If you read this blog regularly you might be getting a little bored of hearing that opening sentence, so I apologise. I'm not trying to annoy you. Just try to think of my introductory line as the bit you used to find at the beginning of a serialised TV show – back before boxset culture was so firmly established, and we didn't watch entire shows over the course of a marathon binge weekend. You know the part I'm talking about, where pertinent clips from old episodes were played and the narrator said "Previously on 24", or whatever the name of the show was. It's the catch-up that helped you pick up the story after a week's absence.
So, back to the matter in hand, previously on Torva Tenebris, I was talking about looking at cars and stuff.
As part of this I recently bought a couple of small kits from another of my favourite manufacturers, Antenociti's Workshop. It's a website full of great gear, and if you're into this kind of thing, and not yet familiar with them, then put aside an hour or so and go and get lost in their inventory.
The two vehicles I bought were the Nemesis Police Car and the Marrua Gaucho. Here's a shot of all the components, and the condition they turned up in.
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| Pretty darn good if you ask me |
For the rest of this post I'll just quickly cover the few basic steps I went through to prepare the models for painting. I apologise (again) if this is all a little too kindergarten for you.
With resin kits, before you do anything else, you are always advised to give them a good scrub to clean off all the mould release agent.* I left mine in the sink (with water and washing-up liquid) to soak for about an hour first, then went at them with an old toothbrush.
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| Probably best not to use the brush on your teeth afterwards |
After a little more soaking, I rinsed them several times and left them to dry. I then started work on the flash – the little bits of resin that creep through the gaps in the mould and aren't really supposed to be there. For big kits it's worth investing in a big file – this will really speed up the process.
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| Just to confirm I was not paid by B&Q for the placement of their product |
The bodies of the cars hardly needed any work, but the wheels were slightly more involved. And I used a scalpel, rather than a file, to carefully remove any excess from those delicate looking bullbars. Once this was done, I brushed off all the resin powder, and realised it might have made more sense to file first, wash second.
Either way, the models were then ready for some glue. I wanted the wheels to stick out slightly further than my (freshly-filed) wheels were doing, so I stuck a small washer to the back of each wheel, before attaching them to the main bodies.
I didn't glue the bullbars to the Nemesis, as I thought they might interfere with the painting at a later stage, so have only attached them lightly for the benefit of the photo. I'l remove them again before I spray the undercoat.
There was one other stage I went through in prepping these cars. It wasn't relevant to the process, and it didn't work out so well – you might even say it was a complete disaster – so I won't go into it now, but will instead attempt to re-live the whole story in a later post.
It may take me a while to summon the courage.
*Do people wash plastic kits as well? I don't. Perhaps the injection moulding process doesn't require
release agent? Or maybe I'm doing it all wrong?
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