Sunday Drivers!

No, not a rant about folks who only drive once a week. It's Sunday, I'm posting about small cars and one of the Car Wars supplements was called "Sunday Drivers" (or Crash City for some countries/releases).

I did some more shopping this morning. I needed to buy a new printer as I'd managed to knacker the paper feed and print heads the other night by forgetting to switch off duplex printing when I went to print some pages on card. I also needed to stock up on nail polish remover for stripping paint off cars. I imagine you have already guessed that I might have picked up some more cars. You guessed right:

The helicopter is obviously far too small, but one of my colleagues has a young lad so he'll be getting that along with some other bits and bobs that I can't use. The main point to getting that pack was the tow truck and the vans.

If you're wondering why I bought 3 identical black cars, there is method in my madness. I already had one, so needed another three to let me make up a matching set for "Amateur Night" at the club.

Since posting yesterday, I've done some more work on the modded 3X scale car and also on the 1:200 cars. I finished doing the wheels and bumpers on the latter and have stuck them onto individual bases - I decided that it was going to be easier in the long run than mounting them in strips then cutting them. I'll finish them in small batches over the next few weeks. As you can see, the yellow looks much better over a white basecoat.

Did I say I'd done a little bit of work on the 3X car? That's a bit of an understatement - I've finished it! So here are some pics to show it step by step:

This is how it started out

There were a few bits where I'd managed to scratch off some of the primer and paint when fiddling around with masking tape. I touched those up with white primer before doing the next stage.

Masking tape removed - some bleed, but not enough to worry about

Must learn to be more careful when painting black/dark grey near yellows and reds

That is how I left it last night. Today I did some touching up, painted metal bits, gave it a coat of Klear followed by a thin black wash to try and get it into the recesses. And here are some pics of the finished auto-dueling car:

This was a good learning experience and will help with the rest of the vehicles I mod and paint. I now know that I need to get some extra-narrow masking tape (a quick trip to 4D Modelshop tomorrow). I also know that it is probably best to leave turrets off if you are planning to add stripes that go along the length of the car. Oh, and to make sure that the masking tape is firmly pressed down at the edges. The final thing I learned was that it might be better to black-line the recesses with a fine-tip pen than using a wash, especially over light/bright colours.



I decided last night to try to get another three cars done this weekend, so three cars got disassembled and the metal shells went into the acetone bath overnight. This morning they got a good scrub, then were rinsed and left to dry.

This afternoon I worked out what weapons I wanted to fit them out with, drilled any holes required, cut up the weapons to fit, glued them in place and left the superglue to set. I'm in the middle of priming them right now.

When I've finished priming this batch, I'll call it a day. Tomorrow should see me getting them almost finished.