bill lanfear

Beautiful!

Nicely done! Great weathering! I had the same issue with the 71 Ranger. I had to grind away where the dash and windshield meet as well as where the firewall and interior tub join together. It looks like you have the same issue with the interior tub being pushed down away from windshield which won't allow the cab to sit completely down to line up with the bed. Probably a little late advice now but from what I understand, its a common problem with these kits and you may want to build another. Anyways, nice job!

Very nice! Nice subtle weathering!

That is beautiful! Well done throughout!

David, you have an outstanding ability to capture realism in your diorama...especially your figures! The buildings and little details throughout are excellently crafted as well as the vehicles you are portraying! Well done overall! If I may ask, do you create your own figures? They seem to fit the scene perfectly and capture the moment so well that I am intrigued as to how you accomplished this difficult task.

Very nice!

Another update on my progress. I painted the asphalt, smoothed up the concrete pads a little, tested, completed, and painted all of the island lights. The test photo shows light bleeding through the sides a bit so I put some reflective foil tape inside the light to solve this issue. The lights were painted with a dark brown base color topped off with white, then weathered slightly. The lens's were made from a cheap cutting board material from the dollar store that blurs things just enough to not see the led strip lights when off, but allows light through when on. The asphalt was too black at first so I rubbed baby powder into the foam and a little fine dirt to give it a slight used look. I set up another mock up to see if I am on track. I will keep posting my progress. Thanks for following!

Nice work !

Pure talent! Wow! Very nice!

Yeah it is a lot of plastic! A bit of a challenge to cut down to workable pieces but otherwise awesome! I get frustrated with the prices of things in hobby shops and am always looking for different ways around it. Most moderate sized cities probably have some kind of a factory that makes plastic sheets for signage and such so it is worth looking into. I live in South Dakota where the largest city is only 175.000 people. The place I found near me makes all kinds of sheets in different thicknesses and materials from aluminum reinforced to clear plastics, styrene, abs, and more. The sheet I got, rolled up nice into a 18-20 inch tube so transporting was easy. When I got it home I just unrolled it and cut it in half and so on.

The thicker "House" sign is styrene. The pain is sanding off the red. I recently looked up (googled) and visited a plastic shop about 45 min from my house. I scored a 4ft by 8ft sheet of white styrene about 1mm thick for $17.00 so the thicker for sale signs will be no more. The island lights are made of that material. The cheap super thin signs are styrene also I believe. They have a use but are not as rigid. Those are only a few bucks and the white portion is transparent to a point. That is what I used for the top "Sinclair" signage on the gas pumps so they light up nice and disperse the light well without seeing the light bulb behind it.

I love where your going with this! Looking great so far!

Mighty fine Mopar! Looking great!

Normally not my style but your paint on this is flawless! Well done!

Ok so here is the latest update. As mentioned before, I started on the island lights, islands and lot. For the lights, I picked up some brass tubing and some led strip lights. I wired the positive through the tube and soldered the ground to the brass. Sorry for the crappy pictures! For the islands and the lot I picked up a sheet of 1/2 inch insulation foam, cut, and sanded down the islands and painted. I cut some cracks in the foam to simulate cracks in the concrete. I need to do some more work on the lot and smooth out the pads a little. I also need to add a couple more coats of paint for the concrete items. Most of the lot will be pavement. Here is a quick mock up of the layout. Until next time! I will post more as I go. Thanks for checking it out!