MyronPetermanSAE

Here's my my take on the AMT Dodge D-50 pickup, converted to a paramilitary "technical" truck. Painted with Tamiya spray primer and color coats, then with Vallejo acrylics for weathering and detail. The 50 cal I found on the Shapeways website, which is mounted to a beefed-up version of the roll bar that came in the D-50 kit; I added a second bar, bent from Evergreen styrene tubing. To fashion tread plate for the bed, I used narrow strapping saved from packing materials. I used super glue to attach rows of hex heads from Model Car Garage to "bolt down" the tread plate to the bed floor. The engine is wired with lead core fishing line and soft craft wires. I found the Hello Kitty decals on Ebay from Matt's Decals & Diecast out of Lebanon, Oregon. The first aid kit came from the ICM The Last Bridge figures set, as did the shotgun I mounted to the floor and dash. The grille was a solid piece, but I was able to open it up by grinding away from behind with a Dremel - then I broke a few of the cross pieces to simulate damage out in the wild. I still need to weather the model and build a permanent diorama base, but am pretty happy with the results so far.

I bought a pair of 1/160 scale hot rods off the Shapeways.com site, with no real plan what to do with them. Handling them, I noticed the tiny engine was a bit loose, and looking closely under my OptiVisor I saw both the engine and the body were only attached by thin threads of resin to the chassis. So, I used a sharp X-Acto to separate the 3D model into three parts, then cleaned up and sanded away printing lines with 3,000 grit paper. The body was primed with Tamiya fine primer and then their coral blue. The flame decals are one tiny section of 1/25 scale flames from the Revell '32 Deuce kit. Incredibly, the engine has a transmission and there's a bench seat (now painted brown) in the interior. I painted the engine block with Testors red, the valve covers with a Molotow chrome pen (also touched the front of the headlights with the pen to simulate lenses), and used Tamiya panel line accent to pick out the grille and door lines. I think I'll leave the 2nd hot rod as is for comparison.