The paint scheme remained mostly unchanged during the run of the show, but there were some subtle changes from time to time. Most notably, the rounded buttons at the bottom of the PADD were often left unpainted.
The screen graphic would also change from time to time. While the design remained consistent, the colors of the various shapes varied from episode to episode. The color scheme on the PADD pictured here is more “traditional”, whereas when the show progressed, they switched to a more vibrant color scheme.
The other major variant from one PADD to the other was the vinyl appliqué often found on the back side of the PADD, toward the top. There were three or four different designs, ranging from the Ferengi home world symbol, to a stylized letter “L”. Due to time constraints, I decided not to include a gold vinyl appliqué on the back of my PADD. This is also accurate to some of the PADDs seen on screen.
A good picture of my style of PADD can be seen in the book “The Art of Star Trek”, which depicts the PADD with the graphic shown. The paint scheme in the book appears to be a bit lighter than the one shown here, but I’m confident that mine is accurate to those seen on screen in later seasons of DS9.
The graphics for this PADD were done by me using adobe illustrator. I acquired a genuine Ferengi graphic that was made for production, and used that as reference. I scanned it in, and traced out the design in adobe illustrator. I cleaned up some of the asymmetry, and generally just tried to make it look nice.
The PADD itself started as a first generation pull from shop molds. (Or so I was told.) I cleaned it up a little and molded it. The PADD pictured here is a casting from that mold. Unlike many of the other Ferengi PADDs on the market today, this one is very clean, and has no warping. I’ve seen some that have atrocious distortion around the base and side details. This one came out great.
This piece was painted by a friend of mine, so I cannot take credit for that. It’s a great paint job, with excellent masking operations. Great work!