Ringed Gas Giant

A few weeks ago I promised to make a ringed planet for table-top space games.  I mixed up the putty as I said I would, but then proceeded to really screw up the paint job... so I decided to start over and in the meantime got distracted with mold making, rules writing and non-gaming life.  This weekend I finally finished the ringed planet project.

I started (again) by making a hemisphere out of Durham's water-putty, like I do with all my planets.  I then carved two slots in either side of the half-globe in order to later insert the ring.

Slots for the ring

I cut irregular strips of paper and taped them onto the planet and sprayed the whole thing black with cheap Walmart primer.  After it dried I removed the strips and then sprayed the planet with more cheap Walmart paint, this time red.  The black showed through this second coat, giving the planet a banded appearance.  

Paper masking attached

Creating the banded effect

Someone brought a huge store bought cookie plate to a recent work BBQ and I saved the clear plastic lid from the garbage.  I cut the lid up into the shape pictured below.  Not pictured is the plastic window screen stapled to the central "leg" of the ring.  The ring is made of PETE plastic which adheres to nothing, so the stapled window screen allowed me to secure it to the main planet body with putty.

I used a lot of putty to secure the ring and then fill in the slots I had cut earlier in the hemisphere.  That was the hardest part of the whole operation.  Finally, I used good old cheapo Walmart acrylic paints (sparingly) to paint little cloud wisps on the planet.  I uses yellow acrylic to paint the ring.

Spaceships in orbit fire at each other

Another angle

Close-up

Thanks for looking!