Modeling tips

[Lee]

Christian said:

Like this:
but I often find it a bit too obvious.

Spend some time as I have observing various 1/1 scale vehicles under various lighting conditions. The door and hood lines are very obvious!! ;D What is wrong with the models are the lines are way to thick, not to scale. The gap in a real vehicle is 1/8 to 1/4 inch. This would scale down to a sharp knife cut in 1/87th scale.
The problem with models is that we get used to seeing what we want to see and think it is correct. Take any model and compare it to the real thing. What is missing or wrong in the model?? Most of the time the detail in the model is over size. We do this delibertly so we can see the detail. If the crack between the door and the body was to scale, it would be filled when painting the model unless one was very careful while painting.
Back in the 30's and 40's Lionel and Mark made model trains that everyone thought looked like the real thing. By todays standards they look like crude toys.
To me the finishing touch is in the very light weathering of the model to bring out the detail.

[Eric]

I have tried doing those panel lines on a number of models, using either thinned black paint or indian ink. The indian ink gives the best results (in my opinion )

Here is an example:

[skunk]

Eric, that Calibra is amazing.
Where do you get your license plates? I am looking for swiss plates myself.

In Japan there is large robot modelling scene, to make the lines between body panels they use especially made superfine acrylic pens, but I have not been able to find them in the states as of yet.

[Eric]

Skunk,

thanks for the praise, but it's not quite perfect yet

The licenseplates are decals, they come from www.tl-decals.de/ They have Swiss plates as well (set#1360).

As for the acrylic pens, how about using the pens used for writing on those clear sheets used in overhead projectors ? Probably not fine enough to use straight from the package but it might work if it is possible to sharpen / cut the tip.

[skunk]

Eric said:

thanks for the praise, but it's not quite perfect yet

What is missing? Besides some people inside I cannot see anything that needs doing?

[skunk]

Here is a tip:

Cut out a piece of plain kitchen aluminium foil, 1 x 3 mm for instance. Wrap it tightly around metal wire, lengthwise. If there is leftover aluminium, cut it off with a very sharp knife. This should form a perfect little tube around the wire. (This may take a couple of tries, but foil is cheap and this doesn't take much time anyhow)

When the foil is satisfactorily shaped, give it a layer of clearcoat. Be careful to paint only on the aluminium, and not on the wire. When the clearcoat has dried, carefully slide the aluminium off of the wire. Voila! You have a perfect exhaust! You can make it as thick or as long as you want.

This may sound complicated, but I am working on making exhaust pipes for my entire collection in this way. So far I can only manage straight-cut pipes, however.

[skunk]

Here is an idea I have not had time to try out yet:

On Herpa models for example, the headlights are often molded in a piece with the other glass. Especially on darker cars the lights often appear very dark themselves - look for example on a Opel Ascona B, the headlights appear nearly black.

One could cut the headlights from the rest of the glass, round off the backside of the headlights, and then cover this in bare-metal chrome foil. It might work very nicely, I should try that instead of sitting here in front of the computer... ;D

[Eric]

skunk said:

What is missing? Besides some people inside I cannot see anything that needs doing?

Not much, and only partially visible in the picture, but it still needs an exhaust and then there is that bit of clear orange on the frontbumper I stil need to remove ;D

[Christian]

Skunk: some valuable tips there! We should start a tips & tricks section at 87thscale ...

[Eric]

Christian said:

Skunk: some valuable tips there! We should start a tips & tricks section at 87thscale ...

At least we have something to start that section now........ ;D Other tips & tricks are welcome !

[Eric]

skunk said:

Here is a tip / plain kitchen aluminium foil / Voila! You have a perfect exhaust! So far I can only manage straight-cut pipes, however.

Skunk,

Thanks for the tip ! Here is another method to make exhausts, this could solve your 'straight pipes only' problem:

I use 1mm solder wire with a resin core for car exhausts and 2mm wire for truck exhausts. The resin core can be drilled out with 0,7 / 1,5 mm drills (by hand, this is not really something to use a Dremel for) which leaves a metal 'pipe' that looks like the real thing. The advantage of the solder wire is that you only need to drill out 2-3mm to make it look good and that you can bend the remaining piece of wire anyway you want !

For straight exhausts (stacks on trucks for instance) you could also use 2mm aluminium tube.

I'll try to make some pictures of exhausts I've done, and put them on the site in a couple of days.

[skunk]

If one doesnt slide the finished exhaust off the wire entirely, it is possible to bend the wire any which way. My problem was with the end of the exhaust, which is otherwise a straight cut. I am trying to figure out a way to make a diagonal cut, which would create an oval opening.

[Eric]

skunk said:

My problem was with the end of the exhaust, which is otherwise a straight cut. I am trying to figure out a way to make a diagonal cut, which would create an oval opening.

I see, I haven't tried oval exhausts yet, but I suppose a pair of tweezers could do the trick when the resin core is drilled out of the solder wire. I think I am going to experiment a bit coming weekend

[skunk]

I know that Autosculpt claims their pewter models are in 1/92 scale (to avoid accusations of plagiarism?).
Are they all in 1/92? I happen to be very interested in a Saab Sonett.

I guess I'll have to buy one and see

[h0collector]

Re Autosculpt;
I do not have any of those yet, as I have belived they were too small for H0 scale.
Recently I visited a fellow collector who specialize in Volkswagen models (in all scales), and we compared some Autosculpt VW Vans (type 1 and 2) models with similar from Brekina and Wiking, and they seemed to be identical in size and scale ! On the other hand a Autosculpt VW Bug was a little smaller than similar Brekina and Wiking models.
I also remember the Volvo PV and Amazon which also must be a little larger than 1/92, probably close to (or in) 1/87 scale.
This makes me conclude that Autosculpt models may vary from 1/87 to 1/92 (and some in a even smaller scale).
As you say, I will also have to buy some to check them. They have a lot of interesting models in (near ?) 1/87 scale, and it is wonderful that they now also make many of them in hollow cast and without the bottom plate (see http://www.prometheus87.de).