ismaelg

Hello, Had to do considerable bodywork to get it ready for that milestone of first coat of primer. Multiple repairs, re-scribing, eliminating the ghost door handle and lock, etc. Still a lot of work ahead. The hood will be next. Thanks, Ismael

Hello, It looks so good and sinister in black primer I'm tempted to leave it like that... But NO! Continue with the plan I must! Thanks, Ismael

Thank you! Thank you!

Hello, OK, I can explain. This may look like I blew up R2-D2's head and machined a new R5-series astromech head... And that is exactly what I did Thanks, Ismael

Hello, First of all: This is all #Plowboy's (Roger Hayes) fault! His drop dead gorgeous California Street 'Vette hit me like a freight train! What a beauty! Check his Vette in this link: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/175154-california-street-vette/ I am mostly a factory stock (and documented replica in the case of race or historical vehicles) modeler. I've done customs, but it is not usually my main subject. Roger's California Street 'Vette inspired me to dig out mine. The back story is that I got this model (and a few others) already built from my High School Art teacher, well over 30 years ago. I graduated HS in '86 and it was shortly after that. To this day, he is a very good friend and one of the main responsibles of me been a Corvette guy. I learned more about Corvettes from him than drawing and painting ? I remember quickly tearing this model apart and with no plan I started fooling around with it. I destroyed the roof louvers by filling them with putty. No idea what I was thinking. Longest shot: anybody has a spare roof louver for this car? Eventually it went back into the box until this week. All major components are there. The original wheels, tires and mirrors are missing which is no big deal. The engine is pretty crude and so is the hood underside. I'll most likely keep the engine in place but glue the hood shut. I thought of adding a modern LS engine but those are 1/25 running on the smaller end and this car is 1/24 running on the larger end. The LS looks really small in there. Anyways, this car is all about the looks. It will take some fixing but the plan is to keep the original look, except for the roof of course. Door handles and key locks are lost. The body needs some massaging but this will be a slow fun project. Color? It will be blue. What shade of blue? I'll get back to you... Thanks, Ismael

Thanks Simon! As of now, the plan is to be Red Leader. But I also considered Blue Leader. Partisan is a cool scheme too. Heck, I need a whole squadron to do them all ? Repeat with me: BOX STOCK... B O X S T O C K Sooo, the laser cannons in the kit are wrong. The arcs are wrong. They should be vertically oriented, not horizontally. A glaring error. But not that hard to correct. Just cut and rotate 90 degrees. In the process, I cut and added a sleeve ring just for fun. Drilled a small hole to pin them for proper alignment. Thanks, Ismael

Hello, My sister got me this for Christmas. It is the reissued MPC snap-tite X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars.The kit is very basic. Almost crude. Not really suited for superdetailing. For that I have the much better but smaller scale (1/72) Bandai X-Wing kit. I also have the old MPC 1/43 X-Wing kit which is bigger, but been AMT we know it is a turd of a kit. I plan to eventually build the Bandai kit as Luke's ship: Red 5. But back to this one: This kit is even simpler than the B-Wing I did last year from the same series. Everybody builds this as Luke's Red 5 (included decals). I want to do something different. I'll build it pretty much box stock but will try to replicate the Red Squadron Leader, Red One, piloted by Garven Dreis. This character was played in the movie by actor Drewe Henley, who died in 2016 but appeared posthumously again as Red Leader in the movie Rogue One by using archived footage and audio from 1977.I started by removing the snap locator pins on the engine parts for a more precise fit. Glued together. Each engine has 3 parts. Engines, intakes and cannons are staring to get together. This is one of those rare occasion where assembly is done prior to painting. I'll do my best to keep it simple and box stock. Nothing serious. Just for fun. Thanks, Ismael

Thank you guys! Nowhere near what I was doing over a decade ago but I hope to get back to the workbench more often this year. Thanks! Ismael

Hello, While more than 90% of this was done in 2022, it was officially finished in 2023. First week of January and I am already at 1/3 of the number of last year's completions. Darth Vader's TIE Advanced X1 There are far better kits out there, but I had the old AMT/ERTL kit from 1997 laying around. It is supposed to be 1/36 scale. The molds date back to 1978. This kit has been released a gazillion times as MPC, AMT, ERTL, Revell, Kenner and others. In summary, this is probably the worst kit I've ever completed. I honestly think it was not meant to be assembled. Heavy moldings Nothing lines up Gaps? The Force made me continue. Started rescribing panel lines. Left side done, right side yet to be touched Tons of putty. And I mean gobs of putty! This model has the most putty of any of my builds. Fortunately the interior is hard to see. Vader's figure is no better. It was eventually forced into submission. I mixed my own paint using gray, sky blue and silver. It better be enough because I can't replicate that again! The kit is almost unbuildable. I also found out (just like George Lucas and his team did in 1976), photographing these is quite a challenge. The movie guys made the right call using a very light blue in their model because with the black background, it looks more silverish and metallic. Had to take pictures in different backgrounds trying to get it right. At the end, I used white background that was darkened in Photoshop. Pretty much box-stock but I added the 4 exhaust ports with scratchbuilt aluminum tubing rings. Gobs of putty were required for this project. This ship only appears for a few minutes in the original movie. I took a few artistic licenses but always trying to stay close to the original. Very light weathering. After a six month battle, this is the end result: Darth Vader's TIE Advance X1 Laser blasts and stars courtesy of Photoshop Hope you like it. Thanks, Ismael

Hello, Anybody called me? I was about to post this when I saw this thread. This can bring me back from my modeling retirement Multi part engine (Good!) Original interior (whatever that means) Rotating tires (what a concept! Metal axles? yuck but Whatever!) I am still hoping for a C8R or Z06 but a base coupe will do. You may remember I did mine by heavily modifying a cheap diecast, but the interior is a joke. Already thinking how to make it into a convertible... They also announced the James Bond "Goldfinger" Aston Martin DB5 in 1/24 That will be another nice one. Thanks, Ismael

Very nice as usual Phil! What is that yellow racer?

Nice set!

Hi Bernard! All nice but the XK120 is stunning and one of my overall favorites of this year.

Love that Transcon ambulance!

Hard to choose as all are great. But been blue and Ferraris I am partial to those 2

Beautiful job! I remember drooling over one of these as a teenager at a dealership back in the day!

All very nice, but that Fulmine Di Sodio is one of my overall favorites of the year!

Both are nice but that truck is so cool!

Beautiful! The perennial poster car of the 80's!

Nice! Gotta love those Johan Caddies.

All 3 are nice but that DFS-194 really grabbed my attention!

Quoting the Toy Story fellow, "You can't rush art!". An a masterpiece of art this is!

Gary! Nice to see your builds my friend! I like the Filipinetti cars ? The Otaki L88, the GTB and the Cobra Daytona grabbed my attention. So did that gorgeous transporter. All nice!

Very nice collection. Love that Eagle Indy and the Panhard is very unique.

That Camaro is insane. Love it!