Completed: Alien Queen Reservoir: Project AVP

[Aristo]

Ok so that poses a question... with fleckstone/crackle paint products, can you do a fade effect where it looks more cracked at one end and less or not cracked at another end of say... a mouse? or some other part of a case? Kinda like my moms windshield on her pos buick... it's all spired out from one corner but pristine on the other side

[Crimson Sky]

The paint scheme is very basic: First the Sculpey is painted with a water-based acrylic paint to seal it in. Sculpey doesnt like enamel or laquer as a bascoat, the polymer tends to keep it sticky. Next the base was painted in gunmetal (black with silver) color:

Then black acrylic was thinned out and "washed" into the nooks and crannies. This gives the carved look more depth:

Earth brown was drybrushed lightly over the high spots:

Silver, brown and black enamels were mixed to make a "jet exhaust" color. You can also buy this pre-mixes from Testors. This was lightly drybrushed over the brown.

Next pure white acrylic was drybrushed over the jet exhaust color. Then silver drybrush, and finaly a very light brass color to finish the painting:

You can see I made a ring from styrene to finish off the capsule. This plastic ring was covered in Bondo, then carved with a small drum sander:

I put a small spring on the LED wires to relieve motion stress. Shrink tubing will go over this:

Thats a wrap!---I'm sure Rachel will give us pics of the installed Alien Queen water feature when she gets to it.

[MrSlacker]

<--- that was me when i saw the finished product! simply amazing

[Frakk]

excellent work! now lets hope Rachel's power supply's voltages are not too high and wont burn the LED out

[Crimson Sky]

excellent work! now lets hope Rachel's power supply's voltages are not too high and wont burn the LED out

well the 150kOhm resistor pretty much takes care of that--unless she is getting like 10v on her 5V

[Rachel]

<--- that was me when i saw the finished product! simply amazing

Me too. Your painting left me in aww. I don't know if my fleck stone paint can do that justice. It'll deffinatly look like two different types of stone. Your painting almost makes it look like flint or something. The rest will just look like aged stone. I hope it will look good together.

When are you going to send it? And should I then expect the VFD too? Once I recieve those everything should fly smoothly. I can never ever thank you enough. You are truely skilled and I feel honored to have this for my project... Thank you.

[Crimson Sky]

You can get the same looking paint theme if you just get some model paints and acrylics--you dont need many. I'll send the res when the paint dries in a day or so

[X child]

I hate to sound redundant but that is ridiculusly awsome. And since it's a donated piece it just goes to show some of your character. Which appears to match your modding skills.

[Guttenaffe]

Crimson that looks sweet

Actually I'd say that Crimson’s 150Ω is perfect to lower the current down slightly more. It was a blue LED (I think) so I'd say there is prob close to a 3V forward bias voltage barrier to cross, and if she runs it off 5V line there is 2V left so 2/150 = 13 & 1/3 mA

Also remember voltage don't damage a LED unless you hook it up backwards and over run it's reverse bias voltage. It is the current going though the semiconductor that makes it glow and it is over current that will make a LED die. If it is a 20mA max current running it as say 13&1/3 mA will not lower the brightness to much but it will extend the life of the LED greatly.

I so need to write that LED article... Crimson you host it if I write it?

[Crimson Sky]

Crimson that looks sweet

I so need to write that LED article... Crimson you host it if I write it?

Hey thanks--and thanks to everyone who followed along. Sure write up an LED article and we'll give it a home in the tutorials section of the front page