Painting
For the base paint I wanted a bronze effect that was quite rough in its surface texture. I found the ideal medium in the form of cast bronze Rustoleum that I purchased form a local DIY store (B&Q for those in the UK). I used this as the base coat and then added various shades of Alclad and rust pigments along with metallic dry-brushing to get the effect I wanted. For the observation windows I tried to use the kit masking tape but really didn’t like it as it didn’t give a clean finish. I tried making my own masking but this didn’t work so in the end I brush painted the framing with Mr Color Gold.
Once I was happy with the finish I then replaced the PE bracing with Lycra thread. This looked a lot better as it didn’t have any sag and it was also a lot more robust to accidental knocks.
The Base
The idea of the kit is that the Nautilus will be supported by the tentacles of a Squid that is emerging from a hole in the sea bed. The seabed base and the squid are made from a softish plastic material. The sea bed is one piece whilst the squid is made up from a body and multiple tentacles. There is no real guidance for the colour of the squid so I just went with what looked good. I did however replace the moulded plastic eye with a glass eye that I purchased from the internet. I also drilled out the space behind the eye so I could fit a LED to make it ‘glow’.
The next problem I had was how to hide all the electronics, wires and batteries that were associated with the lighting. For this I had an idea. I searched the internet and managed to purchase a ‘False Book’ that had a hollow interior. This allowed me to mount the base onto it and feed all the wires into the book were the batteries were hidden. I also added some gold lettering to the spine of the book that I had lying around the workshop to add some interest to it – unfortunately I ran out of number ‘2’s’ so it had to be 10,000 leagues under the sea rather than the correct 20,000!!
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