wgflatliner

a little update. first time attempting an airbrush. it'll be a flash vs no flash comparison, mostly so you can tell the differences between the shades, and the flash shows the actual colors. no flash: flash: i will be trying to finish all the rest of the panels as soon as i can gain access to an airbrush again. shouldn't be too hard.

the panels will be sitting inside the gaps, so you'll actually still be able to see the cage for the most part.

what i'm NOT liking is how dirty my desk is. time to clean.

made some progress. Finished up the construction of the chassis, and mudded it up a bit using a tamiya weathering stick. I decided that since my local IPMS chapter is doing a winter effects theme build, that i'm going to do this up in the winter camo, with a winter looking muddy trail diorama. In the photos i started mocking up some armor panels. mud and lack of cleaning. after all it IS an off road vehicle. not that you want to impress your enemies with how shiny it is. Gonna go get some panels painted up, and will have some decent progress over the weekend. thanks for looking!

not sure i understand why it's upside down.

usually the rally cars have pretty slick interiors to begin with. got any pics of what you have to work with on the interior?

alright here's my poorly edited rendition of your photo of what i meant earlier: the mold lines down the side of the car and the front corner (also do the rear corners) is poorly edited to make them look like they're sanded down. the black stripe starts on the corner of the fender, and goes to the back and completely wraps around the back to the other side of the car and finishes at the same spot on the other fender. one solid stripe starting at the fenders! did i mention my renditions are horrible in MS paint?

nice choice on color. one critique and please don't take this the wrong way: There are mold lines on the corners of the bumpers, and also the vertical line that comes from the rear fender area down the side of the door.. what i do for that is i sand them down so the body is smooth, using sand paper polishing sets. work your way from 1800 grit down to 12000 grit. i know some people think it's ridiculous to go that far with the sand paper, but it's easier to get rid of sanding scuff marks when you go to polish it. The end result is a paint job that doesn't take much to polish up and make a mirror-type shine. keep up the good work as far as other paint suggestions: i think these cars look good as one solid color. The body lines are almost too aggressive and sharp to have a fluid stripe going down the side (this being my opinion of course). the only place that i personally think a pinstripe would be visually nice is if you start at the front corner near the headlight and have it go straight back between the door handles and the window trim working your way to the back of the car. You could even have it wrap around completely like it's one complete pinstripe starting on both of the front fenders. i'll try to fiddle with your picture so you can understand what i mean. i bet if you painted the little thin parts around the door a semi-gloss black it would look like weather stripping and give you a little more color than the greenish goldish silver (i'm thinking of calling that color grolver)

looks better!

and fixed (had to flip the rotors over)

i got to looking at that during the build. was working on fixing that thanks!

i also made progress with this.. thing.. i don't like the motor that comes with the kit, but it won't matter since you will only see a small portion of it once it's all done. tore the seat it's done in medium green, and all i've done with the motor is spark plug wires and a throttle cable. it won't be super detailed. as far as the globs of glue and other glue boogers, that's all fine with me! battle damage! i'm still debating on a color scheme. i am probably going to go medium green and gunmetal camouflage, considering post apocalypse would assumptively be a darkish/medium green and mostly gray in general. or i could just wing it as i go on.

i have one more brake to finish, but the one side is nearly done with the exception of the calipers cage installed, interior i think is as done as i'm going to get it most of what's left is modifying the body with the PE replacement pieces, which i assume are meant to resemble the width and depth of the actual parts they depict. Once i get the body all done with it's metal bits, then it's off to metal primer, then regular primer, then follow up with painting. Thanks for looking!

alright! i have made some decent progress with this build! brakes coming together: making some interior stuff, plumbing for the on-board pneumatic jacks, and also wiring and wire loom, etc. PE pedals 5 point harness using seat belt material from the tamiya Ferrari FXX detail kit. front brakes are done with the exception of the calipers.

i'd lower the back just a tad more and sand the tires to give them the real rubber look. i love the color and concept of hello kitty though!

tell me about it! i will make sure to get photos of progress. the instructions indicate that i will need to cut away some of the body parts to replace them with PE bits, which i'm kind of nervous about.

Alright this is going to be my "post apocalypse semi-armor attack vehicle" something-rather. Using the dodge rammunition kit, i'm going to use the complete build except the body of the truck. i plan on going with the whole armored truck theme, to include weapons. The gauze is going to be used to create a "cloth canopy" over the bed or rear of the truck, and will be painted along with the rest of the build. The flak cannon i used is a 35th scale from Tristar, and the building part of it is complete. I just need to touch up paint, and weather it in order to call that "done" and i plan on mounting it either on the roof to one side, or in the back. This build is going to be 100% imagination, and i look to have FUN with it. I plan on taking my time (glacier speed) with it and want the outcome to be relatively decent. There are also some other Tamiya weapons that will be added to this, among other touches. Enjoy, as i plan to! box art: parts tree: Rocket crates in progress of being painted: Interior floor pan started. Engine (most of it will not be visible, but i will be working on making it more presentable: Armored flak cannon thing (in scale it looks almost like maybe a 50 cal): That's all for now!

oh, what have i gotten myself into? lol a nice little brown box showed up from Japan today. I opened it up, and it was the detail kit for this model. If you thought the brakes looked good before, all i can say is you're all in for a treat. Here's a pic of what came in: Let's just say that the brakes from this kit consist of about 28 to 30 individual pieces per brake. It also came with seatbelt hardware, but no seat belt material. i figure i can use some from spare material from the Tamiya FXX. now i just have to take out the eduard seat belts and hope for the best. oh, what have i gotten myself into? lol a nice little brown box showed up from Japan today. I opened it up, and it was the detail kit for this model. If you thought the brakes looked good before, all i can say is you're all in for a treat. Here's a pic of what came in: Let's just say that the brakes from this kit consist of about 28 to 30 individual pieces per brake. It also came with seatbelt hardware, but no seat belt material. i figure i can use some from spare material from the Tamiya FXX. now i just have to take out the eduard seat belts and hope for the best.

on the chopping block here is the Revell California Wheels 57 Chevy bel-air hard top 2-door. base coat is testor's one-shot inca gold, top coat enamel clear candy apple red. wet sanded down to 12k, bare metal foil, PE kit, pegasus wheels. i'm having a hard time deciding on whether or not i want to go with the stock bench seat up front or modernize it with racing buckets.. what are your thoughts?

i got a little further on this. I found a nice detail set for the kit that will include even better brakes, and a lot more goodies that i just ordered from HLJ. the pan i didn't want perfect, considering that if the car really is racing it doesn't look all perfect and clean.. so i did SMS carbon with dull coat. As seen, the on-board pneumatic jacks are deployed as if it will be displayed wheels off. roll cage is painted, and is still being worked on. seat was masked off and sprayed with "faux fabrix" spray paint which gives the textured look, along with eduard seat belts in. controls box done up in the kit carbon per directions. the interior pan is drying right now. more updates to come!

I have officially started the Tamiya Xanavi R34 skyline. Box art: Chassis/Floor pan done per instructions: Wheels and tires. I sanded all four tires to give them a used look, then applied the kit supplied decals, then laid on a coat of Testors dullcoat lacquer. I wanted to go a different route with the wheels and brakes this round, so i drilled out the centers of the wheels and sanded them to the correct and most accurate circle i could muster. I then applied decals and then Enamel clear. The center locking hubs are attached to the brake rotor assemblies because i will be displaying the model with the wheels off. The calipers were tamiya clear orange over silver leaf to match reference photos, and the PE rotors were touched up in the slots with a sharpie. I hope to find a good amount of reference photos to obtain the most realistic wheel wells i can possibly get. Hint hint, i will need help with reference material! Roll cage assembled, sits level and is mostly cleaned up. Will need to fill gaps and clean it all up. Will also reference the real car for weld spots so i can try to duplicate them. Eduard PE seatbelts (why can't they make 5-point harnesses??? *sigh*) undercarriage: After being in chat with Wheelman, I was glad to find that the real car has on-board pneumatic floor jacks for the pit stops, so I drilled out small holes for the on-board pneumatic jacks. I then realized the holes were too large for the shafts i was going to make for it, so i sleeved them with rubber tubes, and now the shafts slide in snug. This alone will not only make it easier to display the model without the wheels on, but it also adds a touch of realism. The NICEST part about where they are, is the front ones match perfectly to the interior tub right under the cylinders that push out the jacks. The back one also goes into a slot that will not be seen once installed. It's almost like the kit was created to have this done! That's all i have done so far. I plan on using SMS carbon fiber for the undercarriage. I just picked up solvaset for the first time and hope it goes on easy. SMS carbon fiber will be found among other spots as well. This kit is looking to be pretty fun, and i will be working on it diligently! Thanks for looking

This is still a WIP, but about 80% done. What we have is the Tamiya Ferrari F40 Competizione edition. The kit came with PE parts, which were pretty nice. The build up is typical Tamiya quality, with only two fitment issues residing in the Rear engine bonnett (the "hood"), and the exhaust tips do not match up to the exhaust port on the rear bumper. Decals were great, from Cartograph, although a couple minor spots of the decals broke during the time it was setting. I did add SMS carbon fiber to the interior tub and under-surface, Faux Fabrix textured spray paint for the seats and dash, braided lines, and I used Hobby Design valve stems on the tires. The car is also going to be fully plumbed and wired, although most of it you won't be able to see. on with the show!

looks very good. i would have never thought of doing a flat finish on carbon fiber, but it looks good. the only thing that i can see that it needs is a 3rd brake light

First, let me say that going OOB on this build didn't happen.. The body, and engine are the only parts that came with the kit.' The chassis floor was from the 55 chevy pro sportsman. After just putting it away out of frustration for so long, i finally decided to just get it done, no matter the outcome. finished is better than perfect. I used Tamiya gloss black, enamel clear, wet sand and novus polish. SMS carbon fiber. I attempted to just open the trunk, but part of it decided it didn't want to go with. oh well. lol So, without further ado, my latest monstrosity:

i haven't done the nova, and after doing the bonneville, i'm not sure i WANT to do the nova. It has plenty of fit issues. For example, the frame plastics weren't warped, however when you're putting on the rear suspension, there's those two parts that stick out near the rear wheel well that simply REFUSE to sit level with the undercarriage. i had to have super strength clamps, 5 minute epoxy, AND super glue with accelerator to FINALLY get the things to stay down. other fitment issues is getting the side trim pieces to fit where they need to go. you'll probably have to sand them down to get them to fit in the slots. it's almost like they're too thick for the slots provided. i'm just glad it turned out decent. plus i'm happy that all four tires touch the ground and aren't off camber.