A Trick of the Light Part 2 - Lenticular Colour Shift Painting - Prismatic Wall

I am a big fan of optical illusions so when I saw RedbeardBoss's Prismatic Wall, I knew I had to have a go.



In the last episode we covered how I created the model, which is available for free at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4292839.  If you like the model please consider leaving a like a comment or even a tip.

The Painting

Following RedBeardBoss's tutorial I primed the models in silver, just cheap automotive silver spray paint from my discount retailer of choice Poundland.

Once the silver was dry it was time to fire up the airbrush and christen the Big Box Project Mobile Miniature Painting Workstation.  My chosen colour combos were:

• Red / Green - Vallejo Game Air Blood Red / Vallejo Game Colour Dark Green 
• Red / Purple - Vallejo Game Air Blood Red / Army Painter Alien Purple
• Purple / Blue - Army Painter Alien Purple / Vallejo Game Air Electric Blue 

To achieve this lenticular effect we are going to spray the wall head-on starting from the small end (Green).  Keep the angle of the airbrush to no more than 30 degrees left or right as you pass down each side of the miniature.

The paint will hit only two sides of each hex as you pass down the miniature. Once your first colour has dried change to your second colour (Red) and spray in the opposite direction on both sides.

There will be a bit of overspray on your second colour which will help to blend the effect and the faces which run parallel to the long side will end up a combination of both your silver base coat and your two chosen colours.

A quick base coat in black and your mini should look like the one in the video above.

A Trick of The Light? Prismatic Wall - Part 1

It's very rare when a paintjob blows my mind so thanks to the YouTube algorithm for suggesting this video from ReadBeardBoss's painting channel.



I was so impressed that I wanted to do this myself but a search on the interwebs for a printable model drew a blank.  I guess I have to model my own then.

The spell description describes two modes:

A shimmering, multicolored plane of light forms a vertical opaque wall—up to 90 feet long, 30 feet high, and 1 inch thick—centered on a point you can see within range.

Alternatively, you can shape the wall into a sphere up to 30 feet in diameter centered on a point you choose within range.

This lenticular paint job won't work on a sphere (no straight lines to hide the colour shift) but six straight wall sections could be arranged into a 15 foot circle (ish) or a 30ft semi-circle (ish).  Two birds one stone... Job done.

I design my models in Sketchup, which turns out is not the best software for printable models, but I love how easy it is to use.  It often creates STL (STereo Lithography) files which are a bit sloppy and not what is known as "Watertight" or solid.  In practice this means that they can often have faces missing, internal geometry and be unprintable.

My workflow to getting a printable model is to export the STL from Sketchup and import it into Tinkercad.  Check that there are no holes, if there are go back to Sketchup and delete any faces which might be hiding inside solid areas of the model and repeat the process until Tinkercad is happy.

I also use a fabhouse service called i.materialise.com where I can do a second pass check to see if the model can be printed.  This also allows those without a 3D printer to order a model in their material of choice.  The example above in Polyamide (Selective Laser Sintering) would cost £11.14 ($13.85) each and discounted to £55.68 ($69.23) for 6 copies in white.

This model is free to download at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4292839. If you like or make one click the heart, post a make photo and add a tip to the jar.

I will be painting my wall in Part 2 so stay tuned to see if I can master the lenticular paint effect.