Dr. Cranky

Beautiful rat rod, that's for sure. Lots to look at, plenty of wonderful details. What I like about it is that it's not the usual subject matter.

You can paint the engine with the colors you normally would use, and then you can apply washes. Use pigments (pastel powders) to make it look grungy, and then make an enamel based wash with some gloss clear, thin it and apply it in the areas you want to look greasy.

G, love this last picture, it would make a great diorama piece. Thanks for sharing.

Cole, good to hear and I hope you'll share your results!

Rick and Ron, I got the pictures. Thank you. Great builds in progress. I think everyone in this thread has lost his mind! I love it!

Bart, they make great family pets. I've always had this breed of dog, although we are not going to bring up EYEGORE into the conversation, of course!

John, it's one of my many "strange" addictions!

I've seen him on TV in a few shows. He's got one of those easily recognizable faces, you know.

LOL, Steve, I hope you both didn't get kidnapped by UFOs! Actually, I like everything UFO, Area-51, etc, and certainly Mr. Friedman has been at the forefront for quite a while. I'm reading a book called DREAMLAND right now about Area 51. Of course, having said that I hope we are talking about the same Stanton Friedman. LOL!

David, I think you and Kevin are bringing up a good point about what I would call modification, which is a not so distant cousin of scratch-building.

Thanks, Bernard, just trying to kick-start some interesting conversations about the hobby.

Harold, I got it and copied it, perfect! Thank you.

Thanks for including kit-bashing into the mix . . . Kevin.

Wow, Andy, that's as exacting and succinct an answer as can be. Thank you.

Two people whose work you might want to check out (they both have several books) are Shep Payne and Francois Verlinden. Both military builders, but they are two of the most influential builders in military modeling. Of course, of the new folks, you have to check out the work of Mike Rinaldi, Mig Jimenez, Marc Reusser, and Bob Ferreira. And there are many more. Many of them all over Europe and Japan are building model cars now too . . . It's just a great big hobby. Styrene Addictions run deep.

That's fine, if you can do it tomorrow or earlier this week, that would be fine.

Bart, I got the picture, some beautiful pups indeed. If you sell them they will go fast because they all have those great eye patches. It like this breed of dog very much, they are gentle and make great guard dogs.

Wayne, thanks for bringing back the eye candy. There were more than a few builds that made my jaw drop like this one: and this one too:

It reminds me of Cali in the 70s with all those choppers, trikes, vans, Pintos, Vegas . . . oh and the customized Beetles and Mustangs.

That's a great memory model, Mercman, and you are lucky to still have it in your collection. That's Randy Travis, right?

Steven, can you please try to get me a clearer picture of the big rig truck, please. Those are too blurry. Would you be able to take the model outside and take a picture in daylight? Again, thanks.

All right, folks, the Fotki has been updated and so far it has about 35 builds represented. If you don't like your picture or think you can submit a better one, you still have time. http://public.fotki.com/vsuarez666/voodoo-customs-chop-shop/misc/toothless-zombie-hu/?cmd=uploadapplet3&w=1440&h=900

Jerred, got it, thanks. Steven, I like the idea for the colors, although I am still working out some of the details.

Got it, Erik. Thanks, you are on board now.

Scott, personally I think "eyeballing" adds a bit of fun to the process, and since I am math impaired I still try to keep a few handy tools to help out, like dividers and calipers.