About The Kit »

Here it is, my first completed kit of 2007. This is the SEG-888 Hornet from the Junk Tank Rock series. JTR is kinda like Ma.K.. It’s a group of modelers scratchbuilding great looking walking tanks and other vehicles such as this monocycle. This particular kit is  reminiscent of the monocycles from the old anime Venus Wars.

Since the JTR guys don’t sell originals outside of Japan, the rest of us are forced to either pay too much on YJ! or get a recast. Fortunately RM Garage kits did a fantastic job of recasting this little gem. Getting this thing ready for primer and paint took only about an hour or two tops. The only issue which was VERY minor really was a slight misalignment of the mold on the “trunk”

of the bike. Nothing a little sanding didn’t fix. The handlegrips are very small so I ended up snapping one, but that was my fault and easily fixed with superglue before priming.

For the creating the water, I did
the following:

1. Cut out clear plastic (from a toy package) in the shape of your base or puddle.
2. Paint puddle’s back side with mud color.
3. Heat some clear plastic and form the basic splash shape.
4. Use Liquitex Gloss Acrylic Gel Medium (available at most art supply stores) and affix the splash to the puddle with it. It’s white but dries clear. Do not build up too much or the center will stay white. Small layers are best.
5. Give the splash a light misting of your base mud color with the airbrush. Let it be clearer near the edges.
6. Use various brushes and coat the top of the splash with thin layer of gel. While wet, use rough hard brushes to brush the streaks into the wet gel. Let dry and repeat.
7. Add little dabs here and there along the edges to get a rougher, sprinklier ridge.
8. Apply bits of clear fishing line aroung the tire with gel. When dry, apply more gel for the little splashes behind the tire. Drybrush these with mud color and coat with Future Floor Acrylic.
9. For puddle ripples, apply gel with a soft brush and streak on.
10. Coat all water with Future for a gloss finish.

That’s it!

01.14.2007 » Concepts
/ Intro

I need a mental health kit while
working on the Pandora and this one just happened
to arrive a few days ago. It’s the SEG-888 Hornet
Monocycle from the Junk Tank Rock series. It’s
a resin recast of the original since the JTR guys
don’t sell outside of Japan. I nice little kit
that I got from RM-GarageKits… cleanly cast
and took only an hour or 2 of clean-up to ready
for primer.

The kit itself is fairly small measuring
in at about 2″ long. I placed it onto a small
base and will have the base be very muddy to do
some nice tire tracks and weathering. Color-wise
I’ll likely be painting it in a RLM Gray (kind
of a military grey-green) with white accents.
I cleaned the resin using Purple Power then primed
it with Duplicolor dark gray sandable primer.
I noticed a few things that need cleaned up (some
I purposly waited till after priming just so they’d
be easier to see) then another coat of primer
then paint. Here’s a few pics of it held together
with stickytack:

01.15.2007 » Alclad
Metals

Now that the primer is cured, I
applied the Alclad 2 lacquer metals. I did these
first since they’re a lacquer and I don’t want
to spray lacquers over acrylics… bad things
occasionally happen there. For these I started
with spraying Stainless Steel over the dark gray
primer. Then touches of Jet Exhaust and Pale Burnt
Metal were added. Gives it a live worn look.

01.17.2007 » Masking
and Painting

After the metals were sufficiently
cured I masked them roughly and painted some light
gray highlights on the bike.

When THAT had cured I went on to
refined and detailed masking to paint the green.
Normally this would involve lots of tape, but
bhop on the forums showed off a great liquid masking
product from Windsor Newton. Colorless art masking
fluid. It’s meant for use with watercolors and
paper but works great for modeling as it masks
nice and comes off very easily without damaging
the undercoats of paint. Basically you paint it
on with a brush then clean the brush in soapy
water. It goes on whitish, but dries clear as
you can see in the next image on the wheel armor
and the nose of the bike:

After spraying, let the next coat
cure fully before taking off the mask. This stuff
works best I think in conjunction with tape as
it has a tendency to be difficult to remove from
grill and high-detail surfaces. for the engine
parts, I painted the mask around the edges and
filled in the rest with tape. I sprayed the bike
a leftover military green from a prior project
(not sure which one, maybe the PG Zaku, but it
was a decent color for this) and later removed
all the masking. After painting the tire by hand
with German Gray, I epoxied on a few of the smaller
bits and will now procede to weathering and painting
the figure.

01.18.2007 » Figure
Painting

I’ve been working on the figure
as well. I painted the face a few days ago with
an African skin tone and have been waiting for
the oils to dry. They’re now dry so I hand-painted
the rest of the figure. I did a woodland-type
camo based on the woodland digital scheme I found
by googling. I still need to do some highlights,
small details and such to the rider, but the main
work on him is done. I like that he has these
leather-like pads on his shoulders, elbows, ass,
and knees. I gave the bike a coat of satin future
and will start the weathering tomorrow.

01.20.2007 » Filter,
Discoloration, Wash, and Water

Over the past few days I’ve given
the bike a filter of bright green oils, a wash
of muchy brown-green oils, and then the discoloration
technique described in my Type74
build-up. The technique with the oil-dabs.
I also started on the base which will be muddy
terrain with many large puddles. Why? Because
I’ve been wanting to try some water splashes and
this seemed like the perfect project for that.
The Hornet will be running through a muddy puddle
causing a wake and that “V” type splash.
To make the structure of the splash I started
with some clear package plastic heated over a
candle and formed it into the desired shape. This
took a little time and patience. Next I’ll start
painting the muddy water and adding the ripples
and texture with Clear Acrylic Gel Medium.

01.22.2007 » Monobike
Nearly Completed

The bike is ALMOST completed now.
All I have left to do is add the pilots arms and
handles, then add the mud. The mud needs to wait
until the base is ready for it too however. This
way I only need to make one batch of the stuff.
You can see though that I glossed up the wheels
and surrounding areas to simulate wetness. This
will be further simulated and given more volume
once the mud is ready. Here’s a few prog-pics: