Art in the 3rd dimension - Scale models, railroads and miniatures

[multimediaman]

well, I'm sure most of you know of my obsession with 3d graphics... And I'm still obsessed with 3d graphics, but now I am getting back into the addiction of making 3d models... that ... are real... in 3d..

What I'm trying to joke around about is that I'm currently doing a bit of stuff involving scale models, and even railroading-type scenery. The scenery stuff is mostly to try a project with converting my 3d textures into real buildings within the railroad environment. Sort of a prototype testing grounds if you will.

That and my obsession with cars, which leads me into posting about my first project, a 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP Coupe!

I'm posting some pictures while I work on it, and by all means feel free to post your projects, post critique, or ideas or other comments




All sorts of supplies


Supplies gathered today for prepping the bodywork. new sprue cutters and files make removing parts from the sprue tree a breeze


Sprue Cutters in action. They help keep the piece in tact MUCH better than just twisting the part off, and are much quicker than a plain 'ole razor blade


Common 'grunge' to clean off a model, before it is ready for the primer coat.
Sprue remnants - upper left (remaining part of the plastic sprue the piece was connected to, must be cut, filed, or sanded off)
Flashing - lower left (plastic which flowed between molding block halves, must be cut, filed, or sanded off)
Pushout marks - right (may be indented or raised. Indented pushout marks may be filled with putty then sanded flat, raised marks are a bit of a pain to remove (all that were on this kit I've seen so far were raised)


Pushout marks on hood sanded off as best as possible


All bodywork pieces have been cleaned up from oddities, have been wet sanded with 600-grit, then 4000-grit, 8000-grit, and finally 12,000-grit sandpaper... as well as washed off with soap and water, and are now ready for a nice coat of primer.


Prepped the engine parts in a similar way. I may need to assmble the engine and use filler putty for final details, since the two engine halves cut this detail in half


There's certainly some issues with this set. All windows have scratches straight from the box :x The bodywork doesn't exactly flow like the real car does around the wheel arches, will need must loving with plastic filler putty before it flows properly, the hood fits very tightly, and may pose issues if the hood is opened and closed frequently.... the hood doesn't have a little notch on one side which holds the piece in properly, and putty must be used to recreate this notch....


For an example of the detail I'd like to go into with this kit, I've got flocking for the interior, 1/16" black ribbon for the seatbelts, as well as photo-etched seat belt metal parts, I've got bare metal foil for kicking up the realism in various areas, I've got guitar strings and other items to simulate wires under the hood, plus I'm probably going to be trying to make some scratch details which don't exist in the model kit, such as the floormats in the interior, I've got some good reference pictures of the engine bay, for details the scale model instructions neglect to tell you (like the fluid reserviors aren't actually white, more like beige, and the circular covers above the shock absorbers is flat black, there's a bunch of coloration issues that the instruction book doesn't tell you....

I plan on using some art pencils to detail the dashboard, and I've got liquid mask, and fine grade masking tapes.. I pretty much went all out for this model, and I certainly hope it shows up in my final product. I hope to end up with a nice, mirror-like finish to my car ... and I sincerely hope I can buff those scratches out of the windows properly. I'm not quite sure what colors to make the undercarriage though. The instruction sheet just says to paint the entire thing flat black ... and I *know* that isn't proper. So I'm not 100% sure how accurate I can get that, as ref pics are incredibly hard to find.


So anyway, what do you all think? Do any of you make scale models or railroads? Are you willing to share your stuff?

[RedStar]

well **** man you have all the tools to build ur own damn car lol.

Anyways, nice start only issue i can see is your engine is painted blue as well? No black/chrome areas?

[multimediaman]

no paint or even primer has been applied. The geniouses at revell decided to cast the car in deep blue metal flake kinda plastic. Gonna require quite a bit of primer to get rid of that blue. Hopefully I'll be able to paint it thinly enough to not get rid of the details. I'll probably have to use a scribe to deepen the bodywork separations, so that they don't completely flood with paint


Note to model manufacturers. Mold the dern things in light, light gray or white!!!

lol


There's going to be no shortage of coloration applied though for the final product. I'd even like to mess with color washes to make it look like there's a fluid inside the reservoirs and all that good stuff

[Nik]

Lol you showed it .

[et_fone_home]

Damn, that stuff is insane, I wish i could continue on with my Models, I had a Skyline Ztune, a USS Enterprise and a titanic. I won a comp with the Titanic these things cost way to much for me. Good Luck, hope you dont encounter problems, I always did.

[crazy 989]

man you're well prepared lol, painting it's going to be a ***** - I did have some models I made, got really annoyed painting it because all the dang brush marks appeared in random areas mostly on the bodywork, but you look like you're ready for the worst lol.

[mr.mean]

Nice to somebody els doing scales
Im in it for a year myself now and mainly doing lowriders.

As for the primer 2 coats are enough

Here's a link for my models.
Modelbrouwers.nl, forum, kennisbank en materialen voor de modelbouw - Beginpagina > Brouwers albums > chrisy

I've done a few more but still gotta update the page

Anyways, if you need help just ask

Chris

[greenvampire]

nice man, I used to make the scale model stuff when I was abit younger... wish I had the time to do them now.... it was actually what got me into 3D modeling!

I actually (a few hours ago) just chucked out a load of old plastic ones.... plymouth GTX and a belair among them which were my best ones... but after years in a hot cuboard they were warped to hell

keep us updated, its awsome to see them coming together, I want to see lots of detail!!!

[venom800tt]

I got a nice sized collection of 1/18 diecast models. I haven't done a plastic kit model in years lol

[multimediaman]

Originally Posted by mr.mean

Nice to somebody els doing scales
Im in it for a year myself now and mainly doing lowriders.

As for the primer 2 coats are enough

Here's a link for my models.
Modelbrouwers.nl, forum, kennisbank en materialen voor de modelbouw - Beginpagina > Brouwers albums > chrisy

I've done a few more but still gotta update the page

Anyways, if you need help just ask

Chris

Modelbrouwers.nl, link 002
-- nice. Did this one by any chance come with the stock version? or was it all just lowrider parts and that's it? I'd like to build that kit, but only as a stock version of the car lol

[mr.mean]

Nope it came as a lowrider but you can always convert it back to a normal car.
It's quite some work but then u got a one of a kind

Chris

[multimediaman]

okay, here's an update!...

the first order of business, and the first picture I've attached is the parts all on my newly created "drying rack" ... the parts have had their first coat (where I could paint them) of gray primer. Next order of business is sanding that coat even, then laying down a coat of white primer. I'm going to wait two days or more before touching the paint though, as I don't want to disturb any drying process that needs to occur.




The next order of business, is that this kit is horribly innaccurate in quite a few regards.... mostly small issues that most folks wouldn't care about, but for me? It's gonna lead to quite a few headaches.

Brake light ( attachment #2 )
The real vehicle seems to have a black shell in which the brake light, turn signal, and reverse light's transparent lenses are inserted. There's then a colored lens behind those...

The model kit's pieces are molded entirely in red plastic. Furthermore, the "grid" that's black in this picture is actually on the inside of the light. Very convenient... This leads to several issues.

1.) How do you paint the black mask on the outside of the light, when in fact, the raised areas are on the inside?

2.) How on earth are you going to get the turn signals and the reverse lights looking accurate?

Fog Lamp ( attachment #3 )
There are none included in this kit. Custom-built parts, here I come, I guess. Least I get to use some of that Bare Metal Foil.

Seat Belts ( attachment #4 )
Again, none included in the kit. The mounting piece isn't even a part of the kit. For something this easily viewable from the window, they could've at least included *something* for us.

Furthermore, the windows on this kit will pose a bit of an issue, since the plastic is supposed to be glued in right at the B Pillar, where that seatbelt mount piece is located. At least they included the part where the belt ties into at the bottom of the door, so I know where to attach the seatbelt ribbon. The lights are also going to be a wee little project to get to look like lights, and not painted messiness.

Ceiling details ( attachment #5 )
I'd really love to include these... and I just might, provided I have l33t enough dremel and custom parts skills... Again, this is going to create some issues though, due to the way they've molded the window pieces... The window pieces which conveniently had scratches on every single window part. The procedure for buffing out scratches in windows had better work!!!

Accuracy issue ( attachment #6 )
This is what happens when you decide to have the trimwork molded as a separate piece...

Missing Decal ( attachment #7 )
Looks like I may end up getting one of those printable inkjet decal sheets yet...

So this model is quickly becoming an even larger project... lol

[Nik]

You crazy, just build it goddamnit!

[greenvampire]

nice to see you are striving for detail! unfortunatly, plastic kits can only offer so much accuracy, and to be honest the time you could spend on it, it might be worth cutting a few corners

have you considered custom resign cast shells? or even converting a 3D model into a casting mold?

[multimediaman]

man... if I had the ability to inexpensively convert 3d models into resin models, or better yet, styrene models, I'd be spending so much time building 3d models for conversion purposes that I'd practically not have any other hobby... lol

[tiberius]

on the Conversion for the Caddy, you can use the wheels for a Johan 79 Coupe Deville, they have a sort of wire look to them, I recently picked that one up but have yet to start on it due to little hands running around the house. I also have a nice 70 ford galaxie 500 police sedan I am preparing to do as a San francisco patrol car when I can get some time to spray it. sadly some of those molded in color cars were done for those who lacked patience to do painting( small kids) there are some I did in the past that I decided not to paint for the reason of detail loss, then if you sand them minute details cast in the older models will vanish. I found this guy in Oklahoma who does resin cars from BPs and he has some interesting choices. even picked up a 95 caddy STS but his cast on my particular car was disappointing. he does have such models in 1:25 as caddy fleetwood 1981, 1979 caddy Eldo, 1979 Lincoln mark V to name a few.let me know if you are interested and I can send you his contact info. one resin cast car I love is the 1995 Caddy Fleetwood. the cast is so perfect , I am amazed! it uses the Chevy Caprice kit to finish ( interior not correct though) the above mentioned resin caster has the same car with cast interior too. if you were to look at my blood cells in a microscope you will see they are shaped like cars ! Lol! cars in the blood!.

[multimediaman]

heh, what would he charge for that '85 seville you were mentioning the other month to me?

Anyway, The sanding is very light (wet-sanded with 4000+ grit sandpaper), mostly to make the surface have something for the primer to grip ont... and further sanding from then on will be just for prepping the surface of primer or more paint.

(My blood cells are in the shape of '98 Taurus's, btw)