I’ve been progressing with the scenery while waiting for some LEDs to arrive for Vincents head. First up is the portable marquis sign. After completing the scratch-building process I primed the sign in Mr. Color Base White.

Then when dry I masked off the white portion and sprayed the whole sign in uber-cheap “Color Place” flat black spraypaint from Walmart. It’s under a dollar a can and actually sprays beautifully. Over that I sprayed a thin random coat of rust-tone-mixed Tamiya Acrylic, a thin coat of FFA, and after that cured a generous coating of hairspray with a dash of salt.

As soon as the hairspray dried I sprayed the whole sign in XF-18 semi-gloss black. After a couple minutes I rubbed off the salt and started the chipping away of the black coat with water and various brushes and toothpicks.

After the marquis sign was done I went to work on the Motel sign. I used the same techniques described above, but with different top-coat colors. For the blue, red, and yellow I sprayed a coat of white down first over the hairspray so that they would come out brighter. This had an added benefit of multi-toned chip-edges. These will all be faded and weathered more in later progress reports. More pics below in the gallery.

I also worked on the base. The asphalt is plaster of paris mixed with brown ballast and beach sand. This makes for a nice textured surface once you give it a rough sanding. Cracks were made with razor blades while the plaster was semi-wet. For the color I applied very thin washes of dark brown-gray acrylic. WHat worked out really well is that the acrylic did not want to stick to the sand particles resulting in a very worn looking surface with just the right about of sparkle. Seriously looks just like my street which is great. Stains, dirt, tar, weeds, etc will be added later. I’ll probably add a pin wash to the cracks too to make them pop a little more. The retaining wall box around the sign was also made from this same plaster mix in a temporary wooden form and carved/chipped when cured.

It took a little longer than I had planned but I’ve finally took completed images of Alb-Lab’s Markov Racer. As seen in the in-progress posts below, this particular racer was sponsored by this very website! Pretty swanky eh? You know you’ve made it when you can sponsor an anti-gravity racing event.

Once the final clear coats had cured and were wet-sanded with 6000 and 8000 grit micromesh, I polished the whole body with Tamiya Polishing Compound: Finish which gave it a fantastic mirror-like gloss. The only drawback of course is dust. Ugh… I dusted the model before pics and there’s still dust in the pics. Oh well…

I added some damage to the left front intake as if it had hit another racer accidentally. Some metal, paint, and decal scraping can be seen and blue paint from the other racer stuck to this craft. Small clear blue and red lenses were added to the sides of the craft as lights. Here’s the pics:

Years ago a fellow modeler friend of mine, Walter Pezzali, created a fantastic 1950′s looking robot kit master. (Vincent) I purchased one of the first and probably only casts of the time and while the design was great, the self-casting job was not. We decided to exchange it and try again later when he found a good caster.  Now years later Walter is residing in Japan, has an updated master, another robot design (with more on the way), and a phenomenal casting company producing it making for a really nicely done and fun kit to build.His design has even been animated which is so cool!

I received both of Walters’ ‘Futuristic’ kits a few weeks ago and immediately put Vincent into the resin cleaner to start on him. He’s nicely cast by Ankama in a dark gray resin and comes in a box with what may be my favorite model kit box-art ever. I think this stuff is frame-able. There’s also decals and photoetch. I didn’t find any problems (bubbles, misalignment) in the parts and they cleaned up quite nicely.

To keep with the cool retro 1950′s look I decided to make a neon motel sign such as one would find on the famous Route-66 back in the day. I did a lot of searching and downloaded a lot of reference, but as usual shelf-space won out over size and I decided to go with the smaller, simpler motel sign as seen in the photo.

The sign was easy enough to make and will be an interesting and different set-piece when done. I started by printing out letter outlines on normal paper. These were cut out and taped over .040″ styrene sheet. I cut through the paper onto the styrene using a ruler and the printout as a guide. Once the paper was removed I could finish cutting based on the score lines in the plastic. Once the letters were cut-out I glued styrene strip around the outside edge to give them a nice lip. The main part of the sign was made using thin sliced of 1.5″ styrene tube with slightly larger styrene discs glued to the faces. More styrene rod and tube was used to create the post.

Vincent will be painted in a two-tone classic car combo of white and baby blue. He’s been around for a while at this point, perhaps just awakening from under a pile of scrap and is in pretty bad shape. A recent fight has left him with large gaping chest wound. To create that I thinned the inside walls of his chest parts, dipped them into boiling water and used various tools to “dent” him. Other dents were made using a dremmel and sandpaper.

I made some replacement eyes for the two Futuristic “Vincent” heads. The originals were shaped like this but molded in the head with gray resin. These were made by spinning clear acrylic rod in my drill, shaped with a file and wet 400 grit sanding sticks, then smoothed with 400 and with 1200 grit wet sand paper and fin…ally polished up to a perfect shine with Tamiya Fine and Finish polishing compound on an old scrap of t-shirt. All while spinning the drill.

Lighting Vincent the way I want will not be as difficult as I assumed. I already hollowed out the 2-eye head and will put two 3mm red LEDs into it when they arrive. They’ll sit behind the “cone” eyes which will be painted in clear red. Wires will run through the neck into the dremmeled out chest cavity where a flickering LED tealight’s circuit-board/switch/battery will fit and connect to the head LEDs. The random flickering red eyes will add to the old/damaged look I’m going for.

The only modifications I’ve made so far aside from drilling out to replace the joint-pins with styrene tube/eye-glass screws were to add some half-round strip on the rear of the calves and around the upper arms. These will be chrome.

Direct from the ‘Double F’ foundries in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you too can partake of the wonders in the oceanic depths. Travel nineteen and nine hundred ninety-nine thousand leagues under the sea in your own submersible carriage.  Search for lost treasure, view strange creatures never before seen by human eyes, all in the comfortable and stylish two-man cabin complete with luxurious polished brass fittings. The durable copper and brass hull and fixtures are reinforced with exotic eastern polymers with unnatural resin-like qualities! The large transparent portholes will give you ample views of the ambiance under the sea. Reserve yours today and be the envy of your friends.

This 1/35 scale model kit contains 29 resin parts, metal rod, and nearly 40 photographically etched parts. Without the fins, it’s about 7″ long and 4.5″ high and 2″ wide. Also includes one 3mm white LED for those interested in lighting the cockpit.

Hundreds of rivets and lots of piping detail this steampunk inspired submersible.

Clear eye porthole will allow views of the detailed cabin  interior.

Detailed mechanics on the underside.

Many valves and gauges adorn the interior.

The included fret of photographically etched parts consists of fins, hinges, markings, and gauge faces.

Currently I am only taking down names for a reserved list. To get your name on the list (first come, first served) please contact me by clicking here. Include your full name, email address, country to ship to, and desired quantity. The final price is ~ $99 + shipping.

Here is a gallery of images from the conceptualization process all the way through to the final master.

Been a few weeks since I touched this or updated, but I wanted to show the progress so far. Since the last update I first applied about 5 layers of Future then after a week of curing I used 6000, then 8000 grit micromesh to wet-sand it to a nice glossy polish. After the polishing of the clearcoat I applied the decals then another 5-6 airbrushed payers of Future. 2 weeks later (today in fact) and I repolished it with the 6000 and 8000 grit micromesh then polished it with Tamiya Finishing compound. The end result is almost glass-like, looks wet and impressive to me. I did accidentally go too deep with the sanding in a few spots, but it was on raised edges and I plan to ding and chip it during the slight weathering process. I want this Markov to look like it’s in the middle of a very tough race.

Today I also masked the canopy with Parafilm “M”, then spray painted it with cheap gloss black spray paint from Walmart. < $1 a can in fact, but nice stuff! ‘Color Place’ brand I think. Weeks ago I masked and sprayed the top three panels with clear blue as a sun tint.

I also painted the thruster today using various Alclad II lacquers, oil paint, and Rub-n-buff.