Brett Barrow

I'll just leave these here, without comment. Top pair are two real cars showing distortion when shot at slightly different camera positions, bottom pair is the model and real car shot at nearly identical camera positions.

Since I wanted to attach the side skirts before starting the camo painting, I needed to weather the lower hull since I wouldn't be able to get to it later (turns out you can't really see it anyway). GAve me chance to practice with making mud and dirt with pigments. I've never really gotten the hang of pigments before, but thanks to some tips I picked up in a recent armor modeling book (Mike Rinaldi's Tank Art #3) I think this came out pretty well. I'm happy with it at least! Excuse the weird color shifts on the pics, I took these on the workbench and I have two different types of light bulbs. I need to get two the same. Still need to do the wheels on the other side. I think I'll try to take some in-progess pics to show how its done. Not hard, just was some things I was doing wrong before that made all the difference once I figured it out.

You can do it either way. My old way was to build everything, even the tracks and small details like tools, just leaving the hull and turret separate. I'd paint black in all the crevices I didn't think I'd be able to reach later. Then I'd paint the lower hull, wheels and track a dirt color and paint the upper hull and turret the camo colors. I was heavily influenced by Tony Greenland and Steve Zaloga, who use this approach and have written several books and numerous magazine articles on their techniques. The "paint it dirt color" approach works well for tanks that get really dirty and muddy. This model was done by Andrew Dextras using this asme technique and I made a pretty faithful copy of it using a step-by-step magazine article he wrote about it, using the exact same colors and techniques he used. (I wish I had taken pictures of mine, but it's been 10 years since I built armor and I didn't have a digital camera back then. I ended up selling them out of the showcase at the hobby shop I worked in). But since this model is of a demonstration vehicle (there are only a couple made, they haven't been accepted into service by the Russian Army yet, and it looks like the one they are going to accept is a much different version built on recycled T-72 hulls) and is kept fairly clean I'm taking a different approach with this one. I'll paint all the subassemblies in their appropriate colors, then bring the together for the final weathering. I'll be trying some new techniques with this one, there've been a lot of advancements made in armor weathering over the past 10 years. This is the look I'm going for, clean with just a little dust from running around the demonstration area.

This is a great kit. Best thing out of China I've ever worked on. Might be the best kit from anywhere, period, I've ever built. "Tamiya-like" doesn't even describe it. Great detail with great fit and great engineering.

Basecoated with AMMO of Mig Jimenez (silly name, right? Great paint, though) Modern Russian Green Khaki. None of my airbrushes are in good enough working order (or I'm not skilled enough) to freehand the camo scheme so I'll have to do it with Silly Putty or Blu-Tack masks. I'll let it set up a day or two so it can be handled without messing up the paint.

Pushed back to next month. Was originally on the list for this month.

Just a little thicker, not as fine and smooth. Still good stuff, though.

Again, you take what I say out of context, or fail to comprehend what I wrote. "SOMETIMES". I was just pointing out that even with a correct master, changes could be made during tooling for various reasons. I've seen the Trumpeter car kit tooling mockups with my own eyes and held them in my own hands. The kits that Trumpeter produced were not faithful to those master patterns. I don't know why, but they just aren't. Sometimes there are technical reasons, and sometimes they just @%$! up.

It was meant to be a joke. Glad to see it landed.

Check out the thread on Moebius' Ford pickup. See how much different the first test shot looks from the tooling mockup. Mistakes crept in there from somewhere that weren't on the masters. Sometimes they make changes to accommodate the molding process (things like draft angles so the parts don't get trapped in the mold, or thicknesses of parts so the plastic flows and cools properly and doesn't cause shrink marks) sometimes there are changes that are just plain headscratchers.

Moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago, got my workbench up and running and dug into this really cool new kit from Meng. Might be the best kit I've ever worked on, fit was excellent, engineering was nice, no real snags along the way (that weren't my doing). I didn't take that many pics along the way during construction since it's mostly out-of-the-box, but I will try to take some as I go through the painting and weathering process. I'm trying out some primer from the fairly new comapny Ammo of Mig Jimenez. I've been a little leery of acrylic primers before, I tried the Vallejo primer when it first came out and had some issues with it. This stuff is awesome. Goes on smooth, adheres to plastic very well. No smell whatsoever. I'll be using Ammo's new Modern Russian paint set on this too, I'm looking forward to using them, I hope they're as good as the primer! Here's the real thing, it's one bad mammer jammer!!!

I want one so bad!!!! Love the Tamiya 1/12 bikes. I know, I'll ask Santa... Yours looks great, BTW.

Narrow with 5 spokes. Always.

I didn't really look at it that closely, I just happened to be inspecting some Round 2 kits this morning that came in with messed up boxes and this was one of them so I threw it on the scanner. I'll take a closer look tomorrow, it's still in my office.

They knew Tom Coolidge/Promolite was going to do the sedan (they even gave him an early test shot so he could get started on it before the kit was on the market) they knew the decals would be the harder part to source, so they put them in the kit. I know it's hard to believe, a little foresight on their part. How could that be? You know what, I need to take my own advice. Is this fun? The back and forth on the Car Kit News & Reviews section? Being Mr. Revell defender? No. Not anymore. So have at it, you won't have Nixon Barrow to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last post in this section. For a while anyway. If there's a question about a release date or something that I know the answer to, I'll post it, but I'm not going to get involved with these types of post anymore. I'll be in the On The Workbench sections and maybe even one day I'll have something for Under Glass... [/tongue-in-cheek]

You don't remember the fracas over the La Carrera Panamerica decals in the 50 Olds?

I think you read waaaay too much into what I wrote, or maybe I didn't do a good enough job expressing what I meant to say, because that's not at all what I meant. The problem is with the folks who come along after a flaw has been pointed out and pile on - "How do they let these leave the factory", "How could they do something this bad in 2014" "They're idiots" "Nobody with any sense works there" - that's the type of stuff I'm talking about, and it happens on every single one of these. Folks that don't even build 60's muscle cars or 1/25th scale come along and pile on whenever the topic is Revell. And I see those same folks blowing smoke up Moebius' you-know-what in their threads, even though Moebius is guilty of some of the same flaws, not to mention they tend to miss release dates by months or years, but hey, we'll cut 'em some slack because they have a guy who posts on the board. It's hypocritical. I don't favor one over the other, I sell 'em both and they both sell well, but c'mon, let's treat them both the same.

I don't think he meant that to you, there are 3 or 4 individuals who seem to pop up every time one of these threads goes down this path (and they always go down this path). I look at it this way, you paid your money, you bought your kit, you can say whatever you want about and do whatever you want to it. But there are certain characters who come along in these Revell threads who build other scales or other genres and were never going to buy it anyway and proceed to $#!& over anything the company does, if it's not the model itself, it's the instruction sheet or the decals or it's what parts they put in one version and not the other or it's decisions made or not made about subject selection. They'll find something to complain about.

I don't know, but one could make a small fortune off of this operation. Provided, of course, that they start with a large fortune...

Don't take anything I said as a personal attack or vitriol, I'm just asking a question - "Is this fun?". If pointing out flaws is fun, then by all means continue doing it. But I feel that if you base your personal happiness level on the accuracy (or lack thereof) of a model car kit, then you pretty much deserve what you get.

Does anybody on here actually have fun building models anymore?

You forgot option #7 - Don't buy it but bitch about it on the message boards anyway. Don't think it ever was. Exhibit A - MPC's General Lee is the best-selling model car kit of all time and for most of its existence it had a Charger 500 back window.

Well, I'm selling the heck out of 'em. Revell said they had sold the entire first run out before they even hit the shore. I'm sure they're pleased with how well they're selling. I don't have an MBA from the Wharton School or anything like that, but I think I'd rather have good sales than good reviews any day of the week...

I'll wait and see what differences the 2nd version will have. Might have some features more desirable to me. Deluxe interior I hope?!?!?