Bernard Kron

Thanx David! It’s been a while since I posted anything on this project. The delay was the result of working out a method of working with my friend with the ALPs printer so that he could produce decals for me without having to do a lot of pre-preparation or editing. We have a method now and the final results are quite satisfactory. The picture below may seem a bit anti-climactic to anyone following along because it’s quite similar to the paper mockup I showed earlier. But for me it’s quite exciting to at last have a method and source to produce white and metallic decals. Now I can get on with doing the windscreen, lights and the variations on the grill for the 3 versions. With the chassis, motor, rolling stock and interior already done it shouldn't be too long now. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Thanks for the update, Brett. This tells me that from here on out Revell is a German firm and any sensitivity they may have with regards to American cultural aspects of their model lines, for example Traditional Hot Rods and Kustoms, Pickup Trucks, American Muscle cars, NASCAR, drag racing , etc, will be as seen through a Revell, GmbH filter, What this means is anybody's guess, but for ex-Revell employees who have, up to now, shepherded the historical Monogram and Revell catalog, and even expanded it in the American Style with new releases in recent years, this means if they have any interest in having a role in continuing this lineage, they will have to justify that role with the German management. In my view, that is clearly the meaning of the closing of the US company last Friday. The press release makes reference to the extensive Revell USA tooling as strengthening Revell by extending the sales market, presumably in the sense of integrating the Revellogram style of model kits to the European Revell GmbH line, thus creating "an even wider range of products". In the months to come we will see if this means that, Round2 style, this will merely mean supplying the historic range of kits established to date, or whether Revell GmbH will endeavor to continue to release new kits in the "American Style" in the months and years to come. Whether and how they do the latter will be the critical question as things reveal themselves. In the meantime I think that the indications from the press release is that the existing inventory of already produced kits will continue to be marketed and, less clearly but quite likely, the existing catalog will be maintained based on sales demand.

First off, a huge thanks to you all for largely keeping your eye on the ball and creating such a valuable resource to follow this important development in our hobby. A special thanx to Niteowl7710 (James Duff) for his dispassionate and thorough reporting of the bankruptcy proceedings. I agree with those who intimate that we have nothing to do but to wait and see how this shakes out. As soon as I saw that the purchaser was a German private equity firm, and that it was a purchase of the consolidated assets of both Revell of Germany and Revell USA I began to think of this in cultural terms. If you look at Quantum's companies to date you will see that they are all "Mittelstand" type industrial firms, small to middle sized primarily in metals and electronics. This is pretty far from a plastic model kit company. So I began to think that perhaps it might be a "trophy" acquisition; that among the Quantum partners were those who thought that owning a company whose models they once built, if acquired cheaply enough, might be "cool", and who might romanticize such a purchase. It's worth noting that so far none of Quantum's companies is in Germany. This would be the first one. In any case, thinking in these terms I realized that the major issue would be whether the US arm would be left intact. We very quickly got our answer, at least from business structure point of view. But the cultural issue remains. It has been true for many years that the overwhelming majority of new product releases by both Revell companies have been automobile and truck subjects and that these subjects formed the bulk of the catalog in the case of both of the prior companies. But I suspect that hot rods and American muscle cars are at best a niche market outside of North America. Certainly there are zero non-American players in the hot-rod and muscle car space, a thriving area in the North American hobby market. RoG never became active in this area and rarely even marketed Revell USA kits under it own brand. From Quantum's point of view it should be a matter of just how big that market is as to whether new products, or even re-issues, in the "American Style" are developed by Revell. But will care? If it's a Trophy acquisition from a European perspective then perhaps they'll renegotiate their moribund Ferrari license, but will they care that much about the mysterious limbo of the '30 Ford Coupe? The Champaign, Illinois team are not young men and selling the new owners on the American Style as part of Revell 2018's marketing mission may turn out to be fairly demanding. Will they even be asked to? If Revell 2018 chose to de-emphasize this part of the combined Revell catalogs it would leave a huge hole in the modeling hobby. There are several fine Asian and European plastic model firms serving the Euro-Japanese segment, but there are only R2 and the rump of the former Revell USA to serve what, judging at least from what I see here on MCM is still an important market in American Style subjects. Am I wrong in thinking that the outrage of at least Revell's North American dealers would be epic and the damage to the brand substantial? For this reason I suspect that Revell 2018 will have no choice but to face the issue and accommodate this segment. At the very least the Revellogram catalog is simply too large, varied and culturally significant to ignore. For now it's the ghosts of Ed Roth vs. Enzo Ferrari, but it makes no sense, to me at least, not to find a way to accommodate both. The degree to which,and method by which, Revell 2018 approaches this will be the story of the balance of this year in our hobby, I think.

Thanks Ashley. I've expected a pretty low-key response to this sort of project, and I haven't been wrong. I think it's because because this style of car is well past the first bloom of its fad. But there have been some mighty fine machines done this way over the years and I've long wanted to try my hand at it. We'll see how it goes, but so far it's great fun... Tamiya and other high-quality, complex plastic kits have been in my cross hairs for quite a while. The Pagani is, for now, a long ways away in my build stack. I've got some older era sports car builds to get done to a high enough standard to justify the challenges the Huayra kit will offer. Among them are some Hasegawa and Revell of Germany models, but as of now I haven;t got any Tamiya kits in my stash, nor do I have as elaborate a kit as the Aoshima with all its opening doors and pivoting panels. Yikes! And somehow in the midst of this changeover in subject matter I've still got some rods and kustoms that need to be modeled...

Impeccably executed and detailed. I love all the little clamps and the various discolorations on the metalwork. What great a canvas this car is for your skills!

Thanks Trevor!

Thanks again, guys. Alan, I agree that this beach racing thing is a nice blend of the historical side of Retro and some of the fun and radicalness of the whole "rat 'n' tats" movement.

This project represents a radical break from my usual fare of traditional hot rods, customs and drag racing subjects. I suspect that among those who know me this may come somewhat as a shock. So an explanation is in order. What would motivate me to build a tuner import? Well, to begin with I’ve always liked the concept and have admired many a well-turned-out ricer in my day. Back in the late 90’s when I was planning a streetable sports car for my driving pleasure I briefly considered a supercharged Series 1 MR2, but eventually built a hopped up Frogeye Sprite complete with tilt nose, 1380 cc motor and 5-speed instead. In a sense that was a kind of retro rice rocket in its way. So anyway, at this year’s NNL West I fell for an Aoshima Pagani Huayra. Once I had time to contemplate that highly detailed and totally contemporary kit I realized this was a style of build that I would have to work up to. I’ve always loved sports cars and road racers but as kits these “moderns” are engineered quite differently from my usual diet of ancient 60’s era AMT, Monogram and Revell kits. I wondered if I might have something contemporary in my stash that I could use to hone my skills. It turned out that I had a Revell Acura RSX Type S tuner kit in stash which I had won as a door prize many moons ago at an IPMS show. It’s actual an extremely well-engineered and thoroughly modern kit, with lots of tuner bodywork options and many of quite highly detailed. Not really in the same league as the mega-parts-count Aoshima Pagani, but the basic approach is fairly similar. I thought it would a good start in getting into this style of modeling. Of course I couldn’t resist making some changes to the bodywork much as I would have with one of my -hot rod projects. In this case I filled the v-shaped indentation on one of the 2 tuner-style custom noses that come in the kit (red area in the picture below), and also cut out the filled in grilled opening and installed some mesh to allow the radiator to show through. The radiator itself is finished in aluminum paint and a home –made decal of an ARC Brazing, Ltd. logo (they make radiators, intercoolers, intakes and exhausts for the tuner and drift world). Other than that the build is largely out-of-the box. The body is painted in Duplicolor Toreador Red Metallic paint with the rear wing and stock hood finished in home-made carbon fiber decals which include decorative decal motifs. The rear wing repeats the ARC logo and on the front I repeat the sponsor decals arrayed across the leading edge of the doors along with a dragon figure and the phrase “Tao of Acura RSX” in kanji characters. The various silver JDM style hop up parts logos on the bodywork are from a Hobby Design JDM sheet I bought. The quality is absolutely first rate. Everything is sealed under Duplicolor Clear, and once it’s properly cured I will give it a good polish. The interior is straight from the kit and detailed out in red pseudo leatherette (Testors Flat Red Acrylic) and matte black (Duplicolor Black Primer). The same is true of the motor which is detailed out in various shades of Testors Metalizers. The wheels one of the two kit optional tuner wheel sets, finished in Testors Metalizer Brass. Still left to do is the glass work, which on these modern cars requires a good deal of detailing, and then final assembly. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Coolness! This Lola turned out to be such an important car. The fundamental basis for virtually every sports racing car that that been built since. I was lucky enough to see one in the bare aluminum and fiberglass as a restoration was beginning on it. Basically the tub, bodywork, a rudimentary interior and a mockup of the suspension and motor installation. Actually quite complete in its way, but just knocked together for show. Anyway, the result was that you could see the materials and construction clearly as nothing was finished out. I was impressed first of all by how small it was, and the severe minimalism of the engineering. Broadley's design rivaled Chapman's Lotus 25 in that everything was reduced to only what was needed to efficiently make the car go fast, whether it was structure, aerodynamics, or suspension. What a radical change it was from the 50's era of big and bigger motors. Great modeling, here. Sort of ultimate kit bashing, adapting what is available to presenting what turns out to be a fine replica of significant subject. Dave, this is yet another example of your skill in making curbsides that are so effective that they remind us that full detail is not mandatory. Big thumbs up!

Wonderful model of an incredibly significant and pivotal car. It's always been a powerful symbol of Chapman's genius - such a simple translation of the 18 into the sportscar sphere. It's elegance and efficiency is staggering. This model captures it perfectly. And of course Eric Broadley "got it" and created his Lola Mk. 6 Coupe, another hyper-significant car I would love to see in scale. Results like this keep me moving forward to acquiring the skills like vacu-forming and casting to be able to create the missing elements that would help me realize the ideas in my head. Thanks for sharing this.

I'm really enjoying the quality of the paint application and the colors you have chosen. Because the paint is smooth the surfaces scale, and the color choices strike just the right balance between dramatic contrast and the subdued realism of real-life colors. The textures and levels of gloss are on the money. Are you really doing this all with rattle cans? The key to Pagani's success, I've believe, is that they have always made sure that, despite the astronomical market price, the buyer always knows what they are getting, no matter how or where they look - Pagani highlights all the detail of every sub-assembly through uncompromising choices of finishes and colors. They celebrate the materials and techniques used to create the car. You are doing the same thing in scale. Some may consider these cars garish and overdone, but they are distinctly unique, and escape the blob-like sameness of too many luxury cars these days. At some point it would be great to know more about the colors and paints you have chosen - for example the gold used on the suspension parts, and the handsome brown used in the interior. Thanks for taking us along for the journey. This is an inspiration and a guide for my future build of this model.

This thread couldn't have come at a better time. I just received this kit yesterday. I looked it over at this year's NNL West and was impressed by it's complexity and detail. I'm a longtime traditional hot rod and drag racing builder, but with a thorough background in all things sports car and road racing. Last year I decided I was in a rut and that was it was time to break out. I built a funky AMT Ferrari 205 GT SWB and it worked well as a bridge to this style of project. I think I managed to un-funk it somewhat... The Pagani was specifically acquired because it will raise the bar Way High. I have several other projects to build first in this style, some 60's era and some moderns, but all kits engineered in this style, which is so very different for a inveterate kit-basher like me. I'm disappointed to hear that there are fit issues that may require that the the panels be glued in place, either open or shut, so I'm especially interested in thios aspect. Also, your color choices are important to me, since this is a gap in my knowledge in this subject area. I'm a Duplicolor user, too, so I'm interested in some of your strategies, like using their metallic black for carbon fiber. Whether I build the Pagani tolthis level of detail or not, I don't think I could ask for a more ideal w.i.p. to put me in the ballpark to tackle a project of this magnitude.

Thanks, Peteski. I'll look into it.

It is relevant, and thank you for that. That's an approach I hadn't thought ,about, hiring a vector drawing service. It's good to know that I have another option.

Once again, thank you Peter for so patiently and thoroughly attending to my question. As it happens I have been to the site you linked and had saved it to my bookmarks of modeling resources. This was a few years ago and at the time it didn't relate as immediately to my projects and needs as it does now. I now realize it was most likely the source of some of my understanding of process as I explore it now. I will revisit it and re-read it with care, but even with a cursory review of it just now it's clear that it relates quite specifically to what I am seeking to achieve. The site appears to have been updated fairly recently. Even though some of the links are dead, among the ALPS decal services listed is one where it's noted they stopped offering their services in March 2017, and quite a dew are active. Also on that list is the service that failed to follow up on my initial submissions. The friend I'm working with currently is an amateur doing work for time and materials for his modeling friends, so he's not on the list. I heard from him this evening and it would appear that our initial efforts have proven successful. I'll be getting the latest output in the next few days and when I do I'll report back here. I suspect the remaining issue may be the opacity of the white ink. This may require an underlayment sheet that is white-only which is something I have thought might be needed. My understanding is that some decal vendors always include one with their decals. Thanks in particular for taking the time and effort to specifically explain the problem with the CYMK halftone process used by the ALPS software and how it results in the necessity to use the spot color method. Together with the resources on Rob deBie's site, it should form the basis for further work on my part, now most likely in combination with my ALPS-owning friend, towards using the spot color layer approach. Rob deBie's example is quite clear and understandable and I'll discuss it with my friend. The issue of how many layers his printer will support is key in this regard, but even now it appears we may have developed an approach that is both efficient for him and one on which I can build going forward.

Thanks so much for your excellent, informative response Peteski. It's chock full of details that support and confirm what I've been discovering. My original post had been about finding a supplier who will already accept raster art, but given that I'm developing a relationship now with an ALPS owner and that we are approaching what I hope will be a solution it seems to me well worth it to work through the process with him. My goal is to avoid the "string telephone" effect by assuming full responsibility for the artwork both in terms of quality and also in terms of its suitability for direct output to the ALPS. The cost of an ALPS printer is probably too much for me to ever own one so this is an important step for me. Peter, you make a comment that caught me eye. You imply that printing secondary colors (green, purple, orange) and varying other shades, all of which must be blended through CYMK output, is not satisfactory. By coincidence my Red Lion art is all in white, black and red, so rendering it in spot colors is, at least theoretically, feasible, and as you point out, would be rock solid by printing properly registered color layers (in effect a kind of color separation approach). A couple of observations regarding this: Firstly, RGB red (255,0,0) is rendered in Photoshop CYMK mode as Cyan=0, Magenta=99, Yellow=100, blacK-0. In the case of RGB black (0,0,0), it's 75, 68, 70, 90, even more of a blend of all 4 CYMK elements. My point is that, as you point out, it's important to call for CYMK 100% black, with C,Y, and M all = 0, in order to assure you get maximum white or metallic coverage with the cartridge in the K position. So the question is just how bad is the ALPS at rendering blended colors? The other observation I would make, is that, as I mentioned above, most poster art and sign painting is in effect spot color printing, since the artist usually works to a severely restricted color spectrum. This is especially true of the kind of text-based graphics used on racing cars. To get a ballpark sense of just how many colors I'll need to use in Photoshop when doing decal prep I usually will use the "posterizing" function, moving the slider to see at what color levels I lose fidelity to the image I'm going after. The number of "colors" that I reduce it to when interpreting photos of hand lettered sign painting or poster art (presumably like the Gilmore stuff) is very low indeed, usually down around 6-10 which, using the overlay function, can often be reduced 2-6. But again, one of these layers might be a blended or secondary color so the issue of how badly does the ALPS render these is important. In any case, if I can work with an ALPS owner I can work these sorts of things out. Perhaps ultimately I'll have to learn a vector program. Certainly for drawing clean and accurate shapes it's the better option. Thanks to you both, Peter and Fred, for the excellent contributions. They are invaluable. And for those of you who wonder just what you are paying for if you ever should commission some custom decal work, welcome to our world, LOL!

This is my final update, and for all the right reasons. The kit came today, perhaps a little sooner than I had expected, but really dead-on based on what they had said. They received their new inventory last week and it went right out the door. As I said, once I was able to establish communication everything went quickly and smoothly. Mark Palacz and John Zweber (who originally worked with me at the NNL), both were gracious and attentive in getting things resolved quickly. As everyone has said, M & S is a totally first-rate outfit. As I enter the (for me) brave new world of high-detail contemporary sports car kits, I'm sure M & S will be an important resource I'll be using often. Now if I can just do this beautiful kit justice! Thanks to all who responded here and especially to those of you who were able to provide the contact information I needed.

A Pontiac GTO Breadvan. A .cool historical echo. It's gonna be one good looking car when its done.

I'm excited to see this come together, especially with the care and skill I'm sure you'll give it. Since it's a semi-monocoque they could have left the rear hafd of the car buttoned up and still had a virtually full-detail kit, but it appears they included the spare tire and fuel filler detail, too. Can't wait to see more!

Grooooovy!!!!

Thanks Fred. What you describe is exactly what I sent to my friend last night. The max resolution of his bottom-of-the-line ALPS MD-1000 is 600 DPI. I researched the MD-1000 on the internet and determined that it's a CYMK printer. So what he got was 2 Publisher 2010 files, one of which is "White only" where the white layer is coded CYMK 100% "K" (blacK) and one that is "All other colors". The original source art was done in 600 DPI CYMK mode and JPG files dropped into Publisher. I sent him the JPGs as backup as well. These are simple graphics with solid RGB 255,0,0 red and RGB 0,0,0 black as the only two other colors. Hopefully the 100% CYMK "K" black will ensure maximum density of the white layer. The key conceptual breakthrough is to understand that White and Metallics are not colors in the conventional sense of shades constructed from C (Cyan - a kind of blue), M (magenta - a kind of red), Y (yellow) and K (black - for some historic reason coded K), but rather, they are stand-alone layers (spot colors?) whose shade and characteristics (the fact that white isn't just the background color of the printing medium, or in the case of the metallics that they have a characteristic texture and sparkle) are pre-mixed in the ink rather than blended by the printer's software. In my case in preparing my Photoshop files I always work to at least 600 DPI and often will redraw and fill scanned edges during preparation. Also, to ensure color uniformity I will frequently take scanned objects and "fill" them with color overlays, and then rasterize them. This particularly helps when restoring old decals, poster graphics including text, etc., since in fact what you are doing is returning them to the limited color palates that the artists and printers worked with originally. As I work towards the goal of developing a relationship with an ALPS-equipped supplier for printing services what I'm discovering is that over the years I have encountered virtually all of this in one form or another. But mostly it was anecdotal and I've never seen it all in one place. It's turning out that by asking the question in a expert public forum like MCM I have gotten a response which is serving to distill this information into a unified form. Thanks for your comments. They are key to this process. Hopefully my friend and I have will developed a successful approach. We'll see with my these current files... Here's an example of a recent model I completed for the NNL West 2018 TROG theme table where the graphics were entirely assembled from elements found in old Gilmore Oil posters. There are really only two colors. Red and Black, and because it was applied to a light body color (a yellowish cream shade) I was able to print to clear decal stock using my humble Canon inkjet at 600 DPI and get very good results:

That's not real. It's a jpg of their warning when they screwed all of us over. I put it there as an attempt at irony...

Hi Fred. Thanks for the excellent and informative response. This is the kind of information I need. I'm working with a non-professional model car enthusiast right now who has managed to get very good results from Publisher files. He's done it purely as a naive user without any sort of technical insight - it's definitely a "it works for me" approach. I suspect this is true of many ALPS users, including many users who print from their ALPS professionally. The method he uses for white and metallics is to print 2 passes from 2 Publisher files, the white or metallic file and a file with all other colors. He uses a method I have heard from other ALPS users as well, which is to place the white or metallic cartridge in the "K" (black) position and print the white or metallic layer. The white or metallic file is coded as black and the ALPS only prints from that cartridge. All other colors are "built" from all 4 CYMK colors in the usual manner. In the case of metallics he prints the metallic color last because it's thick and tends to tear if it printed as the first layer. I originally posted this inquiry because we both were despairing of a solution. But more discussion indicates we may be able to get to where I need to be. However, I'm still not certain. But all you refer to rings true with my experiences. For example all the ALPS users I've talked to, if they are Microsoft users, run XP because that is the driver they have. In some cases this has meant they will only accept earlier versions of vector graphics files, and, as you point out, almost never have gotten to the point of properly printing bitmap files. I don't know enough about Publisher to know if it is a vector graphic application but apparently more recent versions of Publisher files (2003 and later) are successfully read by the old ALPS driver. My recollection is that Publisher went through a radical and profound revision with the 2003 edition, and I suspect it may have become vector graphic driven. I don't use it with enough depth to know, however. I have no idea how my friend stumbled on his approach but as a result he has been able to work with his and his friends' JPG files, as long as they are imported into Publisher. Right now we're trying to finalize a methodology where I can provide him with final art in Publisher format that he can print without further manipulation. Up to now he has always done all the pre-prep and a good deal of the basic graphics work for his friend. I wood hope to avoid this, both to save him work, and to keep my creative process flexible and fluid. If we succeed I'll report back. But your comment provides further insight into the peculiarities of the ALPS printer world and why so many ALPS users can only process files in a very specific and inflexible way. Again, thank you!

Thanks for comment, Russell. I aware of the benefits of vector graphics, but I'm not asking any potential vendor to go through hoops for me, or make a silk purse out of a sows ear, for that matter. Just accept my art and output it successfully. I may develop proper skills in the vector realm some day, but in the meantime I have years of P-shop experience under my belt. I can work quickly and effectively in this medium and my work is plenty good enough to generate good crisp decal output in 1/25th scale. Up to now I have printed my own, but the ability to print white (and metallics occasionally) to a clear substrate eludes me. Surely the solution ought not to be to have me learn a whole new program just to do this?

Thanks guys! I’ve been plugging away at this project, but most of my energy has gone into working with a modeling friend who has an ALPS printer. I desperately want a source who can work from my Photoshop generated bitmap files and who can print white. My friend has these capabilities. So far it’s taken a bit of work to understand and successfully navigate his pre-preparation needs. But we now have that debugged. I just got my first decals sheets from him, and while the print quality, register and accuracy of size was all spot on, unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be able to generate white ink that’s opaque enough to cover the dark blue body color on this car. Even double layers of white underlayment don’t cover well enough. I’ll keep working on it, but in the meantime I’ve posted an item here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/130916-wanted-custom-decal-service-from-bitmap-images/ , asking for help and advice on finding a decal service that will work from my bit map files. In the meantime… (sigh), the chassis and multiple motor and wheel version setups are all done. As I mentioned earlier, the motor from the Monogram kit is now in another build so I had to make a new one. Working with a Revell Parts Pak small block Chevy I built up a basic motor with two removable intake configurations. The B/Production road racer will have the factory option Dual 4-Barrel 283 which comes in the Parts Pak while the show car and Bonneville version will share a flashy Hilborn injection setup. The Hilborn injectors are from the AMT Double Dragster kit while the nice velocity stacks are courtesy of Speed City Resin. They were cut down to about half height to clear the hood. The aluminum Corvette valve covers are also from the AMT Double Dragster kit and the distributor is from Morgan Automotive Detail. The ram horn exhaust manifolds are from B-N-L Resins while the straight through exhaust running straight back under the chassis was fabricated from 1/16” butyl covered wire and finished in metalized silver paint. The chassis is straight out of the kit, and affords me chance to comment on what a nice kit this is. Everything fits perfectly and the chassis is highly detailed and makes a nice piece just sitting all by itself. The wheels and tires are the other detail change across the 3 versions of the car. For the B/Production road racer I’m running steelies which came from an AMT ’40 Ford kit, while the tires were left over from the super-nice vintage Halibrand Kidney Bean mags I used on my recent ’32 Ford Tudor build. They’re classic early 60’s Goodyears and are typical of the quality one expects from Historic Racing Miniatures. They’re painted Duplicolor Wimbledon White. The Show and Bonneville versions share a set of Halibrand TorqThrusts which are the front wheels from the various Revel ’32 Ford hot rod kits. They have been narrowed to fit standard generic AMT Firestones. They’re finished in various shades of Testors Metalizer with the rim edges picked out in Molotow Chrome. For the Bonneville version only the polished rims will show because they are hidden under a tasty set of Moon discs from Parts By Parks. That’s it for now. The decals are definitely the Long Pole In The Tent. I may have to resort to developing a solution using white decal paper, but cutting a perfectly round set of rondels without a pinhole in the middle is a major challenge, as is laying down a perfectly parallel and properly spaced pair of white stripes. Besides which, I really would like to develop a proper decal printing resource… Until next time… Thanx for lookin’, B.