Spotted at Scaleforum this weekend (full review of the show coming on Saturday), right on the front of an otherwise excellent layout - straight from the box diecast cars.
Grrrrrrrr
This is a pet hate of mine. Why spend hours building super-dooper finescale P4 track and then decide that simply plonking vehicles in a state the yoof would call "box fresh" in the car park?
The solution is simple - take them apart by drilling out the rivets in the base. Spray the body with matt varnish. Reassemble. Job done.
Look at a real car from a distance, the sort of distance that means it's about the same size as a 4mm model. Can you see it shine? No you can't. It's probably doesn't look dirty either. Weird that.
(Yes I know I can be worse than most with unfinished jobs on layouts, but this is a common source of annoyance to me as lot of layouts do it. And it's my blog so if I want to grumble, I will)
Grumble away Phil. If that's what it takes for people to improve their models then so be it.
ReplyDeleteWe all have our pet grumbles in fact I have quite a few!
Cheers
Frank
I had lunch yesterday in Coventry Transport Museum and it struck me that a lot of subtlety to capture the range of textures and finishes involved, especially those 1950s to 1960s blues, greys and beige colours.
ReplyDeleteMicheal Paul Smith doesn't shy away from gloss finishes, though of course he models in a larger scale http://elginpark.smugmug.com/Street-Scenes/Elgin-Park/11485172_4X4fK8#!i=809006481&k=6LHW5xc
In larger scales you are "closer" to the model so you would see the shine in real life.
ReplyDeleteThe point about colour is well made too. Cars from that era weren't painted fancy colours because the paint didn't exist to do it, or if it did, the colour faded very quickly.
Phil, yes, my possibly suspect memory of the period was that cars were either bright and shiny or dull and rusty. Living close to Longbridge I would say it took about 6 weeks for a car to go from one state to the other.
ReplyDeleteWhat I suspect is that rather than a solid colour you need some sort of glaze over a white or grey base
Thanks for flagging this up Phil. It's one of my all time pet hates. I completely agree that otherwise faultless layouts are stupidly spoiled by out of the box vehicles plonked down, often with one wheel clear of the ground.
ReplyDeleteGood as they are, Oxford miniatures have a lot to answer for.