space camo

[Holstentor]

Hi Folks!

While I was building a space fighter from a masercraft F-16 kit and many bits and pieces I came around with the question how to paint it at last. 

What is the best space camo in your opinion? Digi-Camo? All black? Or grey? or white? Lozenge? 

Please let me/us know.

Greetings
Michael

[NARSES2]

Firstly welcome.

Secondly. As for a space camo I've no idea in reality (I'm not a SciFi man, although I do read EE Doc Smith) but the idea of a space ship in a WWI lozenge camo certainly gets my interest

[kerick]

Welcome aboard!
This is a tough question. Black is the first thing to come to my mind. Definitely not anything shiney. However, that doesn't make a very eye catching model. Especially if it were to be seen against a space background. RW black would be bad if the spacecraft were anywhere close to the sun. Say, anywhere up to Mars or so. The sunlight hitting one side would over heat the spacecraft while the other side would freeze to absolute zero. This why today's space craft are polished metal or white. Of course Hollyweird ignores this little bit of reality. So what does this leave you with? Artistic license I suppose. Of course that's all you had when I started this little discourse, so I haven't really helped any, have I? Do you want to go semi realistic? Some of the Star Wars designs may help. Chris Foss has some very interesting designs, http://www.chrisfossart.com/. A little more "out there" but very eye catching. Are you portraying an advanced civilization all polished up and spiffy or a world in decay with space craft all beat up looking? I thought Guardians of the Galaxy had some nice designs. I'm doing a retro 50s style rocket ship that will be polished metal finish.

I wish I could be more help but there is no one answer. You just have to look around the internet, books, sites like this and such to find an idea that strikes you. I recommend http://www.starshipmodeler.com/ for lots of other good ideas. Folks there are very helpful.

[buzzbomb]

Yes, welcome aboard.

Wide open question. Looking at some of the Sci Fi movies/TV and most of the art the subject is coloured so it is seen and/or to give clear deliniation of who is who. Not to mention look cool.
Pretty much you can do what you like from my perspective,  but to put a slant on it you could consider that even in most of the movie/TV/Literature the sensors are so good that most combatants know where each craft is anyway so colour really does not matter.

Of course there was the episode in the new Battlestar Galactica about the "stealth" craft, the Blackbird that was build to evade sensors.. and that was black.

[Ed S]

From a real world (real space?) perspective, I doubt if camo on spaceships is going to matter. With long range sensors, telescopes, radar, lasers, IR, etc. any space craft should be discovered and probably identified long before it's in visual range to see what color it is.

From a WHIFF perspective, just do what you want. I did a space fighter in zebra stripes. Standard greys, light blues, whites are all fine. You could go crazy with WWI lozenge or polka dots.  If the space craft is also designed to land or operate on planets, asteroids, starbases, etc. it might be worth painting them to blend in with that background.

Ed

[Weaver]

A spacecraft is always going to stand out in the infra-red band against the absolute cold of space, so camo for concealment is unlikely to be worthwhile. However, camo can do other things too. A high-tech version of dazzle camo might be effective in concealing the ship's identity and orientation, if not it's presence. It might also be possible to exploit that IR signature to conceal the ship's identity by having large foldable or jettisonable panels that are gently heated and change it's apparent shape. If the observer is a very long way away, then their angle of view is going to be very narrow, so this kind of "movie flat" technique would probably work.

[perttime]

Some seem to go for high visibility schemes on spacecraft: yellows and reds.

For camo, I might go for some combination of black and a lighter colour. Either pretty closely spaced stripes or splinters that became a blur at a little distance, or large contrasting areas that disrupt the shape in human eyes. If heat from a sun is a concern, maybe make one side light color and one dark?

[Old Wombat]

From a real world (real space?) perspective, I doubt if camo on spaceships is going to matter. With long range sensors, telescopes, radar, lasers, IR, etc. any space craft should be discovered and probably identified long before it's in visual range to see what color it is.

From a WHIFF perspective, just do what you want. I did a space fighter in zebra stripes. Standard greys, light blues, whites are all fine. You could go crazy with WWI lozenge or polka dots.  If the space craft is also designed to land or operate on planets, asteroids, starbases, etc. it might be worth painting them to blend in with that background.

Ed

^^^ This! ^^^

If it's operating from an atmosphere-free base, like a moon or asteroid, a splinter or dazzle scheme, with sharp delineation of colours, is probably best. The colours will probably be greys, possibly metallic in some cases (copper, gold, silver, metallic grey).

White is a good RW functional colour, as it reflects light & heat on the sunny side & doesn't radiate heat as fast as black on the dark side.

Otherwise, go for broke! Bright identifying colours/greens & browns for hiding out on worlds with carbon-based plant life/bright blue with silver racing stripes, the choices are endless.

[Weaver]

Of course the other way to hide a spaceship is the classic asteroid ship. Either build the ship directly into an asteroid, or drill a hole/hanger through the asteroid and put the ship inside it with camo doors to close the ends. How effective this would be would depend on the technology of your sci-fi scenario. Obviously any EM emissions from comms or sensors are going to stand out a mile, as are any heat signatures from drive systems. However if you're coasting along with all the shutters closed, passive sensors only and systems powered dowen to just life support, it should work fairly well.

The hardest problem would be heat, since a wam rock would still be suspicious. If your drive efficiency is such that you can use an asteroid that's large relative to the ship, then you might be able to use it's mass as a heat sink, so that by the time any heat gets to the surface, it's evenly distributed and only very slightly warmer than a normal rock.

Mass sensors should be fooled because asteroids have a wide variety of densities anyway, so if you pick a fairly dense asteroid, the void spaces in your ship should only lower it's average density a little. However, if you have the technology for imaging mass sensors, that's a different ball game.

[Captain Canada]

Black and speckled like stars ?

Serously though it would seem anything goes. I've always rather liked the Star Wars colours, with some colourful flashes for sections or whatever they are.

[MartG]

"Space... is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is..." - Douglas Adams

As folk have mentioned above, long before you're within visible range your ship will have been detected by other means, so visual camo will be superfluous, so go with whatever you think looks cool 

[zenrat]

Of course cloaking technology also renders camo obsolete.
While it's working anyway.

I'd look to the natural world - spots, stripes, scales, feather patterns.
How about iridescent black like a starling's wing or something like this?

[zenrat]

...I recommend http://www.starshipmodeler.com/ for lots of other good ideas. Folks there are very helpful...

I had a look at this forum.  I registered (I usually do even if I don't plan to post - call it identity protection) and had a sniff around.
No pictures in posts?
I found the post explaining their reason for this and was surprised.  Is it even possible to connect with a dial up modem anymore?

[Old Wombat]

Some places, yeah.

Take the time to really dig into what they've got & can offer, though.

I haven't visited more that 4 or 5 times over the last few years, now, because my focus is, currently, heavily on "what if" - although they'd be quite happy with that, too - & I find it difficult to juggle more than 2 sites at a time.

Just old, I guess.

I have a couple of builds in the "stalled" pile that I started there & will return there when I finish them ... eventually.

[scooter]

Someone say...Lozenge?

From a WHIFF perspective, just do what you want. I did a space fighter in zebra stripes. Standard greys, light blues, whites are all fine. You could go crazy with WWI lozenge or polka dots.