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.

First I applied a few tan filters then a gray-brown one. This warmed the color tones and gave it a nice dirty worn start to the finish.

Once the filters had dried I used various oil paint colors in order to highlight panels, alter tones and add the greasy grimy weathered look around panels and the engines. This enhances the worn look.

For some reason the lights look blue-ish in the images where in person they look yellowed. Not sure why this is, but I’ll try to adjust the camera settings for the final images. No matter though as in different movie sceens the engines appeared either yellow or purple.

Once it dried overnight I sprayed on a flat coat of FFA. Tomorrow I’ll finish it up with some pigment powders. I still need to finish the canopy once the new one arrives, but this gives you an idea what the final will look like.

I got this little gem a few days ago from rb26 at SSM. The size of the A-Wing (from Return of the Jedi) as you can see is small at this scale, but the amount of crisp details packed into this thing are fantastic. It looks like an injection plastic Fine Molds kit rather than a resin GK which is awesome. I have to wonder if it was made on a computer and 3D printed, that’s how nice the details are. (UPDATE: Nope, all done by hand. Amazing!)

Anyway, as awesome as it is there’s a few VERY minor things worth noting. The first is that the mold likes on the sides of the hull (at least on my copy) are not as flush as one would like resulting in some rescribing of a couple panel lines in the area. Using a scribing saw and a pin to recreate the rivet holes makes quick work of it however with only a small amount of putty required. The other issue is a few air bubbles in the clear resin used for the canopy. (UPDATE: rb26 saw this and is sending me a replacement canopy. Yay! Thanks man!) Like I said though, those issues are minor considering how fantastic a kit this is otherwise. I would definitely buy another SW kit from him if he were to do one. Here’s some great studio model pics for reference.

Since this build will be for a later diorama I needed to light it up. This part was not too difficult as the sculptor had this aspect in mine with the addition of clear parts to go inside the thrusters as well as a clear dash. I drilled out the holes to place 2 clear white LEDs in the two large thrusters then drilled a hole through the hull to connect the wires and finally a hole in the bottom to mount the craft using a hollow brass rod in which the wires will run through. A little clear golden oxide paint on the LEDs makes them appear more incandescent and yellow as seen in the film.

Painting is a simple affair as long as you’ve plenty of masking tape for all the little discolored panels. My colors are a little cool and bright for the moment, but some filters and weathering will bring it more in line with the reference colors. The pilot included is modeled from the A-Wing pilot costume rather than the studio model fig so it’s got much better detail and accuracy IMO.

Next up is more chipping then the weathering begins.

Here’s one I’ve been working off an on with for the past month: The Frame Arms GouRai kit by Kotobukiya. The kit is 1/100 scale but a little larger than a typical 1/144 Gundam kit. Regardless of the size, the detailing is great and the frame was a breeze to work with and makes it really posable. (even though there’s only one pose in the pics)

I decided to forgo my usual 1/100 scale mecha clean look for a more weathered AFV feel. I modeled this just like I would a tank with washes and oil discoloration. The only change was in the chipping where I used a blade to scratch the light paint off showing the dark gray primer, and I didn’t use pigments as this would be handled more than a tank. Instead I weathered and muddied it up with acrylics and oils.

Markov progress continues with paint and primer. I initially primed all of the parts in Duplicolor Self-Etching primer in order to bite into the resin better than normal primer. Then I buffed that with some very fine steel wool. Once nice and smooth I applied a Mr. Retarder’d layer of Mr. Surfacer 1000 for a fine smooth finish.

Once that was cured I sprayed all of the areas and parts that would be red, orange or yellow with white Tamiya as a base coat. That was followed up with the bright colors. and a thin layer of Future (FFA) to help seal it for masking. I painted the interior first with Neutral gray then weathered a bit and applied red, white and green to the lights. An ejection bar system was made from brass rod and extra PE panels were added for more interior detail..

Again, let it cure then mask for more paint. The next color was a khaki-like color to match my website and another coat of FFA. Once cured I applied masking tape squares and triangles to mask for the black fractal pattern also seen on this website.  I painted the black and applied another coat of FFA. Next I’ll paint the black around the outside of the cockpit hull and the canopy along with some metal parts.

Okay, I’m back at it. While waiting for oils to dry on another kit I started assembling the VERY nicely casted and designed Markov Racer from Alb Labs. You can see an in-prog of his kit master here and can buy it here.

The kit has very little clean-up so as far as resin kits goes this one is relatively low-resin-dust from sanding which is a concern of mine these days. The fit is very nice as well and just required minimal Aves Apoxie Sculpt in a few spots to fill gaps. My only disappointment is the large thruster which was made in two halves. The detail makes it hard to clean-up and the halving it seems unnecessary. Aside from that it’s awesome. I haven’t touched the vac-form canopy yet or have ever tried one so that should be interesting. The female pilot is very nicely sculpted and a great change of pace.

Mine will have a custom decal scheme depicting a racers whose primary sponsor is none other than FichtenFoo.com. Jinkies! So expect a khaki drab base color with black fractals, orange and blue highlights and some cool little worker pillbots. Other sponsor logos were either sent to me in vector from the owners (Kallamity.com and Alb-Lab) or downloaded from SeekLogo.com to use on my custom decal sheet.

I’m waiting for Aves to dry then I’ll start cleaning up the seams and thruster. Until then, here’s some pics.