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

Michael Schumacher Monaco 2006 1/20 Driver figure (GF-models)

I eventually got all the decals applied and pretty much 99% of the painting finished (still some areas I’m not totally happy with) – so nearly there with this figure.  I used the Hobby Design decals – not as good as MSM’s (very thin decals requiring careful handling & lots of carrier film to be trimmed).   The fit of the decals on the helmet were very poor – lots of surgery required – in fairness the decals were probably mastered for a generic helmet shape, so I shouldn’t complain.  I used a little licence on the Hans device with … Continue reading Michael Schumacher Monaco 2006 1/20 Driver figure (GF-models)

Tameo March 1/43 Vittorio Brambilla – winner Austria 1975

I’ve always been a fan of 43rd scale model cars – many years ago (too many!) I built a fair number of them, but then got into larger scale cars, armour and military figures.   Recently I’ve started back into building motorsport related models (figures mainly) and after seeing a build-thread of one of these Tameo kits on Britmodeller, I  got a real buzz to “have a go” so browsing on-line recently I picked up two kits on Ebay this one; a March 751 and the other a Brabham BT26 (by SMTS).   Of the two, the Tameo is manufactured to a … Continue reading Tameo March 1/43 Vittorio Brambilla – winner Austria 1975

Gilles Villeneuve helmets – WIP – 1/20 scale

I started painting the pattern on the helmets today, with reasonable results. Firstly the color I went for is what I called in my last posting a “Charcoal Blue”” combined with a “Red Orange” .  To get the Charcoal Blue, I mixed (50-50) Valejo Dark Prussian Blue with Dark Sea Blue and added a couple of drops of Scarlet and the “Red Orange”was mixed using Flat Red (20%) and German Cam Orange 80% .  So far I’ve resisted using the only decent set of decals I have from an old Tamiya pit set as I’m not sure they will stand … Continue reading Gilles Villeneuve helmets – WIP – 1/20 scale

Gilles Villeneuve driver figure – more progress….

….well sort of!   In an effort to establish a useable color for the helmet, I decided to have a close up look at my 1/18 scale Exoto diecast 312T4 (which contains a really nicely finished driver figure).  From the many reference photos I’ve seen of his helmet, it’s hard to determine the actual shade of blue used.  I suppose it depends on all sorts of variables including reflected light etc, and in trying to replicate any color on a miniature, the main variable (in my own opinion) is: “does it look right”?   So in an effort to finally decide what … Continue reading Gilles Villeneuve driver figure – more progress….

A very naughty little girl!

Unfortunately with my camera acting up today I wasn’t able to upload any photo’s of my days work so instead, I’m posting up some pics of this little 28mm lady from Foundry Miniatures Street Violence range which I painted last week – She’s definitely not the kind of girl you would want to bring home to your mother – yes she’s a real nasty piece of work! Continue reading A very naughty little girl!

More priming and undercoating – mindnumbing stuff!!

As usual, when I examined yesterdays batch at close quarters, I saw areas which needed further attention – so with more re-work in prospect, I added in more items in need of some primer including some more tool sets and a nice pair of 43rd scale figures together with some really nice 43rd scale armco from Denizen and two 24th scale drivers one of which is the Alonso figure for the F10 I’m building; the other one is an old Modellers figure representing Schumacher (pre Hans era). – Tomorrow is another day so I’ll let these dry and have another … Continue reading More priming and undercoating – mindnumbing stuff!!