Deep Space Nine: The Model
It's done. My friend gifted me a model of Deep Space Nine, of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I had a vacation day yesterday so I decided to finish the paint job and start applying the decals. I'll come back to the decals.
When I got the box from my friend, I thought it was really cool - 16" wide, and came with a Cardassian warship and a tiny Defiant. Awesome, right? I've never been one to build models, but I was perfectly willing to give this a try because A) it's my favourite Trek show and B) it would be cool to have on display.
Unbeknownst to my friend, it turns out both the station and the Defiant were actually transparent. According to the box, this was done so that if you wanted to put in a lighting kit, it would be easier to do so. And it's probably true, but this put an immediate damper on putting this together. I would not get the immediate satisfaction of having a proper colour-matched station after putting it together. So I started small.
The Cardassian warship wasn't transparent, and all the pieces snapped together quite easily - no glue required. Still, it was bland, and needed decals. I attempted to apply them at the time, but didn't realize they were waterslide decals, so I stopped working on it for several months. Like I said - because the model was transparent plastic, the motivation simply wasn't there to put the work into it. Plus, the assembly instructions suggested I put the various modules together and paint them separately, before attaching them together. I used the excuse of not having paint to put off assembling the station.
But then, a few months ago (I'm not exactly sure when, unfortunately I didn't start tracking my time), I said to myself, "screw it!" and started assembling the model - lack of paint be damned. I wanted to see the thing complete and assembled, even if it might make it more difficult to paint & apply decals later. I also figured that this would give me additional motivation to actually buy paint to finish the job.
It turns out this was true! It didn't take me very long to finish putting it together; but there were obstacles. The model kit itself purported to be a snap-together kit, no glue required. But this was half true. Some pieces were certainly snap-together. The Cardassian warship, for example, was 100% snap-together. The Defiant, with a bit of work, was snap-together. The station was...complicated.
Having glue on hand was very necessary. Even if the pieces were snap-together, they didn't fit snugly or stay together, so I needed to glue them together. Unfortunately many pieces didn't glue together super snug - so the model has some gaps in a few places. It's not as noticeable now that it's painted and has decals applied, but it was annoying to look at. There was nothing I could do! The pieces just didn't fit together properly.
I did my best, and ultimately completed the job. The last pieces I glued onto the station were most definitely not snap-on; they were these tiny antennae or something or other. Thankfully the glue bonded very quickly and I only needed to hold them in place with tweezers for under a minute.
The paint came next. I went to a local art store and colour matched as best as possible to the diagram on the box. And that's another thing - the box had instructions on how to apply the decals, but all it gives you is the colour palette for each part of the model and you're supposed to intuit how to paint it. But I digress. The painting process was mostly pain-free - there were a few places in the model where it was hard to get at, primarily because I assembled the station before painting (🙃) but I got it done. Several parts needed multiple coats (the Defiant in particular didn't take well to the light gray colour) - the transparent plastic wasn't very forgiving.
The station took the most paint; in fact I finished an entire jar of dark gray paint before having to buy another jar yesterday to finish the job. And there are still parts that need some touching up that I probably haven't completely noticed. But even with just the paint, the model looked great.
Enter the decals. I told you I would get back to them. After I ran out of the dark gray paint, I had to take a pause on painting. I had finished the bits that were red and gold, so there wasn't much for me to do. I did some touch-ups on those colours but I couldn't paint anything else. So, decals.
I found a video with instructions on how to apply waterslide decals. This was very helpful, because I have never worked with waterslide decals before. I've only ever applied regular sticker variety decals, and even with those, I've never been any good at it.
I started with the Defiant, because it's one of my favourite Starfleet ships, and I wanted it to look cool. For the most part, it went okay. But the decals are so small! I had some difficulty applying them, and some even tore1. I did the best I could, and it turned out not bad. Actually, when finished, it looked really cool. The light gray colour works very well with the decals applied; at first I thought it might have been too light, but the decals apply some contrasting colours so it all looks good. But again, issues applying the decals. It was my first time, so I won't be too harsh on myself.
I moved on to the Cardassian ship. This one - I had the most trouble with; and I also decided to give up on the decals. They were sliding everywhere and wouldn't stick to the plastic, and they would attach to my fingers as I moved it around to stick the other decals in place. I was getting frustrated and angry. So I left it. To me, it's good enough - I doubt I will display this ship very prominently anyway.
So I took a break from the decals. I did a bit more looking around, and I found some more tips. I may have been submerging the decals in the water too long, which is bad for the adhesive. I dove right into the station decals. These ones were just as tiny as the Cardassian ship, but I wanted the station to look good, and the decals were necessary for this. I persevered.
Using the newfound knowledge about applying waterslide decals, I had a much easier time. Either I learned from my mistakes, or it's a lot easier applying decals to a wider surface area of a 16" model - take your pick. But it all went super smooth; so smooth that even after taking a break to make dinner, and actually hang out with my wife (to be fair, most of my model work was done on my day off, and she was at the office working), I popped over to the table and applied the remaining decals. Let me tell you, the decals really did make this thing look awesome.
I ended up with three extra decals that don't seem to have a place; so I'm going to cut at least one of them and apply it to a spot that mysteriously doesn't have a decal in place - I'm not sure what happened to it.
Knowing what I know, in addition to fixing one of the decals on the Defiant, I may try fixing some of the other decals on that ship - there are a few that are a little crooked, and apparently if you wet them a little you can re-position them. I'm not sure how well that applies to decals that have been sitting for several days, so I'm a little weary of doing that. There are some decals on the station itself that I'd like to straighten, but might just leave it in a "good enough" situation. Maybe display the station in a direction where you can't see those tiny mistakes.
Overall, this was a fun experience. My friend and I call this kind of thing "funstration" - it's a fun process, but often frustrating. In the end the effort is worth it. In many parts of this process, I found it actually relaxing. It was distracting my mind by making it focus on the task at hand, giving me something that was simultaneously "mindless" and something tactile with my hands that wasn't as passive as playing video games. Often I threw on a show in the background - either The Good Place, or Star Trek (most often The Next Generation, but I did watch a couple of DS9 episodes too).
I'm not sure the next time I'll be building a model, but I did identify a couple I'd like to build - either the Enterprise-C from Yesterday's Enterprise, or else the original refit Enterprise from the TOS movies. The latter is one of my favourites.
I have a plan for my next "funstration" project - a gift received last Christmas. I don't know how to describe it or what to call it, so I'll leave it at that for now.
Click through the pictures to see the full size - I made them small here so they'd show in a row when viewed on desktop.
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Turns out the decal sheet had some extra Defiant decals that will come in handy to fix some of the decals I tore. It's like the kit knew I'd mess it up.↩