Wild Child

Thanks for the kind remarks. These cars were just a couple previously built, broken cars when purchased. McEwen's car I could not even get the body apart, so I had to paint and assemble as it was. Always glad to salvage old cars.

Beautiful car Scott. The '71-3 Vega's have always been one of my favorite '70's Funny's. I have several 1/25, but never did one of the big-ons.

Thanks guys. It is always fun doing custom builds, though most of mine are Funny Cars and customs.

This is one more I had done. I was experimenting with the undertone effect using more pronounced colors. I have always loved the Triplanes,...a very cool era. Also, you will note the large Iron Cross logo on the tail section. Early on, the German Triplanes were being shot at by friendly fire because their own troops thought they were British Sopwith Triplanes (which were already out). This was hopefully going to aid in identification. This plane was from one of a couple air units (Jasta 36) who tried this.

Thanks Mark. By the way, is the Nova in your pic yours by chance? Nice car.

Yes, this Jasta 11 Triplane has the most yellow, but the Jasta 27 planes had yellow tails, nose, struts and wheels too. As you said, why did Homco make theirs all yellow? That's all right, always good to repaint it any combination you like. Cool pic though.

Thanks guys for the kind comments. Alan, I believe you are spot on about the old style photography being light and slightly washed out, due of course to both old reproduction photos as well as the quality of old style pictures. The darker streaks I observed in old pics probably were even darker in real life. I tried this paint finish (which still looks correct to most people) because of it's visual pop when on display. The 1st plane I like most, pattern-wise. The 2nd one I put the pattern on thicker for experimentation purposes, but the 1st is still best. Glad you liked them. Also, I like the old Homco metal planes, and had mine well before I even had the WW1 model planes. I love the re-finished planes in more correct colors. Always hated the Triplane in yellow!

Recently I have posted my custom build 1/28 WW1 planes, but I thought I would share my very first builds, several Fokker Dr1's. They all have full rigging, custom made aluminum exhaust and carefully applied unit markings. For quick reference without getting into all the pilots and bases, the black/white stripped tails are Jasta 6 planes, the yellow tail is Jasta 27, the Black/White fuselage plane is Jasta 11, and of course Richtofen's red Jasta 11 plane. Now, the true purist will note that the original Triplanes used a poorly applied wash effect to the fabric. While this looks great on a nicely built model on an open shelf or a table, I ran into a weird issue. My 1/28 planes are displayed in a non-lit wood curio. The wash paint effect looked nice enough in the light, but terrible in the curio. The lack of bright lighting made the planes all look like blah looking light tan. There was no 'POP', no contrast. I like displays, and this just did'nt cut the mustard. After looking through dozens of old black and white pics, it was obvious many of these had much darker streak effects that made the planes look cool in the pics. I decided to highlight these planes with more pronounced accents. I first used a multiple tan, brown and khaki base, then hand applied a bit more streaky camouflage scheme in the angles seen in the pics. This effect allowed the paint to stand out much more in a poorer lit environment, and really makes them stand out with all the other planes on display. The various unit and personal markings now really stand out too. I know, not exactly correct, but..... What are your thoughts...thumbs up or thumbs down? ALSO- The last pic is an old set of the large size Homco cast iron biplanes from the early 1970's. I bead blasted them and repainted them in realistic looking paint schemes. Looks cool on the wall above the curio!

Great build. I love the old bi-planes, especially the more uncommon ones. Colors look nice.

Awesome build. Love cool Hot Rods,.......go big.

Thanks DA. The decals were especially tuff. Because they are made for the slightly longer Comp Resins bodies, the long ones have to be carefully cut down and sliced together so each piece exactly matched. But I love these two cars, so it was worth the work.

Years ago, I purchased these two 1970/71 Prudhomme and McEwen dragsters as previously built and broken apart parts cars in a box. The original kits made a few years ago were decent, but used inaccurate decals due to licensing rights. I was able to get these two classics apart, rebuild them, and redo them. I felt it was a worthwhile project because I did not know if these would ever be made again. I used some misc decals along with a lot of careful hand painting to come up with proper logo's to look like some original pics I came up with. Keep in mind there are often multiple logo versions in any one year. I believe these are early car logo's, 1970. I hand painted some of the cowl logo's, the helmets, and the Hot Wheels logo's. The engines have been nicely detailed, and the paint has a nice finish. As a side note, Atlantis has re-issued these kits again, but with more accurate decals representing slightly later paint schemes. I was just glad I was able to salvage these.

Ken, those are very sharp planes, especially the Avro floatplane. I started on the 1/28 because I always wanted to do a large size Fokker Dr1, then bought the rest. Afterwards I wanted more, but as with my car models (most of what I do), I like to stick with one scale for display purposes. I never intended to do dozens of the early planes, though I love them. That is when I decided to do some custom builds. I posted the other custom build planes elsewhere on here (Fokker D2, Nieuport 16 and Hanriot HD2). That said, I did look at the site you mentioned. Amazing builds, and great reference material. Thanks for the info, and for showing your sharp planes.

Ken, that looks great! I like the paint scheme. I do not recall seeing this kit until you mentioned it. Because Revell only made 4 planes originally, I was forced to make my own planes once I got hooked on the big 1/28 scale. Sometimes I wish I had went with the 1/48 scale, or something smaller, just so I had more variety. But then I look at these bigger ones, and I can only say....awesome. I did make two other 1/28 Scale posts of the other 3 custom builds I did. Let me know what you think. Thanks again.

Thanks Michael. I will get the two Birds I have done posted perhaps next week. I have plans to do five '68-69 Firebird Funnys for my Firebird group, but the paint schemes and decals are really tuff on the 3 I have not done yet. I think you will get a kick out of the two I did do though. Thanks again.

Thanks everyone, glad to see a lot of Funny Car enthusiasts out there. Steve, typically I mask and paint the silver or black moldings, first taping the top and bottom, then later the sides. I then use an opened up small size paper clip end, dab in a paint cap, then dab on the moldings to get precise results (most of the time). Practice first.

Thanks Scott. I do plan on doing the Larson USA-1 '68 Camaro and Jungle Jim's '70. I was going to do Chadwick's red '69 as part of my '69 Winter Nats display, but I love Harrell's '69 so much, and Chadwick's was too similar in visual appeal. I try to build a variety of cars with different looks and colors. I will post the other 2 cars when done. As a side note, if you like f-body GM cars a little bit, I do have a couple really cool late sixties Firebirds I will post someday I think you will love.

These are two of my favorite Funny Cars from my collection, the Dick Harrell '69 and Malcolm Durhams '70/71. Both cars have high luster bodies that have been modified to fit the slightly shortened Polar Lights chassis. Dick's '69 used a 427 while Malcolm's blue car ran a 454. Both motors are highly detailed and some modifications had to be made to these also. A lot of time was put into making these bodies and interior tin work look as correct as possible using box kit bodies, including making spoilers, molding hoods and opening the windshields and wheel wells. The Slixx decals even had to be modified as they were made for the Comp Resins bodies. I love the 'pop' of these cars! The 1960's and 1970's Funny Cars and Dragsters were awesome.

Very cool dragster. I love seeing some of the lesser known cars vs the same box stock cars. Always makes for a cool collection in my book!

Thank you very much guys. This one was quite a challenge. Alan, thanks for the comments, and thank you for your service.

Love the older cars! Nice build on this one, and the 6 car set together is awesome. I am really into groups or sets for display. While more of my builds these days are Funny Cars, Dragsters and Customs, groups of similar cars on display looks fantastic on the shelf. Good job.

Love the Funny Cars, especially the Firebird.

Very nice Chevy. Color combination works very well with this car.

Thanks guys. Lee, I did finally got around to posting the other three 1/28 scale custom builds. The 2 seat Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter was by far the hardest, but I like this Neuiport the most because it is very visual with the pale silver, and really stands out in my display cabinet. Thanks again guys!

I have previously posted 3 of my custom built large 1/28 scale WW1 planes (the Nieuport 16, Fokker D2 and Hanriot fighters). These were built by combining multiple existing planes and doing a lot of custom fabrication. But after doing these, I was dying for a larger 2 seater, so I decided to build the cool Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter, a 2 seat plane used for recon, strafing and light hand held bombing. This was by far the tuffest build. Starting with 2 Sopwith Camels, and a lot of determination, I first cut, sectioned and remolded the longer fuselage. The cockpits required a bit of re-forming to get the right look, and the gun was scratch built. The cowl had to be completely remade to accommodate the single forward machine gun . 2 sets of wings had to be cut, sectioned and lengthened for close to proper proportions. Tail and landing gear were slightly modified and wing struts remade. Complete rigging and aluminum exhaust pipes were then added . This one was a beast, but with it's unique two tone paint scheme, it came out pretty nice. Kind of a Franken-Sopwith!