Barn find Beetle

[Cave_Dweller]

Whoa...that thing is a filthy mess! I love it!!!

 

[spud]

This is turning out to be epic,

 

[m1ks]

Hi m1ks, I just airbrushed the floor with the body colour and then just built up the rust with acrylics and a sponge. I just tear small pieces off a normal cheap dishwashing sponge hold it with tweezers and then keep applying in small layers until I'm happy with the result.

I use Revell aqua colour paints as they stay quite firm, I find watery paints flood the sponge too much. I really only use leather brown, brown (which is more like orange) and a bit of black or very dark grey for some depth.

Also I sometimes use a thinned wash over the untouched areas to mucky it up a bit

Hope this helps!

That's excellent, thanks, will have to try this, I've wanted to build a rusty junker for an age.

 

[JohnSimmons]

Another belter!! Great stuff mate.

 

[Jelly]

Terrific. Simply terrific.

The wood-effect is awesome. Well: all, in general, is awesome, Leighbo.

IMHO this is going to be a perfect example of a Masterpiecewhen finished.
Congratulations, sincerely
RG

 

[Leighbo]

Thanks for all your great comments, much appreciated

Theres definitely something very theraputic about making a rusty wreck come to life!

 

[Leighbo]

Hi Guys

Here's my progress on the Herbie barn dio.

I wanted to fill up the shelving units I made with abandoned junk.

I pulled the erasers off the top of some pencils and only had to paint the top and I had a basis of some old tin cans. I printed some scale labels and stuck these on.

For the rest of the junk I raided the spares box for some 1/24 car spares and also made some trays from plastic sheet and filled these with springs, cogs etc...

Most of the rest of the week has been spent finishing the barn with plastic strips as before, I made the gates as well in the same way. I will embed one of the gates into the floor when I make up the base as if it has been there a long time and sunk, with weeds growing up through it.

I was going to make the roof in the same way as the rest of the structure but for some variance I have tried to simulate old weathered plywood. To do this I got some thin sheet plastic and made 'plywood' sheets from it by lightly scoring it with my scalpel, wire brushing it for more texture and then laminating two sheets together. To age it I didn't glue the full surface and left some parts bent up and cut away as if the lamination had started to come apart.

I also used this technique to simulate someone having patched up a hole in the front.

The next thing is making up a workbench again from plastic sheet and strip, including a drawer set with a drawer left open for some more junk!

Until next time thanks for looking.

 

[Junkie]

Wow, that's getting quite impressive. Tons of work going into this.

 

[Leighbo]

Thanks Scott

I'm getting a bit white blind looking at all this sheet plastic, but in an enjoyable way!?!

Looking forward to seeing the next steps of your pick up vignette too.

 

[NecronautDrummer]

 

[spud]

the roof looks really good!! the pencil tops was a good bit of thinking, over all its turning out fantastic

 

[Quaralane]

Loving the feel this is developing

 

[Jelly]

Wow, this is extremely realistic, Leighbo...

And it is beginning to scare me a little .... ;D

It seems that a Lilliputian is going to come walking out of that barn just now !!! Thats too much real !
RG

 

[PANZERMAN]

WOW! Leighbo, you truely have a skill at scratchbuilding. Your attention to detail is
phenominal. The reproduction of wood grain is perfect, storage rack and clutter is totally
convincing, and the trick with the paint cans(pencil erasers) is great.
Thanks for sharing. Bill

 

[Cheyenne]

Leighbo , very cool build man , the garage is extremely well done !!!

 

[Leighbo]

Hi Guys, been concentrating on more groundwork this week.

I airbrushed the barn and the doors etc.. in grey and then did lots of detailing with various acrylic shades to simluate weathered and aged wood.

To create the groundwork I first fixed the concrete base to a piece of thick card and then mixed some household wall filler with brown acrylic paint to create the mud base. working in stages I pressed the gate and various debris in Whilst this was still wet and then added various grass and moss.

I finished when dry by adding a wash of darker brown acrylic to give the mud some depth.

I also painted up and weathered the workbench with acrylics and also created a smaller draw unit to sit on top and made some labels for it from, well bigger labels! All the open drawers were filled with various tools and junk. A top tip I found on a forum was that if you take apart an empty disposable lighter there is a surprising amount of usable parts inside including springs, seals and brass fittings which are great for creating junk!

Until next time thanks for looking

 

[Junkie]

That is looking SAWWEETT!

 

[gaspur]

LOVE THIS

 

[Leighbo]

Hi Guys

A bit more progress this week

I made some light rotted areas with a rotary tool and then airbrushed various acrylic brown tones on the Beetle as a start to the rusting process.

I added more detail to the engine and then used the oil and pigment tip that Chris S showed on his awesome Sd.Kfz.6/2 3.7cm Flak, thanks Chris! I think this has worked out really well and will use it further down the line on the rest of the Beetle.I then fixed this in place on its benchtop resting place.

I then put more acrylics on the car with a sponge to show some lighter rust.

I also wanted to show the vinyl sunroof and all the reference photos show that this doesn't really rot and doesn't behave like a fabric roof so I decided to try making this out of plastic.

I cut a suitable sized sheet and then using boiling water to avoid splitting the plastic I gradually folded in the correct places and held in place with clamps. After some trial and error I managed to get the correct shape and then glued the folds together and clamped again. I need to do a little bit of fettling, but I think that this will turn out okay.

Next I used the salt technique on the car, one thing I have learn't from previous trys is to put the salt on and let it dry thoroughly overnight, this ensures it doesn't all spray off with the airbrush. It was that well stuck on I didn't need to reduce the pressure on the airbrush at all.

Once all the salt had been removed, I gave it a gloss coat and then added the home made decals which worked really well. It certainly was cheaper than buying the official Herbie snap kit which I recently saw sold on Ebay for over £40. The Tamiya Beetle was £16 and the white decal sheet was £2, who said modelling had to be expensive! It made up for the cost of all those plastic strips!

Until next time, thanks for looking.

 

[spud]

wow this is looking fantastic