Black Star Base
The Black Star Maquette I made has been sitting around for a few years in my workspace but there wasn’t a good way to display it. It needed a proper base.
I started by using a clear acrylic Christmas ornament half-dome as a mold. Using baby oil as a mold release, I coated the inside with about a quarter-inch layer of polymer clay (Super Sculpey). Then I packed it with aluminum foil and added a top layer of clay. I took it out of the mold and sculpted the craters and added texture. I used a little lava rock to put gouges into the surface.
After baking the clay, I sprayed it with black primer and then dry-brushed several shades of redish-brown acrylic paint, going from dark to light.
The hardest part was finding a way to straightly attach the acrylic rod that holds the ship. I don’t have a drill press and my hand-drilled hole was a bit crooked. So I made the hole bigger, giving it some wiggle room, and built a jig out of Lego to hold it in place while I epoxied it.
I really like how it turned out.
