About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Sunday 30 August 2015

Sunday Workbench

Well, rather than starting on painting Dux's prize figure or finishing painting Cyber Scooby, I've been playing with cars again.

My original intention was to do a "how to" for disassembling, prepping and reassembling Hotwheels cars. Unfortunately I made a bit of a boo-boo at one step, so I'll have to do it with another car at some point.

I decided to carry on with the cars anyway. Once all four had been taken apart, the metal bodies were put in the stripping jar overnight, then scrubbed and rinsed this morning. I then had a slightly silly thought - "what would they look like if I polished the bare metal up?". Well, you know where thoughts like that lead - out came the various grades of wet-and-dry sandpaper (180, 220, 800, 1200 and 1500 grit) and a few minutes later I had a nice shiny car. Now, I could have left it there but instead I decided to get out the Dremel and the polishing/buffing tools.



I've started polishing the other three and will finish them tomorrow.

There was another reason for trying this - I wanted to see how the Createx transparent paints would look over the bare metal - could I get the Hotwheels "Spectraflame" look that they use on some cars?



I didn't quite succeed, but ended up with a rather nice metallic effect. The colour here is lighter than the actual red - it's a nice claret colour.

I also wanted to test out the pearlescent and iridescent paints. You may remember the problems I'd had with the silver over a white primer. For this test, I primed the back of a truck black, then used a different colour on each panel.

Pearlescent Silver
Pearlescent Gold
Pearlescent Copper - needs some thinning before use
Iridescent Violet
There is a bit of a colour shift with the iridescent paint, but I think it's muted by the black primer. I'll try it over white on some scrap MDF tomorrow.

I also did a little bit more on one of the test cars (the other I put in the stripper again):


The transparent orange shows up quite nicely over the two yellows (and gold base) but I probably went a bit too heavy at the nose.

Tomorrow's my last day off work, so I'll try to get as much done as possible.
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10 comments:

  1. Unknown31 August 2015 at 01:15

    Good idea for some experimenting Tamsin. I don't think the pearleascent's turned out pretty well. I don't notice much of a colour shift. The technique on the last car is nearly there and with a little more practice I think you'll nail it down.

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  2. chris31 August 2015 at 07:42

    More games Tamsin, I want to smell burning rubber.

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  3. Herbert West31 August 2015 at 08:02

    I actually really like the heavier Orange on the front - looks very drag racer. I am absolutely loving all your Mad Max inflected work of late. Making me want to dig out the old Dark Future stuff....

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  4. The Angry Lurker31 August 2015 at 10:05

    That's a lot of good work Tamsin.

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  5. Clint31 August 2015 at 11:26

    I am glad the road sweeper is finish and you are back doing car wars. It all looks good to me. And I look forward to seeing more and more!

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  6. Michael Awdry31 August 2015 at 12:00

    You are having so much fun this, just when I think that you are bringing it to a conclusion off you go on another wonderful tangent.

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  7. Stefan (aka. Monty)31 August 2015 at 12:09

    To my mind the transparent orange and gold base test car looks brilliant.

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  8. PatG31 August 2015 at 15:51

    Very nice - the dollar store calls - shiny and chrome....

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  9. Dannoc31 August 2015 at 16:08

    Experiments - I love mad experiments. More road sweeper type experiments :-)

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  10. TamsinP31 August 2015 at 20:55

    @ Anne - it doesn't really come out in the pics and the surface is a bit too flat for any effect to show up. I think I'll need to test it on something with curved surfaces to see if that shows up in photos.
    As you say, I'm nearly there with the test-car technique. I just need to practice some more (and I've started!).

    @ Chris - yup, definitely need some more games of CW :)

    @ Herbert - there's one more colour (red) to apply at the front, but that will be when I use the flame masks. Go on - dig out the Dark Future; you know you want to :)

    @ Francis - thanks! Nothing like being busy doing things that don't actually produce a lot [if anything] :)

    @ Clint - I'm kind of sorry the road sweeper is finished, I was having such fun with the build and painting of it. The CW stuff is at prep stage - I realised I was short of a few things I need, so the mods will have to wait a few days :)

    @ Michael A - tangents are a sine that you have forgotten to cosine some important document ;)
    *hmm* back to normal now. Lots of little bits to keep me looking busy whilst achieving very little - a bit like at work! :)

    @ Stefan - It's not looking bad so far :)

    @ PatG - have I been a bad influence on you? :)

    @ Dannoc - so do I, but I don't think I'll be doing anything quite as mad as the Oblitterator again :)

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