluminum/silver would be the best, I think. You could then overcoat it with a color of your choice.
There are a couple of options here. For light leaks at the corners, a small dab of Squadron putty to fill the gaps works well.
For painting, I’ve found that multiple coats of paint and primer in any color are sufficient to block light. Use a good spray primer inside and out. This will actually block most of your light already. If you want interiors to be “viewable”, paint your interior walls in appropriate colors – off white (PollyScale’s Dirty White, or Aged Concrete, for example) is a good choice, although many places will have pastel colors. Exteriors can be painted appropriately, too.
If all else fails, you can use construction paper to simulate wall coverings, but I haven’t had troubles.
One warning - when you paint the interior walls, make sure that you mask off the edges where you plan to glue the sections together. Either that, or scrape the paint off the edges before you apply the cement. Any paint on the mating surfaces will make the glue joints very weak, and there’s a high probability that the building will fall apart.
Last time I was in a hobby shop I bought some of the new black Evergreen styrene sheets in .030" thickness. Thought I could use it as backing for my embossed sheets for structures. I have not finished my first structure with it but just holding a small light source up against it I see no light bleedthrough. I will still paint the interiors for the decorative effect but I think the black styrene will solve any lighting problems even prior to painting.
No, nothing special. I use Google to search for pictures. I like this site for surfaces: http://www.cgtextures.com/
If I’m making a “composite” surface (like adding a carpet over a wood floor) I use MS Paint. For the final printing, I import the images into MS Word and scale them appropriately.
I just recently discovered the black styrene sheets and obviously they would work very well. My problem is that I have already built the structures so my only choice is to use paint or interior card stock as was suggested previously.
