The Creative Explorer

I've got the Testor's/Italeri layin around, I am trying to use AlcladII on the metalparts and hope to achieve the right finish. For my 1/16 I want to use a similar color-scheme, but I want the orange a bit more deeper.

I do like to paint mine something like this:

This will give you the tutorial; http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8348 But this only applies to the 1/8 model. It doesn't for the smaller scales. I would suggest to just go with the normal build-process and as soon as one can attach the lower to the upperbody, fill it up, sand it and mask everything that can't be painted, just like a real car and then paint it. It will work with either metallic and non-metallic. @Skip; I never touched it up. I prepped the body, sprayed it and then installed the rest.

Hey Skip, Actually I did use metallic paint on this car. It might be hard to see, but I used mixed-to-match Dupli-color. I made also a tutorial on this board how to deal with that awful seam, give me some time to find it.

Next to that is the storage, First and most important; the big scale's A few hidden away And some more hidden And my wide array of interest of modelkits. In the bookcase is all my reference material and all the manuals with their decals. I just like to browse through them.

I just moved to a new house, close to my birth ground and I have the privilege to have the attic to my own, at least I told my wife I wanted it and she was happy to agree, since I now can keep the ###### upstairs out of sight haha. First when we walk up the stairs is my 'relax-lounge', I installed a Jaguar interior where I can sit and relax, browse through my modelmagazines and manuals etc... When we turn to the left, the bench-area starts. The blue bench is for multi-media, like my computer, videocam etc... I also installed on all the benches a curved edge, I bought material with a 90 degree angle, but was too unpleasant for my wrists. When we turn to the left, we get the general bench. In this part I'm going to work most, glueing and shaping etc... NExt to the workarea, I have the sand area on the pink towel. Most of my sanding, grinding and polishing I'll be doing here, to keep my general area tidy, I also installed a small photobooth, hoping to produce better pictures. A small storage area. And my paintbooth, I simplified my previous booth and made a curved ceiling, I must say; it works like a charm Left to it, I got my display cabinet for my unfinished projects. Behind the doors are the boxes for the in-progress projects.

Nobody a idea?

Fun, but it needs to lean towards realistic and believable as well.

I was in the middle of a trade with him, but he has been offline for a bit now. Anyone knows why he's away?

I've seen it a week ago, today there will be a new episode airing, download can be found quickly on www.finalgear.com. (mods, don't worry. Downloading is legal for this matter) I must say that I wasn't overjoyed with this episode. Sure, there were some laughs, but it wasn't a serious good start of the season. I hope it will be better soon.

Thanks guys, I am going to use auto-air colors, and since it is acryllic I am not expecting warpage from it, but even with thinnerbased paint it is not a good sign if it is going to warp later on. Jim; Did you do a testfit on the chassis? that will quickly show if there is warpage, usually the bottomparts are getting much wider than they should, but that should also be a easy fix when the body goes onto the chassis I hope.

And some more bondo

The engine after a few changes The engine after a first coat of paint, it is hard to find good reference material for the paintcolors, but I think this green will come close. And a usual for me; the v-belt just isn't realistic, so I separate the wheels and make my own belt Some new parts on the engine And little by little I make progress on the body, but since it is o so delicate, I have to walk on eggshels.

I was thinking for a while about it, but when I had the oppertunity again in my hew house to model, I want to work on the Heller 1/16 Citroen DS, Why? Because it is by far the most terrible kit I own. It had breakage, warpage and misfits all over the place. And if I finish this one, it can only get better with my kits haha. I think I was either very stupid or very brave to start this one, time will tell I guess. That and I wanted a real challenge. The BoxArt is actually quite nice, too bad they opted for a big, weak box in where the car does get flattened and broken. The beginning of the misery; here you can see the warpage, breakage and squished car. The kit is so bad, that basically every part needs bondo The radiator didnt convince, so I cut out the middle part and replaced it with mesh. Warpage The valve-cover

Guess what, I am from the Netherlands and therefore I bike haha. If anybody ever visited Amsterdam and walked out Grand Central station, they know what I am talking about, we even have a multi-story bicycleparking garage. I 'drive' a Hybrid bike, a cross between normal and sporty use, let's say a Gran Turismo. I have a oversized tubed aluminium all-terrain bike, which I build myself and a full-suspension down-hill bike, which is fully upgraded.

IS there any more news about this? Release date, box-art?

I am 2-minded about this, the model and the actual car, since even though it is easy to make fun of, the Prius is the first serious step in progress. And there is nothing wrong with progress, even when it comes in such a boring package. But Toyota has to be given credit for the brave step they took in mass-producing a Hybrid. Look how far they are ahead on the rest, Honda aside. I am a car-nut and always will love my internal combustion engines, but since I am also a man of technology, I look beyond the green image of the car and see how much new technology they put in such cars. Take a example of the Tesla or the Fisker. About the model: why not, it is something else than always those re-issues. Fujimi is one of the very few manufacturers that really spend some dough on new moulds.

hehe good thing I am starting to get the hang of it, I just need my airbrush to follow my commands a bit better.

yes please! I have some leather layin around, but I can't get the leather to be thin enough and would love to see a tutorial.

Thanks guys! @Walt; I am going with the last tires, I ripped them from the Resto Rod Mustang and they are just bang on. @Mike; I forgot to take a picture from the top, but I will as soon as I can get the toothpick out of the radiator shroud. But basically the routing is the same. I do have virtually no room between the charger and the fenders. But barely enough for the intake. I don't know what I will going to do with the exhaust, although I think my preference heads for a rear dual. Nice phaeton of yours, completely different style, but very nice! So, this is my latest update. I finished the radiator shroud and I manage to put a new paintjob on the car.

This one kept laying around, basically I missed the motivation of keep working on the vast majority of work since everything needs to be scratched, customised or vastly changed. But I got it a few days ago and started working on prepping the body and I have been working on a modified radiatorshroud for the last 2 days and it is still nowhere. But there is progress. The wheels needed to change too. On the second picture you can see the wheels I chose first, but when I kept looking, they are too small, especially in the back. So I kept looking and looking, and couldn't find what I wanted. Then I looked through my kit-stash and decided to rip 5-spoke cragars from a Resto Rod Mustang. There are plenty of wheels in there anyway.

William, My apologies for not clearing it up. For some odd reason, I don't know what I was thinking. Yes, I actually meant a Mercury, this one: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=27720

Thanks guys! I have been using a water-based primer for the last year and except for the fact that it is not sandable, it works very nice. It needs very, very thin layers of primer and it works a gem through the airbrush. Sometimes I do see a flaw, but it is hard to fix it. So I thought of using my alclad primer for once, just to see how it would work since it was standing there anyway. But so far it is a little of a dissapointment. It is just so much more agressive. What I did was to shoot a thin layer of Alclad on top again, and just shot color on top. I hope I can polish the imperfections out later on. I am not scared the moldlines will re-appear again, since I use mainly waterbased paints, primer-color-and clear. @Bob; I tried Future once, but when I shoot it through my airbrush, it looks like a moon landscape and ever since I am now using Tamiya X-22, shot straight through the airbrush. Since it is waterbased, it does orangepeel, but that can be polished out fairly easy. @JB: I am aware of that one, but since this board is mainly USA and people who know cars, the '49 Merc should be known by definition haha. But yeah, you are right, it can cause confusion. In the European boards, I do call it a Mercury. We have the same problem with a 'caddy'. Over in the USA it is a short for a Caddilac, but over here in Europe, it actually is the name of a 80's VW pick-up car.