Typically Parisian
As I’ve been spending time travelling recently, my painting and miniature work has fallen way behind and as a result, my Blog postings have been very infrequent. Paris is a great city to sit, drink eat and watch and apart from reading a couple of books and working through some sketches, that’s pretty much all I did for the last couple of weeks. With the early arrival of some unseasonally fine warm weather, it was most enjoyable. In recent years I enjoy much more the process of looking and watching rather than taking photographs of everything.  I can become a … Continue reading Typically Parisian
Keep it on the “black stuff” – with the help of Armco!
A while back, I posted pictures of how I modified the Armco barrier which comes with the Tamiya pit set. I gave it a coat of primer, so now all I have to do is paint it up (Red&White I think?) with some appropriate weathering and it should make a nice “prop” for photographing the 1/20 driver figures. I placed it on a suitable base to take some test shots and see how it looked with figures of the same scale, and I think it looks the part. Continue reading Keep it on the “black stuff” – with the help of Armco!
Michael Schumacher 1/20 Driver figure – nearly there!
I just finished putting the last of the decals on – a bit of a mixture in terms of the main sponsor (Marlboro) – I started out with the “Barcoded” livery in mind, and as I didn’t have a set of appropriate decals to hand I painted the main barcode panel on the back of the suit. That was some weeks ago, and in the meantime I’ve been working on various other items and figures, jumping from one thing to the next, and when I restarted this figure the other day I’d forgotten about barcodes and instead went straight ahead … Continue reading Michael Schumacher 1/20 Driver figure – nearly there!
Best way to win a F1 race – drink your competitors fuel!
I eventually put the finishing touches to this Schumacher figure by painting waht some might consider a controversial lable on his drink bottle – well if you can’t beat them, join them! Continue reading Best way to win a F1 race – drink your competitors fuel!
Gilles Villeneuve 1/20 helmet visor – GF-model figure
I’m not having much luck with these figures recently – after discovering in my last post that I’d put the visor strip on the Schumacher helmet upside down, I then went and accidentally put a nasty crease in the visor of Villeneuves Bell helmet – such is life!  It looked pretty good as I had given it three coats of klear and I had just added the lifting handles and the fastners – it then fell off the workbench and I stupidly picked it up between my fingers with a little too much force….end of visor.  So I’ve cut a … Continue reading Gilles Villeneuve 1/20 helmet visor – GF-model figure
Schumacher helmet – visor tear-off strips!
To make the tear-off strips in 1/20 I’ve used plastic about half as thick as the visor plastic supplied with the kit – I sourced mine from the top of a Sharwoods sauce bottle (it’s the type that’s pretty much shrink-wrapped around the neck) so it’s very flimsy and thin. I considered making a full tear-off ie, one which would extend right across the visor from side to side but I’m of the view now that I really don’t need to go to that trouble. The time/effort involved just wouldn’t be worth it from my point of view in terms … Continue reading Schumacher helmet – visor tear-off strips!
Schumacher 1/20 Schuberth Helmet – WIP
After finishing the decals (I still see some areas which need tidying up) I painted the inside of the helmet blue and the visor and neck rim black. As the figure is bareheaded, I want to display the helmet and Hans device beside him, so I thought it best to attach the helmet to the neck brace.       I drilled a hole in the back of the helmet to take a small metal pin and a corresponding hole in the face of the neck brace and join the two with a bit of Superglue. The retaining straps (which I originally fashioned … Continue reading Schumacher 1/20 Schuberth Helmet – WIP
Gilles Villeneuve – 1/20 Helmet – WIP
I got the decals applied yesterday – these decals are from a 20 year old Tamiy pit set – I’m impressed – they floated off the paper in one piece – no problems at all and they even withstood some Champ decal fix to get them to adhere to the shape! Just for comparison purposes I put it beside the Schumacher helmet – poor Gilles – those old helmets were pretty useless when compared to the sophisticated composites in use today – having said that, I doubt if even a modern Schubert helmet could have saved him given the awful … Continue reading Gilles Villeneuve – 1/20 Helmet – WIP
Gilles Villeneuve – 1/20 GF-models driver figure – nearly there!
I eventually got some decals applied to the suit, so I’ll let them dry and give the whole thing a coat of matt varnish with the airbrush. Once the coat of Johnsons Klear (I’ve just given to the helmet) dries, I’ll apply decals to there also. The visor was given a “dipping” in a pot of Klear to bring up the lustre after all the filing and bending to shape it – this process is courtesy of the “Propellor heads” in my local modelling club – (they use it on aircraft canopies to great effect). So once these are dry … Continue reading Gilles Villeneuve – 1/20 GF-models driver figure – nearly there!
Top Gun pilot – 1/35 scale – Verlinden figure
I came across this partially completed figure when I was looking for some other (totally unrelated) stuff recently – it’s a common enough thing amongst us modellers; you come across a set of decals for an ongoing project (which has probably been on-hold for years) the discovery re-ignites the passion to get it restarted; you even get to the point of making a work-task list so that you can hit the ground running when you come back to it! Then you very carefully put the various components away (so that you can find them – doh!) only for the fateful … Continue reading Top Gun pilot – 1/35 scale – Verlinden figure