Revell Hertz Shelby Mustang, somewhat modified.

[TonyW]

I've tried boosting the greens and the blues in that picture, using photoshop. The green doesn't change much and there's a very slight increase in the saturation when boosting blue. I've tried to restore the original colour balance of the whole shot as well but there's quite a bit of fade going on. It would be easy to fall into the trap of adding colour that wasn't ever there in the first place.

 

Here's the result of enhancing the blue part. Any more and the sky starts to burn out. Doing the same but adding green doesn't change the building frame. Note the blue of the Shelby sign is becoming apparent.

 

 

I think it's quite ironic that we are discussing whether it's blue or green considering the Mustang connection!

 

Maybe Dana Bell can help? 

[TonyW]

I've also been experimenting with a piece of pearl blue card as a background to the actual car part of this thread.

 

This firm do some really nice card products and the blue one was on clearance for very little cash. Add the further reduction the site throws in for new customers and it starts getting easy to get a bit spendy. I've used the company before and they seem fine.

 

https://www.papermilldirect.co.uk/paper-card/yale-blue-pearlised-paper-100gsm

 

Here's how things work in practice. I've laminated the pearl paper to some card so I can bend it about a bit.

 

 

And the money shot, the pearl effect gives a really nice softness to the picture.

 

[mustang1989]

WOW!!!! That effect looks great!!!! 

[Andy J]

That is a stunning photo Tony looks awesome 👌 

[Stef N.]

Can't disagree with these guys. Brilliant photography and a great tip for future.👏👍

[TonyW]

The blue car has been ignored for a while now,  the '69 Boss 302 build kind of took over for a while.

That one can have a turn in the wings for a bit and the blue car can have centre stage for a change.

 

The Shelby building has been put on hold as my version of it didn't match up to some of the excellent pictures unearthed here, showing it with much greater clarity. Starting again from scratch would be the best option and depending on the time available, it might happen.

 

To make a start on the car itself today, I thought I might be able to repeat the grill modification that worked so well on the Boss '69. No chance. The grill bars got thinner and thinner and eventually collapsed on me. I thought it might happen so I had a plan B ready and waiting. A small piece of Verlinden accessory netting was cut out to fit the now empty grill surround, glued in place and sprayed silver. I like the look, very period aftermarket.

 

 

The car itself got a proper freshen up as well, the clear coat got flatted off and the whole polishing thing took place.1500 grit, down to 12000 followed by a couple of coats of car wax, all brought the finish out and put a smile on my face.

 

 

And, the obligatory coloured card background shots...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[keefr22]

Lovely!!!

 

Keith

[TonyW]

The Mustangs rear end has had a bit of a makeover. There's nothing wrong with the factory version, it's nice and simple and suits the car well. That's not to say that the owner of my car didn't decide it needed a bit of upgrading. The Mustang had a huge accessory aftermarket and add ons were everywhere. After fitting a new front grill, my owner thought the rear end looked a bit plain. A new look was needed.

 

I've made a frame for the indented rear panel out of .5mm rod and bent it to fit the opening.

 

 

Then I cut and painted a bit of the mesh I used up front to fit the panel. The panel itself got painted in a dark grey.

 

 

The frame got chromed with a Molotow pen and the frame and mesh added to the car. The stock filler cap and tail lights got thinned down quite a bit and added as well. The tail lights have had one coat of Tamiya clear red added, with another still needed.

 

 

 

The hood scoop also got a chrome lip added for extra drive in points.

 

 

Next up will be a return to trying to crack the glass moulding issue. Once I have that sorted, the end will be in sight.

 

Tony.

 

 

[keefr22]

Those rear end mods look really good Tony and suit the car really well! Very neat!

 

K

[vppelt68]

Looks like a factory posh model.

[TonyW]

1 hour ago, vppelt68 said:

Looks like a factory posh model.

The factory stole the idea for the '71 model. I'm not bitter though.

[Mike Dean]

6 hours ago, TonyW said:

Next up will be a return to trying to crack the glass moulding issue.

That's an unfortunate turn of phrase, given the issues involved!

 

I'm sorry to read that the building got the Biffa treatment. Maybe a second go will sort out the gremlins. The cars looked really purposeful sitting in the car lot, and all three together is the real money shot. And wasn't there going to be a red one too? It's just as well the building went, as you're going to need a bigger car lot!

 

Mike.

[TonyW]

I'm still on my building construction apprenticeship Mike. I'm bound to get it wrong a few times before I get lucky.

I did think the Shelby building was so simple that it would probably be an easy build. I'm still getting the hang of this kind of modelling though.

It's very enjoyable trying out brand new (to me) techniques. When they work, it's great. When they don't it's a bit of a pain but another way of doing things gets tried. Eventually something is going to work.

 

This frontage has got me thinking a bit.

The lessons learned on the Ford Dealership building and the Shelby one might come together with something like the Mel Burns front.

 

 

 

 

 

[TonyW]

A few more jobs ticked off the list today, rear wing vents painted in with Humbrol silver, boot lock and door lock buttons added using rivets. Fiddly, but worth it.

 

 

Here's a closer look at the rivets used on the doors, in this case from one of my Hertz cars. The chrome tip is Molotow ink

 

 

Taking a closer look at this period advert detail, it seems there's three vents per side in the interior of the car. I think this area will be fairly visible on the model so I'll be adding something to suggest the things.

 

[TonyW]

A bit of a disaster happened today. Removing my initial efforts at hood pin construction saw a chip appear in the clear next to the pin base plate I was working on. Very careful sanding commenced, with the intention of polishing it out. It was not to be unfortunately as I polished through to primer by accident. Curses.

I'm out of blue here but thought maybe a satin black hood with four new hood pins might look the part. Nope, adding black just made it look like a seventies Mk2 Cortina GT.

Next attempted save was to repaint the hood in grey primer, going for the 'Just bought a fiberglass Shelby hood, but haven't painted it yet' look. Also a fail. It just looks like a grey hood.

 

 

Work stops on this one until the proper paint turns up.

[keefr22]

2 hours ago, TonyW said:

just made it look like a seventies Mk2 Cortina GT.

 

And that's a bad thing...?? 

(Sorry, got , gone! )

Keith

[TonyW]

12 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

 

And that's a bad thing...?? 

(Sorry, got , gone! )

Keith

 

No, not bad. Just not what I'm aiming at. I'm after California not Croydon. 😎

GT Cortina's with black hoods and Rostyles were everywhere when I first started driving, the Brit equivalent of the Mustang in some respects I guess. I had a 1600 Super and a 1600E as well as a MkII Capri over the years. Thinking about it, I had every Mk of Cortina and then Sierra's after that. All cheap as chips runarounds at the time.

[keefr22]

22 minutes ago, TonyW said:

I'm after California not Croydon. 

 

[TonyW]

An online Hannants order on Friday evening turned up here Sunday lunchtime. Outstanding service!

In the parcel was a ton of Tamiya spray paints. Hannants are doing some of the range at bargain prices so I took full advantage. Amongst the goodies was a couple of cans of TS54, Light Metallic Blue so the hood got repainted PDQ.

 

The fading light this evening was a bit much for my phone camera, but I quite like results of an outdoor shot...

 

 

 

[keefr22]

That's a great pic, lovely light!

 

Keith

[TonyW]

Not exactly model building, but closely related, I'm still messing around with display bases instead of doing proper building.

The blue Mustang got a bit of fallout from that yesterday with a few ideas tried. First up was having a go at incorporating a photo background to set the model against.

 

 

I thought a San Francisco background would link the Mustang to the Bullit movie a bit and I think it could work. 

I'll need to build a road surface that matches the photo for the car to sit on. Matching the greys to the uphill road shouldn't be too taxing and a painted line or two would be the only other addition required. The base would be fine for a Dodge Charger looking for trouble or even a green VW wandering about aimlessly. 

This sort of thing would only work for photo's really as once the angle changes or the real life background comes into view the illusion is spoiled. It's not something I've tried before and I'm enjoying it so far.

 

Less successful was an attempt at adding a bit of Pop Art to this build.

I'm keen on the idea of adding a bit more to my GB entries than just a car on a plain base although there's nothing wrong with that either.

Allan D'Arcangelo did a series of road paintings in the early sixties that I like, as did Ed Ruscha whose Standard Station I've admired for years. I thought I could use the Standard Station image to good effect with the blue Mustang. The red and orange should make the blue of the car pop a bit but it doesn't work in the flesh, for me at any rate. The gas station image is far too dominating and the angles it cuts just make for a confused image once the car is added. It was worth a go though. 

 

 

 

 

I've a few more ideas to try before the GB ends but it might be a good idea to put this lot away and crack on with the cars first.

 

More as it happens...

 

Tony.

 

.

[TonyW]

... and checking out the last post to see how it looks, a new idea has presented itself!

I'll print up a smaller version of the gas station artwork and make myself a 1.24 scale Art Gallery using some of the printed walls I've made over the last few days. A Pop Culture exhibition sounds like a plan to me. An early Mustang is about as Pop as you can get and I'm sure I can work a bit of the Custom car street scene into some kind of pretentious arty gallery thing.

 

Watch this space...

[TonyW]

I think I might have cracked the windscreen logjam issue, so it's full steam ahead on my builds for the next few days. 

 

The threatened Art Gallery has actually happened! A bit basic, but it gets the job done. I used up some white foamboard for the walls. Not a particularly nice material to work with, it bruises easily and is less than dimensionally stable but it's what I have here, so it got used.

 

 

The base is a couple of sheets of printed A3 paper laminated to MDF board.

 

Scans were taken of a few bits of artwork and adverts I like and a few different sizes printed up and then laminated to some black foamboard.

 

 

Using cocktail sticks pushed through the foamboard walls I could hang my artworks as I pleased. A quick try out looks fine from here and a bit of further experimentation should give me a usable backdrop for a Mustang or two. 

 

Black and white for now, I'll save the full on colour version for the Gallery shots. 

 

 

 

[81-er]

That's looking really good

 

James

[Fnick]

What James said! Looking forward to the colour versions.

 

Nick