Danny Lectro

Then you need a bigger exhaust tip!

Here is my standing Batman figure that came with the seated figure for the Bat-Pod. He still needs some touching up. Main color is semi-gloss black, with flack black for the fabric-like areas and cape, gloss black for the bat-symbol, metallic grey for the gauntlets and gold leaf for the utility belt. All these colors are Tamiya paints. The flesh tones were done with Citadel/Games Workshop paints. Now I need some input from you guys: Does the semi-gloss black work? I'm not sure if there is enough difference from the flat black to be noticeable. I think the rider figure might do better with Tamiya German Grey for the main color, with a light coat of gloss to make a semi-gloss finish, in order to get some more contrast from the flat black. It would also allow me to get even more variation in tones by painting the gloves and boots in semi-gloss black. The mold on this figure is really soft, especially in comparison with Moebius' other offerings, and it becomes very obvious when you zoom in this much. I don't have a talent for sculpting, so I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

Now, see, those I LIKE. But I still RESPECT most of the others for ticking off purists.

Almost anything that ticks off purists is good in my book. There's only couple here that I would actually DRIVE, but that's beside the point.

Are you sure your home is insured for it's current market value? I knew someone whose rates never went up, and looked at their policy only to discover their home was insured for less than half of what is was worth.

That's even been a problem in some of the larger scale motorbikes I've worked on. I can barely comprehend what you must be dealing with on something that small.

It's mind-boggling that you're able to do that at 1/48 scale!

1/25

Thank you, Joe. I appreciate that. When I finish this one, I think I might actually build a car!

Wayne, King Kong looks really good! Joe, I really like what I see so far on your motorcycle, the flat-twin engine looks nice! I'm also working on a motorcycle, but of a very different nature: Batman's Bat-Pod from The Dark Knight. Here are the sub-assemblies, still unpainted: And then painted with Krylon black primer, decanted and run through an airbrush: Apparently I neglected to take photos of the next few steps, I apologize. I painted the primed sub-assemblies with Testors gloss black, which, when airbrushed of the Krylon primer, resulted in a semi-gloss finish that I felt matched photos of the real prop very well. The black sub-assemblies were dusted with Tamiya Weathering Master silver pastel, to replicate the chipped and worn away paint shown on the filming prop. Some parts were painted with Testors Aluminum Buffing Metalizer, which was then buffed and dusted with Tamiya Weathering Master soot pastel to add some highlighting (darklighting?) to the raised edges. The seat was left in the Krylon black primer, and then dusted with a brownish weathering pastel. After some careful assembly, accompanied by some cursing, I had this: Soon enough, I was very close to being finished. I need to hold off on adding the handlebars, as I am planning to use a Batman rider figure that was sold separately by the kit manufacturer, and I need to make sure everything is lining up before cementing things in place. I hope to have the Batman painted up soon. I've been looking up photos of the filming costume. Some images seem to be actual black, some seem to be a dark grey. I've decided to just go with semi-gloss black, with details in flat and gloss black. I'm trying this out on the standing figure that came in the figure set.

I set my browsers to require permission to run plug-ins like Flash, not so much because the Flash based ads take more time to load, but because some of them are really buggy and cause the browser to slow down.

I got my order from the Moebius Founder's Day sale. 7 sci-fi kits, including their TOS Cylon Raider, which is absolutely huge. Just the top of the kit's hull is bigger than my head. Last week I picked up the Dirt Track Racers reissue of the Switchers '32 Ford. I found it at a hobby shop I visited on a family vacation.

I used to use a Silent-Aire Scorpion compressor, and I got 7-8 years of use out of it. I think it would have lasted longer if I had remembered more often to turn it off when I was done. My set-up had a very small leak somewhere, leading to the compressor kicking in for a few seconds every couple hours or so.

I got a similar email, but I think they sent that out when they finished packing the box and sealed it up. A few days later I got an email from UPS with a tracking number, but they had yet to receive the actual package. The next day the package was in transit. As Frank stated in his Facebook post (quoted above), their web store is basically being handled by their one customer service person. I recommend giving them some time to finish processing everything, you should get a tracking number soon.

Since I already have all of Moebius's car kits that I want, I bought some science fiction kits that I had my eye on, Battlestar Galactica fighters and Irwin Allen vehicles. All told, a little over $100, plus what I thought was a decent shipping price.

When I placed my order, the shipping came up for $55 for 7 kits. I replied to the invoice email asking about the free shipping offer. I got a reply that the free shipping didn't apply on the Founder's Day sale, but that the shipping would cost nowhere near what the site quoted. When I got my shipment notice the price had gone down to $14. So, not as cheap as FREE, but still not a big problem.

This has me a bit concerned, too. I put the order through, and I will try calling them Monday morning.

Wow! That is gorgeous!

For a long time, I never really thought of Springsteen as a guitarist, as most of his work I had heard was focused on his vocals. Then quite a few years ago I saw a televised performance, I think from a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where he was playing Roy Orbison songs with Roy and a few other famous guitar players. I was surprised to hear him rip out some really soulful riffs. It wasn't flashy, but if just fit. I was enthralled, and I usually hate watching guitar players trading riffs.

I apologize. When I posted, I was sure I remembered seeing vids with four-letter-words posted here and left up. Perhaps I was mistaken, or perhaps they had slipped under the radar. Glad you liked the Springsteen vid. Mr. Morello is one of my musical influences. I know I'll never be able to devote the kind of time to studying music to get to his level, but he inspired me to look at my instruments differently.

There, is that better?

I usually don't pay much attention to the guitarist in a band, as I gravitate more towards songs than pyrotechnics. However, I am a big fan of Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, Street Sweeper Social Club, the Nightwatchman). He's someone who spent a lot of time learning scales, perfecting technique and shredding, until he realized how much all of that was limiting him and keeping him from finding his own voice on the instrument. He found other ways to play his instruments, and carved out a nice little niche for himself, with people everywhere trying to figure out, "How did he do that?" Here he is playing "The Ghost of Tom Joad" with Bruce Springsteen: And here is just the solo from a song called "Promenade" by Street Sweeper Social Club:

I saw Jane's Addiction in concert in 2009. Even with all the original members back together, it was still bogus. It felt like they were just phoning it in. My wife and I walked out barely 30 minutes into their set. At least we got our money's worth seeing Nine Inch Nails and Street Sweeper Social Club opening for them.

I am absolutely floored by the quality of work going on in this thread. Now, here I come to ruin things. I never want to see another piece of masking tape again. This was before applying the last metallic layer. I used Dark Andonic Gray Metallizer, Magnesium Metallizer, Stainless Steel Metallizer, and finally Aluminum Plate Metallizer, with buffing and masking in between colors. Then, after removing all of the masking tape, I had this: ...after which I did a little victory dance. After assembly, a grey wash, and some weathering pastels, I had my finished product: I finished this a couple weeks ago, just in time to bring to a science-fiction model contest. I didn't win any awards for this one, but a couple of my mecha models won awards. Aaaaaand now I see the ginormous gap in the tail.