RWB Progress 11/9/15

I started gluing on the body panels. Man.. this conversion kit kinda sucks. I mean, the details are nice, but the fit is horrible. It's going to take A LOT of work to make it smooth. I had to break some bits off to get the angles right. It's possible it was made for a different Porsche kit than i'm using, or maybe I didn't cut the base model in the right spots.. I dunno.  Anyway, i'm confident it'll look ok in the end, it's just going to take more work to get there than I wanted.

The Stig - Complete

You can see the full set of the completed 'The Stig' figure here:

http://www.bhop73.com/galleries/fig_gal.php?model=stig

RWB Step one.. sawing...

This is my first conversion kit that requires sawing off body panels to fit replacement parts. I'll be honest here, i'm kinda just "winging it". I already can see that i'll have to do some repairs/filling and more cutting to make things fit right. It's kind of a pain, to be honest. I guess i've been spoiled by the way modern model manufacturers make everything so easy.

Here it is before anything has been done.

..and now, the side panels.

The front bumper.

Sawing off the fender, just like Nakai! Unfortunately, I still have 3 more fenders to go.. and the rear bumper, and the engine cover/wing. Not a bad start though!

Next!

Still finishing up The Stig, but this will be my next project.  I fell in love with Rauh-Welt Begriff Porsches within the past year, so I bought this conversion kit and a Porsche model to make my own. I'll never be able to afford a real one, so this is the best I can do..  More to come!

Progress 03-26-15

After some setbacks, i've finally got the body of the Abarth where i'm ok with it.  It's still not perfect, but honestly, i'm tired of messing with it. It needs a coat of wax, but the main paint is done.

The 1/72 Panzer III has a little more progress as well.  Mostly still working on the photoetch bits.  It's kind of difficult because of the size, i'm probably going to leave a lot of etched parts off because they're so small and fiddly, but it's coming along nicely.

Decals

Not a lot of work, but a couple decals makes it seem like i've come far.

Finally ugh!

I've been trying to get this Fiat body smooth for a while.  A few repaints on some panels later and voila.. annoying..

Portable Spray Booth

Recently I bought this cheap portable spray booth from amazon..

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZH7RSM/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I finally got to use it.  It's not very big, but it seems to do the job as long as you're just painting small-ish parts.  The fan's not very loud, it sucks pretty good and the detachable hose that sticks out the window takes most of the fumes away as it should.  It comes with a little lazy susan, so I used it to stick some stuff to that I needed to paint.  When you're done, it folds up into a little box for storage (the hose doesn't fit inside unfortunately).

Overall, i'd recommend it if you've got a limited work space like I do.

Nissan 180sx Type-X

Been a while, but i'm still building.  Off and on.. but here is what i've been working on.  Fujimi's 180sx Type-X.  I didn't really do much in the way of modifications.. really, i'm just putting different wheels on it, adding brakes, racing seats, and exhaust.  I chose this grey color that i've been seeing in the car scene.  I think it looks pretty good on this car.  Anyway.. here it is so far.

1/48 Early Tiger - Tamiya

So, i've been building again. It's been awhile, I think I only finished one or two things last year. I need to start digging into my closet pile.. it's around 150 deep.. probably more actually.. dunno.. but anyways..

Here's the kit.




So far i've shaved off some of the molded on hull parts and i've been replacing them with eduard photoetch. Time consuming and annoying. Everything's so damn small.. I lost a couple things and had to make stuff from scratch, but you can't tell in the pics.

Here's what i've done so far.



That's it for now. I think this post will be taking my blog into a new direction, mostly updates for my model builds. I should update this damn thing more often anyway..

HGUC Marasai

Ok, i'm a Gundam nerd. I build model kits and Gundam models are part of my model stash. So, i've been working on this Marasai mobile suit kit. It's HGUC, 1/144 scale. So far i've only snapped it to test fit and see what kind of modifications or improvements to make.

That was weeks ago.. lately i've been actually doing some work on it. Motivation is hard to come by, but honestly, I think the reason i'm motivated is because I want to clear my workbench to work on my 1/16 Jagdpanther..

In this pic, you can see the work i've done on the kit if you're familiar with Gundam kits. Mostly just sanding seams (hguc kits have a lot) and adding small details like under armor fills and such.. more progress to come.

Imperial Entanglements...

Ok.. I didn't want to have a new blog without something cool to put on it, so here's what i've been working on. It's almost done, this is just a sneak peek. It's the Fine Molds 1/72 scale TIE Fighter. It probably took only a few hours to finish, although it took me about a week and a half I guess... working on it in small bits only a few days. These Fine Molds kits just go together without hardly any work... but I like the painting stage the best anyway, so it works for me.