The Creative Explorer

I started this build many years ago, but didn't got any further than glueing the tranny to the engine. But since I bought this kit with my wife (in the very beginning of our relationship) in Luxembourg, I wanted to get it finished. I made a bold decission on the paint and went ahead. I kept it basically box-stock. I am missing a bit of motivation, so I am finishing older builds in the hope to regain my passion. I did try for the very first time to tint the windows and have mixed feelings, in the beginning it looked good, but after I had the cab together, airbubbles started to show. I think it is because I didn't use any heat. But it did teach me some stuff.

I finished this build a few weeks ago, when I did the shoot, I discoverd that I forgot the hubs, so sorry about that. The kit is a Modelking release of a very old AMT-kit, it shows clearly in the kit. The wheels are plastic and molded in 2 pieces, which is tricky to make it look as 1 part. The fit was suprisingly well, but the detail lacked a little bit. I did add a little bit of detail, but didn't go all the way. It was meant as a fun break and that it was

I gave the body some semi-flat black details And added the wheel bracket on the backdoor I testfitted the interior and dashboard and it does look nice. I thought the windows looked very plain in all clear plastic. So I went to my garage and dug up some window tinting foil and with some trial and error this is the result: A little peek inside the body, you can see here I used 4 small parts of foil to create a privacy-glass look to the car.

I painted the body of this project back in march, but a few days back I got back some of my interest in the hobby and thought it would be a nice quick project. The car comes together quite nice and as we speak, working on finishing the car. This is the boxart: The body after it got painted in march (without clear) The main engine components with transmission The chassis looks very nice, it features working suspension and is quite realistic

I just looked through the results and the conclusion is simple: it is nothing but 'cheating'. There is one guy with 5 builds and 5 very poor pictures, who has more than 20 votes each, while all the other builds barely come above 5 in total... I like Revell's initiative, but they do need to think it through a bit more. There is now a winner who has a lot of FB friends and voted for him because he is a friend, not for best build. I think it should be judged by Revell themself or completely anonymus.

I had to think about this one:

The seat was drilled for holes (not all should be there, but the sinkmarks were not fixable, thus masked by a hole ) And added some color to the wheels, just for the fun of it.

I haven't had much time to work on this project, mainly because I am too busy at the racetrack dealing with the real stuff. However, there is some little bit of progress. The kit is both nice and not so good, the idea and base is ok, but a lot of detail is ommitted, but also give me space to detail a bit. The whole rollcage has been assembled and the two little supportbars have been painted red. The gastank has been fitted, together with the rear axle I added a fuelline, going from the gastank, to the front via a gas-filter The sparkplug wires were added The filter can be seen a little bit better in this picture

Thanks guys! Since the body needed to dry thoroughly after applying the decals and some sol, I got motivated in finishing sanding and start to spray all the parts. It went rather fast and managed to start yesterday with assembling the rollcage/frame. I decided to skip the box-springs/shocks and make my own.

Thanks James! I will do that. And a nice job on the Gremlin. After a lot of sanding-filling-painting (and repeatedly doing it over and over) I had yesterday finally a paintjob I was content with. So I decided to shoot the clear short after too. Where I had a little spark of succes, it ended up in failure again. I think the airbrush still had some water in it, that mixed with the clear and gave me splatters. It sucked, since I had to sand the clear down and save the paintjob. It went ok-ish, and after I polished the area's where the decals would come, I placed the decals. I discovered quite quickly that these decals were quite brittle and where the car was going to have number 30, I ended up with 0. The sol now has to dry and hopefullt tomorrow or day after, I can give it it's final coat of clear. If succesfull, I might be able to finish a build again haha In this picture, the colors show quite true to reality. I went for a new effect, I had a bottle of Alclad prism-paint and mixed that with the 2K clear.

Thanks Pete for the tip, Next step for the Enzo was going to be the paint-prep, so I will check it extra @JB: No, a 50W halogen desklight, nice and warm, appearantly too warm. @Gary: Thanks budy, I've done that Revell kit twice, it is a very nice kit, especially for Revell. If you need mesh: there is a very simple way to get some good stuff. Go to a Walmart or Fred Meyers and get a anti-splatter thing for the fryingpans, they are cheap and they have a perfect mesh-size.

Hello People, It is true what Skips says. This build was meant for me to reach and concur my own boundaries within modelling. I am going to take my level to details to the max. as I can, but that also means it will be a slow build. When I started this build, I decided to have no target time so that I will not concess on things. As a result, the build has been put away for a while. One of the reasons was the roof, even though the fix was reasonable, one of my goals that I set prior to the build was a 100% finish. And the fix wasn't that. I put it away for a time that I had enough dollars to spare for another kit. Good news on that part: I managed to get me a FXX and another Enzo, so I will replace the monocoque and start that over again. The problem I face now is the paintjob, I am not satisfied enough with my paintjobs and want a perfect paintjob. So I need to work on that some more and when I have the right motivation, I will continue with this build. Even though I lack some motivation, I am excited to see the finished build. @Shannon, thanks! I have not seen the request yet though. But once I start on this project again, I will update this topic as well @Pete: It is with checking the alignments my motivation dropped, with the fix, the door could only be in the opened position. The hingepart on top suffered too much damage to work correctly. But I have the fix for that now

I use a H&S Evolution, which is gravity feed and open air and the Zero paints are even thinner than Vallejo and it used to work fine. Even though Chuck could have a point, just posting practice, practice, practice is neither troubleshooting nor explanatory. Therefore there is no value in his posts whatsoever. Especially considering the fact that I am holding a airbrush for more than 5 years and do put out good paintjobs. If he had read the first post well enough, he could've read that the problem 'suddenly' started and things were good before. So it has nothing to do with practice. And don't get me wrong, I am by far not a ace-painter, nor a pro. But I do know what to do with an airbrush. And I agree on your statement, I do have pretty good tools and most of the time I am the weakest link when applying them. Appearantly the problem is in a faulty aircompressor, whilst it can build up enough pressure when in idle, it can't give enough pressure while being used. So, the pressure drops from a required 2,5 bar to not even 1,5. I guess I need to hunt for either a new compressor or a tank. Thanks for brainstorming with me William, it is appreciated.

I did another attempt, but same results. Used the 0,4 needle. 24-25 psi pressure (that's all my compressor can do while pumping and have no tank (yet)) and had the hood about 4-5 inches from the airbrush. Conclusion: I can make 240grit sandpaper! I just don't understand why. When I use Vallejo paints, same setting. No problems at all.

Chuck: appearantly you have some difficulty to read? Again: If you don't have something to say, don't say anything at all. You don't add anything, just trolling. Do me a favour and refrain from posting. You really live up to your nick.

@Steve: Zero paints is specifically for the airbrush and thin enough, so that's not the problem. @Bill: I am about 2-3 inches away from my object, it should be a normal distance to shoot. When shooting from a too far distance, one get a sand-cast appearance, this is different. Happens mostly at curves, especially negative curves, and around windows. @Chuck: I'm sorry, but please don't post if you don't have anything to post. This has nothing to do with practice.

I am seriously getting pissed and thinking of tossing everything outside, close down the hobby. I've been using Zero Paints now for a while, but since a while (don't exactly since when, but long time) whenever I use the airbrush to paint, the paint ends up feeling like sandpaper, very course. Whereas Zero should feel as smooth as the surface. In a way, I also have that problem with acrylics, but not that problematic (I have other problems with acrylics, why I don't use them that much no more). It doesn't matter if I shoot it with high or low pressure, much or little paint or thick or thin coat of poaint. I am clueless and the fun of modelling went down the drain quite quickly. Anybody a clue of what I can do?

The only thing that is 'bothering' me, is communication. I had a couple of topics posted in a wrong section (I disagree, but it isn't a big deal) and the topics were moved. So far I am fine with it, but the lack of communication is bothersome, it would be nice to be notified when a topic is moved. I know it is a lot more work for the moderators, but it does help with understanding. It is annoying to look for one of your own topics in a section and can't find it, after realising it must be moved, the great search starts to find where it went to. Back in the day when I was moderator/administrator on one or two big forums, we either sent the TS a pm. or moved the post with leaving a ghost in the original section.

Thanks for the reply's, I am back to square 1 though, I wasn't happy with the paint and brushed everything off. During that I managed to break some filler, so I have some clean up to do to. poop... @James; What are the flaws? Would be helpful to know, so I can work on them in a early stage.

The masking came off, and just after I said: "it doesn't look halve bad...", I tore a piece of paint off. It can be seen on the left rear-quarter panel. But since the rest of the paintjob isn't all that bad (the orangepeel will mostly disappear overnight, due to the acrylic-behaviour), I will keep the paintjob and mask the mistake with a decal. I am in luck it is a race-car haha In the pictures with the last layer of paint on it, green, it does show how much the paint vary's in hue, even though it is a pearl coat, I think it works together nice with the purple undercoat.

Due to disappointing results in the last projects, I got a bit dismotivated and I am still there, I don't really spend much dedicated modellingtime anymore, nor the drive to finish something. I have many open projects at the moment and decided to let them be for now and start another one. Something else, completely different than I use to do. I decided to build the Modelking '40 Ford Early Modified, basically straight out of the box, with some tweaking and improving. But no full detail, as that would not keep me motivated at the moment. I didn't really knew where I was going to with the paintjob, so I started with a nice blue. As soon as I had that color on the car, I knew what I wanted: Early Modified meets Lowrider. So I started to mask the car, And shot another color. Same procedure, but now added a light-opaque color, which gave it a very nice hue.