Aaronw

I'm with Ron on this, put the photos you want onto a CD then have them printed at a local photo place. Better quality and cheaper than printing it yourself. I use Adobe photoshop but your camera should have come with some photo editing software. Most of these free programs do everything most people need, crop, resize, adjust color / brightness etc. Programs like Photoshop do all kinds of wierd artsy fartsy stuff, neat to play with but rarely used by most people.

Another use for Future is sealing the edge of your masking. I put my masking down like you describe, then run a brush with Future along the edge of the tape, then let it dry before painting. Its not 100% I'll still get a little seepage here and there, usually at a panel line, but it works pretty well. The only thing is you want to run an exacto blade along the edge of the tape before you remove it, I guess Future is a little tougher than paint. This makes a small cut in the Future and keeps the paint on the model from following the paint on the tape. Ammonia will remove Future as well.

I use the highest setting on my camera since I use it for more than just taking pics of models and don't want to forget and take some great pics at low resolution. Computer monitors are low resolution so it doesn't take much to post a decent looking photo online, but if you tried printing it wouldn't look very good. Another benefit although more advanced, if you take a high resolution photo you can go in, crop the area you want to focus on and then blow it up sort of like an after the fact zoom. This requires at least a little familiarity with photo editing software (most cameras come with some sort of program you can use for this) but it isn't really hard, just crop and resize, but a low res photo won't give you the good detail you need for this. As far as resizing, straight from my camera the pics are 15mb and they are huge (11x17" or so), all you would see is the tire on your screen. At 800x600 and 72dpi the photos are roughly 6" wide which is a nice size for a computer screen, they are also only 100kb or so (1/150 the size), my photobucket account would fill up really fast if I posted the pics right from the camera. If you are using a lower setting then there is no reason to resize them. Also most photo accounts limit the size files you can download to them. You really can't judge picture quality on your computer screen, computer screens have terrible resolution and even the cheapest modern digital camera on its lowest setting probably takes a better picture than your monitor can show. If you try printing though you will see a big difference in quality. The higher settings will provide a clearer picture and you will be able to print the photos larger while maintaining a sharp photo, the lower settings will quickly start to pixilate as you enlarge the pic.

I'm going to paint it, between the swirl comment (there is a mild one right on the roof) and just in general my need to paint that just seems to be the way to go. Also looking at the parts it seems unlikely that I wouldn't find areas that really needed some paint. I was just stunned when I opened the box, I'm used to white, grey, maybe red or black plastic on occasion, this is cast in a really nice metallic blue and metallic grey. Curt you told me it was a nice kit when I bought and you were right. I think I'll be getting a few more Tamiya kits in the future. My wife is heading into town tommorrow, I guess I'll have her swing by the Hobbytown and grab me some of that Tamiya Mica Blue paint while she's there.

I was hoping to see more resin and other aftermarket venders too, but from what I've heard that is a very hit or miss thing. Some years there are many, other years like this one not so much. Still I did pretty well on kits, got a couple I've been chasing at decent prices and several more I only had a mild interest in but got really cheap. I picked up an Opel GT for $4, not a kit I was dying for but it is an odd subject and the price was right. Raul it was nice to meet you guys, I also met up with Brian (Bsoder) who I have been yacking with online since I joined the SA forums several years ago, it was nice to finally meet him without typing. Met up with someone from another site as well of course its always nice to be able to talk to Gregg in person even if he is going in 20 directions at once. I saw some great builds too. Never saw a built Futura before, I thought someone was getting a little creative with a Batmobile kit until I asked about it. My only complaint, you people need to build more police cars, fire engines and ambulances. By my count there were 8 total and I brought 4 of them! Oh, and I never did find any food. On the drive home I thought I was getting sick and then it hit me I hadn't eaten since dinner the night before.

I got a Tamiya Alpine A110 1600 SC, and it is a great looking kit. I think this is actually my first Tamiya car kit, built lots of Tamiya tanks, planes even a ship or two, but never one of their cars that I can recall. Anyway the body is molded in a really attractive metallic blue, and I'm actually considering leaving it bare and just buffing out the plastic. I always paint, but this one really has me questioning which way to go. One of my concerns is filling gaps, there really isn't anyway to cover up and putty used. Anyone build one of these? Is it realistic to leave it bare or is that a really bad idea?

Ok, I talked to three of you from the site but I didn't think to ask who you guys were. I bought a '50 Ford pickup and a Tamiya Alpine 1600 at your table. From the Seseme Street T shirt guy.

Also when you actually get to the point of taking photos, take a bunch, everything looks fine on theat little screen but you will find blurry pics sneak in there, if you take 2 or 3 from each angle there is a much better chance of having enough usable photos and it isn't really any harder to delete 20 pics than it is to delete 5.

Well I sat through Gregg's photo demo last summer, and the first thing he told us was toss the instructions, nobody can understand them. Pretty much what CAL said, except if you just want to post them online one of the middle to lower settings are probably fine and it will save you the step of resizing them when you post online. I usually resize my photos to 800x600 and 72 dpi, which provides a nice computer screen sized photo. If you want to print them out or take them to be printed as photos then use the highest setting. You can get a nice tripod at Walmart or Target for $20 or less and it will make a huge improvment in photo quality. You want to avoid using a flash, natural sunlight or bright indoor light is best. Also a clean area is nice, even if you don't use a cardstock background a clear table or bedspread make a far superior backdrop to chip bags, soda cans and a computer monitor.

Thanks, that looked like an interesting conversion. Sounds like some work but would be worthwhile.

Also I'd check with Gregg but it has been my understanding that he will let resin casters show off their latest creations in the resin section of the site.

I saw that at AITM the other day, how in depth of a conversion to the 377 is it, swap a couple of parts or a good bit more?

Handy to know, so the floor of the bed should be a solid color, as the skid strips are the same color as the "planking"?

That could work too, thanks.

Ok, my identifying feature will be a dark brown Seseme Street shirt, so if you see a tall guy wearing a Seseme street shirt I'd say its safe to assume its me. See some of you there Tommorow.

I'm thinking about converting a Lindberg '53 Ford to a 4 door, but I'm wondering how much needs to change besides adding 2 more doors. Some cars seem to be fairly easy, fill and rescribe doors, others (I'm looking at you '58 Impala) would be a rather large undertaking. I'm hoping I will discover the Ford falls into the first group. I don't have a really good eye for picking up some of the smaller changes, like modified roof lines etc unless they really jump out at you. So any help here? Thanks

So this is the tractor only version? I got one with the trailer and '40 Ford but have been waiting for the tractor only, I have plans for a couple of them. Nice to hear cleaning up the molds wasn't just a rumor either, Thanks. We got a nice tax return which should arrive any day(unfortunately not in time for the NNL West swap meet and venders ), looks like I'll be trying out several of the Lindberg kits for myself.

Yep that helped, that is quite the fancy motor, just hard to believe it goes in a truck. I'm kind of surprised Mack didn't offer a clear acrylic hood to show it off.

If they turn they turn, if they don't they don't. That is about as much time as I take with them. I am far more concerned with making sure they all touch the ground.

You know that is not very nice to do Gregg, do you also go to the library and rip the last page out of murder mysteries?

I was just wondering about the gold used on Mack engines. The intructions say gold, and I've seen some builds with gold engines that look great but look more like something you would see in a custom car not a heavy truck. I've only driven one Mack, a 1976 CF that had a Maxidine engine, but I do not remember it being in your face bright gold, granted it was 16 years old and had seen a lot of use when I drove it so may have been buried in greese and grime. So fresh from the factory are the engines bright gold or are they a bit more subdued? I have a couple of Macks moving up towards getting built so thought I'd better start doing some research.

I'll be there, haven't been able to finish much but at the very least I'll have my Celery Green '68 Plymouth Fury Park Ranger Patrol car done.

I think there are IPMS chapters in Fremont, Santa Clara and Mountain View as well. I was looking into them when I lived in the Bay Area but moved before actually going to any meetings.

That is a Modelhaus cab. Me too.

Of course I've seen this already, but very nice. That front mount pump really steals the show, it could be a stand alone build.