OldNYJim

I airbrushed the acrylic on, nice and heavy of a coat and unthinned right from the jar and then blasted it with my wife’s hairdryer on the highest setting (which seems like it’s hot enough that it would burn your head if you actually used it on yourself ?) The longer you blast it the more of the effect you’ll get, within reason. I could’ve got a more extreme effect on this particular project but I didn’t want the candy to split too much and reveal the silver base underneath in this instance. Might take some experimenting, but I suspect it would work with paint other than Tamiya too

What an OUTSTANDING build - that paint especially is gorgeous. I always enjoy your builds and this one’s no exception. And THREE DAYS?! Man, it takes me that long to get a body ready to paint ?

That paint is gorgeous! Love the color!

I love it! I’ve always liked these cars! A guy I knew took me out in his once - they’re like a go kart crossed with a roller skate! The color is great, and I like that center console too. I’ve seen some of these with a British flag for a roof graphic...I keep thinking I’d like to do one with a stars n stripes roof - as if they licensed the design to an American company back in the day and there were American made Minis or something! Not sure what a US take on this car would be, but I like daydreaming about it! I know these did well in Japan too, I saw a show on TV about them a while back. Anyhoo, say all that to say - cool build! I like it! ???

1/25 is “Big Scale”? ? Guess it is compared to some other scales...

Spent the day polishing these balls: They’re the light globes from a Paddy Wagon - but they’re not quite round and they have a seam that runs around them so I’ve been trying to resolve both issues. Not sure if I’m any closer after three rounds of filling/priming/sanding than I was when I started ??. It’s surprisingly difficult to sand something into a perfect sphere! ?

?? It doesn’t even need to be a big update...could just be a MINI one if you wanted ?‍♂️??

All I need ?? And I’ve been REALLY eager to build a little shop truck with the Foose F100 kit...I keep picking it up and playing with parts but I can’t quite allow myself to start something else and have MORE in-progress stuff cluttering up the place. ? I do keep mocking stuff up though to amuse myself...

Really like this build - those wheels with that color scheme look AMAZING! Really cool

I wanna see what you do with that Mini! ???

Stunning!

Sounds more like he’s trying to get rich off YOU! ? No way is that price right - could nearly UPS or Fedex them on a 2-3 day service for that price

My wife has her own cutter - I’ll probably use hers ?‍♂️?

Just won this on EBay yesterday - just under $4! I’m building an Impala for NNL East’s Impala theme this year...and I realised when I was nearly done that all I’d really used from the kit was the body and 2 of the wheels ?. Figured if I got another body I can do a second one and probably STILL have extra parts left over ? This is the first one in progress, for anyone curious: I think I’m going to see if I can make a second one that can park under this one ??

I found (accidentally) a while back that blasting too-thickly-applied Tamiya acrylic with a hair drier will make subtle splits and cracks as the paint shrinks and blisters a little when it dries too fast. Just used the same trick, intentionally this time, on a coffin that I painted for one of my projects: Im doing to go back in and brush some black pastel dust into the cracks to exaggerate the effect, but that might be a trick you can use?

A little more progress on this one - got it polished out - wanted to make sure those sides were nice and straight and as perfect as I could get them: And whilst I wait for some more epoxy to arrive so I can get it assembled I messed with an idea I had for a display stand for it: Ive since tidied up the light rope and got it secured all neatly - but I like the effect! IMG_8257.MOV

I’ve been messing with it for a while - I quite like it! I’ve been careful to test it on a spare piece of whatever I’ve been using it on before committing to painting anything important, and regardless of whether a paint says you need primer or not I prime just about everything anyway...works out well for me! I like their silver for a kind of polished aluminum finish - it has a real fine flake to it that I like:

A tiny bit more progress on this one...got the headliner painted: Made some brake disks on my cutter: And soon as those are painted I can assemble this thing! I carelessly ran out of the epoxy that I like for assembly, but there’s more coming next week so more soon-ish!

Thank you everyone! Won an award for this build from the Red River Modellers club this week: Love the challenge coins they gave out as trophies! ?

A little more progress - couldn’t decide between a patina’d look for the coffin in the back, a kind of old wood look, or something shiny and candy-coated...so I went for a little of both! Shot the whole thing with silver, then a green candy then wiped that off and left a little in the recesses, then some red and orange candies which I hit with some seat to make them blister and split a little from drying too fast: Ill add some pastels and to add some more depth to the cracks and crevices in the paint and then call that done - it’s kinda hard to see in the back there anyway but I wanted to do a little airbrush work on it anyway. With that done, did a little work on the interior...again, it’s pretty hard to see in there anyway and there’s already enough crazy nonsense on this thing so I left it pretty plain aside from the pearl purple colorscheme to tie it in with the engine color: Next up, I needed to make a headliner - I cut a cobweb design out of some styrene sheet and soon as the primer dries I’ll shoot that a candy lime green to match the roof: And then this afternoon I did a little detail painting on the bumpers. The attachment points on these couldn’t be in any worse of a spot - you can’t snip them off without really ruining the chrome, but I wanted a more subtle look anyway so they got cleaned up and shot with a chrome silver paint followed by a black wash, some orange for the turn signals and a little pearl white to try and improve those moulded-in lights a little: More soon!

Huh, I never saw that translucent stuff before!

Great advice, thank you Steve! Going to do some more experimenting with my lacquer technique here!

It did not - I’d like to pick up the version with the figures though...although I have 4 more of these in stock right now so I don’t NEED one ? Got all the parts for this thing in clear and they’re setting up before I polish them, and I picked up some Citadel figure painting paint for the interior color I wanted: And did a little brush painting on the wooden benches to add a little grain to them: And used a little Rub n Buff on the seat brackets and wheel to give them a kind of vintage aged metal look: Almost ready to start doing some assembly on this thing - I’m running out of parts to paint ? More soon!

Looks great!!! Very impressive! You’re absolutely right on all counts Steve. I did try adapting my process with lacquer to simply laying more coats down but still haven’t perfected it - I know you’re a proponent of using lots of lighter coats and your results speak for themselves. How many coats of clear do you like before you feed comfortable? I really want to get perfect lacquer paint jobs down, because as you say enamels aren’t perfect over every color...and I can’t keep painting everything dark colors forever ??

That looks great! What kind of printer did you use? I’m having a polishing day...I used to find polishing really nerve-wracking when I was polishing mostly lacquer clear - always a decent chance of burning through an edge or ruining it somehow. Since I’ve started using an enamel clear though I’m enjoying it much more - seems like the enamel is tougher and it’s easier to get a perfect finish more often than not: