Benbow's Mad Max game and modelling (Update 27.12.2016 - finished Grubert!)

[Mason]

Woooooo-Hoooooo!
This is gonna be good!
 

[Admiral Benbow]

I started two more cars. Creativity can't wait - painting and finishing the water truck can. And I'm not sure if it's fully built already, maybe I'll have to add some more details ...

The first new one was started a long time ago in the eighties, even basecoated but then deported into the darkest shades of my storage locker. The idea developed initially out of reading a lot of the great Moebius comics based around the Major Grubert stories from "The hermetic garage of Jerry Cornelius" and others from this comic universe. Fantastic stuff - check it out if you don't know it yet. Funky and surrealistic stories around an immortal hero, and now I'm pretty sure he also cruised the Fury Road world with his extraordinary car! 

So here comes the "Grubert Mk1":








As you'll recognize, a cheapo Airfix 1/32 scale Bugatti was involved, some slick tyres and changing it to a three wheeler. I'm currently painting the driver mini which will show the proportions better once finished. The vehicle will be fully treated with a rust- and drastically chipped paint-process using the established hairspray method.

Next one is of much more modern origin again, based on a no-name china toy car and has the working title "The Harpoon". 
Got some armour plating already and very large monster tyres at the rear, and I will try to have a gunner for the harpoon mounting sitting in an old ejector seat at the end of a kind of crane jib. Hard to construct from my spares, especially lining the two components up. We'll see ...






I checked the Woodland indian box for suitable parts to get a seated figure, and in the end cutting two figures apart in the lower middle (one knealing) and glueing them back together again lead to this one:






After a days setting time and much careful cutting and clipping the miniature fitted into the quite old resin seat from the very early Verlinden range from long times ago; don't know the scale but looks ok for me:






Next I'll work on painting and weathering the Grubert and his pilot and on a harpoon plus mounting for the Harpoon. Till next time ...
 

[Mason]

Brilliant!
While they are gorgeous motors that 3-wheeler really steals the show for me.
 

I also notice that driver conversion certainly does have the pedal to the metal.
 

[OSHIROmodels]

Cracking stuff Michael 

That seat will be 1:32 or 35

cheers

James

[dinohunterpoa]

Great! 

[Andym]

Wow! I can't wait to see some paint on these? 

What are you doing for a board for this stuff? Do you have a desert road thingy planned?

[Michi]

The Grubert is totally bonkers - great stuff and well worth to have it reanimated from the storage bin!

[tomrommel1]

This is getting better and better !!!

[Admiral Benbow]

Wow! I can't wait to see some paint on these? 
What are you doing for a board for this stuff? Do you have a desert road thingy planned?

Yes, just some plain desert road boards like in the original gamer's club pic at the start of this thread. But that doesn't mean we couldn't have some nice scenery pieces along the roadside ... I do have some ideas ... 

[pocoloco]

Great new and old additions! 

The rear wheels on the Harpoon might be a tad too big for my liking, but just a tad Great work on the driver btw.

[Admiral Benbow]

Great new and old additions! 
The rear wheels on the Harpoon might be a tad too big for my liking, but just a tad Great work on the driver btw.

Thanks pocoloco for your suggestion about the rear wheels. I was a bit unhappy about these myself, so I'm gonna change them now to something smaller. 

I had some inspiration fiddling around for a harpoon weapon, and finally found some suitable parts to build this:








For the Grubert the painting process started with some heavy salting! Before that I used MIG's Acrylic Color Rust Set and painted the model with different hues of rust, starting with very dark old rust up to the orangy and yellowish tones (sparingly). I can really recommend this set, it's a very good foundation for "rusting" any models, weapons etc. Using pastels for rust effects will come later.

I then used coarse and fine salt, mixed some of both in a flat container, gave the model a good coating of hairspray and sprinkled the salt into the wet hairspray quite heavily. I let dry for a hour or so. Looks awful, but trust me, you need that much for a heavy rusting ...








Next I unpacked my Badger airbrush and the collection of Vallejo Model Air colors and airbrushed over the salted model using a brighter tan color. Cutting a simple mask from paper and folding it around the car, the remaining open parts got another coat of color, this time a greenish tone like some kind of aircraft camouflage. The Model Air paints dry quite fast and I let the model alone for two or three hours.








Then started the fun ... 

[pocoloco]

Very nice, thanks for the recommendation on the MIG rust set, need to put it on my purchase list. Can't wait to see the finished product now

The harpoon looks ace, a true whale killer that! 

[Admiral Benbow]

Using a toothpick I first scraped away all the salt crystals, and then took a small stiff brush with some water, moisted an area of about some square centimeters and slowly but steadily scraped away more paint, showing the rusted foundations underneath. I needed about two hours for this process.








After that I sealed the surfaces airbrushing some Future floor polish; the german pendant is Erdal Glänzer. This dries semi-flat and provides a good foundation for the next steps. First I painted the tyres and then used some pin-washing with inks and Tamiya thinners to enhance the shadows and crevices and after that pastels to weather the tyres, rust the exhaust pipes even more and dust some parts of the vehicle. As finishing coat I used Windsor & Newton Galeria matt varnish through the airbrush. This dried very flat and sealed everything.

Last step to finish the model was simulating the glass for the three front lights using two-part epoxy glue. I'm currently working on a display plinth for the Grubert and a name plate. As I want to use the model also for gaming later, the rear tyres got a small magnet glued in to hold it in place on the display. Next time pics of the finished vehicle.

[Andym]

Looking good!  You used hairspray to glue the salt crystals in place. How does the paint spray after that react with it? Does it mot flake off easy?

[OSHIROmodels]

Fantastic work (as to be expected of course) 

Quick question though, was it not an option to remove the tyres form the wheels?

cheers

James