Spent the last couple of days going over what all I will need to do to get this looking the way I wanted to. Alot of people think you have to strip the chrome off the bumpers of cars in order to make them look right. But I just don't believe that and I'll show you why. First... the chrome is gonna shine at any scale. Second, if you just tone down the details it really brings out the reality of the part. Here's what I mean... I took a sharpie and began filling in all the little back details of the grill. It really starts to shine.
Then after taking the sharpie, I went back and did a flat black wash over the details and now this looks really good.
Who needs to strip the chrome?? Not me!
Why waste a perfectly good chrome job? Sure you can tone dow nthe rest with thinner to dull the finish a bit, but I always feel less is more. Moving on... One thing I'm disappointed in is the sniffer dish. This part is suppose to be clear plastic. But I believe I may be able to scratch or scavenge one from the 1A.
I remember I built a Ecto-1A and all I had to go by was the movie captures at the time. But I am so thankful to all the guys over at GBFANS.COM. The original Ectomobile has been sitting in a studio backlot all these years rotting away, but a couple of die hard fans have been able to grab some awesome detailed photos of not only the exterior but never before seen interior shots as well. And it really makes you think about how hollywood is able to give you so little and yet, your mind fills in all the blanks with grandure. There really wasn't much to the inside back. A couple of switch boards, some computer cases, etc, not really alot. So I poured over my reference pics from GBFANS and came up with a game plan.
Ref #1 shows a really good shot not only of the back of the front seats detail but the component box that resides there. It appears as if two component boxes (maybe an oscilliscope and an amplifier) are stacked on top of each other and a switch board was more or less propped atop the whole mess with wires everywhere. Ref #2 shows that behind the rear seat (yes there are two facing each other, they got that right in the model), there are actually 3 boxes. The first one is brass colored and looks like an old CPU tower. The second is larger and looks like it takes up the rest of the room along the passenger side and has switches on the side of what I can only describe as a plywood case. And ontop of that is what almost looks like a cardboard box that looks like it's laying on its side with all kinds of spare electronics and wires coming out of the top/side of it. Ref #3 shows that there is actually an old phone sitting beside the seat and the door. It appears to be hooked up to a panel connected to the CPU tower. Also of course the seats themselves are padded. So with all that mind I started to build a gameplan to attack the back with as much detail as I could.
Now if you keep in mind the yellow dotted sections I'll have to remove. The red solid sections I'll have to scratch build somehow. Taht whole comptuer console section along the back passenger side is gonna have to come out as well as a section beside the seat near the door. Yes I will have to scratch the phone too (not gonna mention the pack rack yet)!
Now moving onto the roof rack, there is only a couple of major changes I'll have to make...
The large box in front is actually an industrial fan. That'll be fun to build.
The fan will be fun to build. Of course I'll have to scratch build the missing red spot light... no biggy, but there's also what appears to be a piece of I-beam with fins in it (or a heat sink) stuck to the back near the dish. I'll have to build that as well. But all in all, this should come together nicely.