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This guide is based purely on my own interpretation from studying GBfans reference images of the Ramis Hero, Murray hero, the Ray semihero derived from a mould taken from it and Super hero packs where the texture can be most easily seen.

It is in no way meant to be considered as a definitive guide.
The bulk of the texture on the pack has an orange peel finish.
There are also areas where the paint has a brushed finish, wood grain texture on some of the ribs on certain sections as well as areas that are mostly smooth with any apparent texture being due to either orange peel texture overspray or inherent imperfections in the shell.

The best current method to reproduce the orange peel texture is to use either Homax water based orange peel wall texture spray (which has to be sealed using clearcoat after applying it)
Or if you’re in a country such as the UK where it is prohibited, ProXL ProTEX spray will do the same job with the added bonus of not needing to be sealed.
Both of these sprays come with two nozzle sizes for larger and finer applications of texture as follows.

The face of the cyclotron and the face of the ring around the cyclotron have the most obvious texture with larger "blobs" present here than appear anywhere else, although it’s still relatively subtle as can be seen in the following images.

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These images of the Super Hero pack show off the texture on the cyclotron very well, although bear in mind that this is under strong lighting from a camera flash at an angle that really boosts the detail where as if you look just below the bumper sticker, which is shielded from the bulk of the flash, the texture is barely evident by comparison.

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There is also an even more subtle application of the larger blobs of texture on the area behind the booster tube and on the area below the right hand side of the sync gen.

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There is a much finer orange peel texture present in the following areas
• The gun mount between the ribs.

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• The very top of the crank gen between the ribs

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• The side of the sync gen with slight overspray onto the right hand side of the Clippard mount and Vac tube mount.

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• The sides of the cyclotron and the sides of the ring around the cyclotron mixed with some larger blobs, likely from overspray.

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• The Plates on the sync gen have very little orange peel texture going on, it’s more of a slight overspray at the top edge than a proper coating if anything.

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• The area around the HGA, leading into the area where the loom enters the crank gen

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The following areas seem to have little to no orange peel texture other than possibly a small amount of overspray in some sections such as near the hole for the ribbon cable, with more inherent surface texture and imperfections on display than anything else.

• The face of the sync gen, around the cyclotron area

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• The face and base of EDA

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• The spacer where the ribbon cable terminates and the mounting points for the beamline and filler tube

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• The face and left hand side of the Clippard and vac tube mounts

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• The spaces between the ribs on the side of the powercell

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• The front of the powercell

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• The mounting point above the side of the powercell.

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• The area at the top of the pack directly above the booster tube and ion arm.

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Wood grain texture is present in the following areas.

• The ribs at and above the crank gen

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• The ribs on the gun mount.

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• The ribs on the front of the powercell

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There seems to be very little wood grain by comparison, on the ribs at the side of the powercell.

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The orientation of the wood grain also changes, following the length of the ribs on most sections but going across horizontally on end of the ribs on the bottom of the front of the crank gen and vertically on the ribs on the front front of the powercell



There is also a brushed texture in the following areas.

• The face of the sync gen (all the way around the edge)

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• The face of the upper part of the crank gen and step bellow it.

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There seems to be a rough sawn or sanded texture on the right hand side cyclotron rings, at least on the Super hero pack

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With all of that in mind, here’s how I went about replicating it all on my pack.


Wood Grain


I went with a mixture of using a scalpel and small diamond files to etch wood grain into the following areas.

The ribs at the front and side of the gunmount.
This is where the wood grain texture is most pronounced on the screen used packs.

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The top of the crank gen, less pronounced than the gunmount but still pretty deeply etched

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The side of the powercell, much less here.
It’s far more subtle

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The ends of the ribs on the front of the crank gen and powercell

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I also added some striations at the mounting point above the powercell as can be seen on the Murray hero pack

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Sanding marks on the right had side cyclotron rings as seen on the Super Hero as well as tapped holes as can be seen on every hero pack other than the super hero

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And various nail heads which are present on the hero shells

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Masking


First of all, I very loosely masked the shell off in the following areas as I wanted to allow some overspray and imperfections in the finish.
The Clippard and Vac tube mounts are temporarily masked.
This will be removed after spraying the cyclotron texture as I want to have some fine texture overspray on the right hand edge of them when I spray the right hand side on the sync gen as I’ll show later.

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Orange Peel texture

I’ll be using Proxl Protex spray as Homax wall texture is prohibited in my country.
Credit goes to Scott and Paul from the North East Ghostbusters for discovering Protex.
Thanks for the heads-up, Gents!
The white nozzle is used for fine texture, where as the red nozzle is used for the larger blobs of texture as seen on the cyclotron.
Unlike building up mist coats with primer or spray paint this texture needs to be built up in one go.
After a couple of passes, you’ll start to see the orange peel texture appear.
Just keep on coating each part until it reaches your desired level of texture.

I found that the larger blobs of texture needed more passes to be at the point where I was happy with it where as the fine texture only took a few passes to be at the level I needed.
It’s very easy to gauge how much texture you’re getting as the texture goes on with a high gloss finish.
It’ll dull very quickly which makes it tempting to revisit it and keep on spraying as it makes the texture more difficult to read after a while but if you were happy with the texture as it was when it was freshly applied, you don’t need to keep going.
It’ll show up more once it’s been painted.
(I’ve used a flash here to make the texture more evident as it’s difficult to capture on camera once the finish starts do dull)
The instructions on the can state that it’s dry in 20 mins.
That might be the case for a light application on a car bumper but in this case where you need a heavier application, I recommend leaving it for at least a few hours until its touch dry and 48hrs from the last coat for a full cure before primer.

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Red Nozzle

To begin with I started with the Cyclotron and the face of the ring around it
Allowing some slight overspray onto the spacer where the beamline and filler tube mount.

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I added a very light application of texture behind the booster tube

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Then onto to the right hand side bellow the sync gen and crank gen, allowing some overspray around the area where the ribbon cable terminates.

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White Nozzle

I started by spraying the fine texture all around the side of the sync gen, beginning at the area at the right hand side under the vactube and Clippard mounts and allowing some overspray on to the edge of them.

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Then all the way around the sync gen making sure to go over the masked off plates in order to catch the edge just above them and allow some slight overspray onto the plates themselves
As well spraying the sides of the ring around the cyclotron and the sides of the cyclotron itself.
The sides of the cyclotron will have some over spray from using the red nozzle, this will mix with the finer texture to give you a really authentic look.

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After that I moved on to the gunmount where I sprayed the face, underneath and the side between the ribs as well as the area leading into the crank gen where the loom attaches.
I finished by spraying the area where the HGA attaches as well as the spaces between the ribs at the top of the pack above the crank gen.

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Brushed texture

This step is pretty quick and easy to achieve.
All I did was add a mist coat of satin black, left it for 15 minutes as recommended then before the next mist coat I sprayed a thin wet coat in the areas where I wanted to have brush strokes (around the face of the Sync gen and the top half of the crank gen)

While it was still wet I ran a chip brush through the paint.

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I left it for another 15 minutes then continued to build up the mist coats of paint until I had a nice even finish all over the shell.
The brushed texture is very apparent while the paint is still fresh but becomes a lot more subtle over time.

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Its worth noting that the paint takes roughly two weeks to fully cure and reach is final finish and hardness before it can be weathered properly, any sooner and the paint tends to be slightly soft which means it doesn’t react to being weathered in an ideal way.

The following images were taken with a flash; two days after the last coat of paint had been sprayed, before any weathering had taken place.


Behind the HGA

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The right hand side of the sync gen with overspray on the right hand side of the Clippard and vac tube mounts

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The gunmount

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The following images illustrate how the cyclotron texture can go from looking all but nonexistent to very apparent depending on the angle and lighting conditions as mentioned before.

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