The Modeling Hermit

It's good to see some unusual subjects displayed and your looks great.

This is a nice build of a model we don't see every day.

Beautiful craftsmanship

Steve, I'm wondering if you might have a shrink ray and right now somebody is out looking for their 1:1 car. LOL That is a beautiful work of art.

It was supposed to be resin, but it sure seemed a lot more like fiberglass to me.

Good looking old work Jimmy

We have a little White 9000 action going on here.

In this case, I cleared some cars off of the corner of my used car dealer diorama. The back support is cardboard and the calendar is supported to it with a couple of clothespins at the top. A note on the ground cover is to remember that not all grass is Hollywood Mansion perfect. Mix in weeds and other blended colors to give a natural look to the scene. Now if you really want a beginner's "diorama", try this. I'm not sure that you could really call this a diorama, but it is a way of gaining inspiration. You can't get any more basic than this. The car is sitting on a shiny dining room table, which gives a look of wet pavement. The backdrop is a calendar picture propped against a cereal box. That's all there is. Just get your camera angle right and you've got your first realistic(ish) photo.

I may have posted this one before, but I just ran a bunch of cars through some dioramas to get better setting photos for them, so I'm posting it as one might have seen it in its time.

Nice job and great save.

You've got a very nice anti-red 58 Plymouth. I especially like that you blackened in around the doors, something that I still usually neglect to do.

Nice old school Chevy. That a gas!

This young lady seems to be really proud of her 1968 Chevy Impala 2 door hardtop. This is a great starter diorama for the novice. Some of you may feel intimidated by the dioramas that you see, and think that you could never build one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This one consist of some ground cover purchased at the model railroad section of a hobby shop, a model car, a figure, and a calendar photo for a backdrop. Dilute water based glue with water and spay onto the base, then sprinkle your ground cover on to suit you. After the ground cover dries I like to give it another watered glue overcoat to settle it. Set your favorite calendar photo behind and add your props, and you have a diorama. Give it a try.

One thing to note here. If I was to do this diorama again, I'd leave at least one side removable. That way I could get lower, more realistic camera angles. All I can get with this one is bird's eye view plus a few through the doors. If you're planning a diorama, give thought to camera angles.

Danno, it's actually much worse than that. I didn't really give this kit or Revell a fair shake. I opened the kit and found much less than I have been expecting from Revell's new kits. I did start to open the doors and just glued them back in and slapped the kit together with some paint and decals added. It looks good, but I should have let it be a challenge and proceeded to see what I could do to give it some real zing. There are a lot of things that I should have done with it that I didn't because I had too swelled of a head. If I'm sitting here thinking that I'm such an "amazing" modeler that a model like this isn't worthy of my "fabulous" skills, then maybe I should be using those (???) skills to make it into something really outstanding, instead of essentially just giving up on it. On a lighter note, a shag van would make a cool community build.

Revell's 1977 Chevy van built as a shag van. I had plans to do a lot more detailing on this kit, but chose to just stick to exterior enhancing.

That's an impressive build with great attention to detail.

I like the way that you darkened in the door seams. I was looking at my models a few days ago, and something was just bugging me about them It finally came to me that my door seams are all filled with paint, thus looking very unnatural. It's those little details that turn a model into a miniature. Your Camaro really drives that point home; good job.

Absolutely fabulous!

Way cool.

I need to find a shrink ray so that I can take a ride in it.

Nice ride. The 74-77 Mustangs got a bum rap. Unfortunately I was one who helped that. Now I think they were really cool cars. I wish I could find a model of the notchback version.. I'd paint it yellow with a black interior like a friend of mine had.

Built your way and my way too.

All that's missing is the sounds and smells.

Very well done.