Vroom! Vroom! - A farm truck and a Rolls Royce.

Obviously I'm really enjoying working on these cars : )

Last Sunday, my daughter gave me this Chevy truck from her visit to Hershey's Chocolate World the day before. She thought I might like it for my growing collection of Mad Max-style cars. As it had a farm truck look, I figured it'd become a truck straight from the Bullet Farm.

Plate armor, mini-guns, and crates of freshly-picked bullets ; )

I've decided that my Bullet Farm cars don't need to fit with the limited palette I'm using for the Citadel or Gas Town (shiny silver, rust buckets, or flat black). This meant I could go for that pale blue/turquoise scheme that is so associated with rusted '50s trucks. Vallejo Model Color Blue Green, mixed with the Vallejo White Surface Primer, was the basis for this and then I shaded it with thinned washes of straight VMC Blue Green, then Army Painter Soft Tone, and a little VGC Charred Brown.

I think it turned out pretty sweet : )

At the same time I worked on my flea market find to create this "War Rig escort car", built from a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.

This one was pretty straightforward; a bit of Dremel cutting, some bending and gluing of plastic rod, and a switch to some bulkier tires.

The paint job was done the same way as my Nux car, perhaps a little rougher, but I think it matches the escort pretty well.

There are a few more cars on deck, we'll see what I get done this week : )

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - Painting the Nux car (mini-tutorial)

This week, as well as finishing off four other cars, I also painted up the Nux car. I was pretty excited to paint it, and was quite surprised how little time it took, even stopping between layers to take the photos.

A few people have asked how I've been painting the "shiny and chrome" cars, so here's a quick look.

VMC = Vallejo Model Color
VGC = Vallejo Game Color
VMA = Vallejo Model Air
AP = Army Painter

Step One: Heavy drybrush of VGC Tinny Tin.

Step Two: An overbrush of AP Gun Metal

Step Three: A thin wash of AP Strong Tone over the whole model. Another wash of AP Strong Tone on the areas that will not be shiny. Some specific shading on the flat panels with thinned VGC Charred Brown.

Step Four: Highlight the shiny areas with a thin layer of VMA Aluminum, and then highlight again with VMA Aluminum.

Step Five: Paint everything that won't be metal with black and then paint/highlight each individual area.

Step Six: Glue on your pre-painted thundersticks.

I hope that helps with painting your very shiny cars (or whatever).

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - A few of the larger beasts.

On the right of this photo you can see a cool, somewhat oddly shaped tow truck kind of thing. I'm guessing it's not a "real" truck, but rather a custom hot rod truck. When I saw it at a store, I just knew I wanted it for my first plough car (the cars that fire harpoons into the War Rig and then drop ploughs/anchors to help slow it down).

I added the harpoon gun I sculpted for Brigade Games (parts found HERE) and scratch built a frame to drop the plough from (similar to one of the cars in the movie). After returning from GenCon/vacation, I decided to up the size of the wheels, and add some crazy exhausts (again, from the Brigade Games parts).

To give it some larger wheels, I had to take it apart and in the end had five separate pieces to keep track of: The base (including axles and wheels), the plastic insert (including the front grille, engine, and back bed), the plastic windows, the body (with harpoon and pipes), and finally the plough/anchor and frame.

It was fun to keep track of it all as I painted each piece up and then assembled them. There's always that battle against the desire to glue the body to the chassis. I had to make sure I put the windows back in the cab before I got too far ahead of myself.

I have plans for two more plough cars : )

Above is the only pre-paint photo I have of Bigfoot - the monster truck belonging to Rictus Erectus. It's a fairly simple build, the toughest part was cutting away the rear section of the 1940 delivery van.

The paint job is quite a simple one, as Bigfoot is really just a polished metal body sitting on a monster truck chassis.

Getting this one done has me thinking more and more about my Gigahorse conversion. The only thing holding me up now is the nightmare of pipes that wind their way around the dual engines. Oh, and I might have found better wheels for it.

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - More pursuit vehicles complete : )

Before I headed off to GenCon, I managed to get these four vehicles to a pretty decent place. After returning from the show (and a week's family vacation at the beach), I was all revved up to get some paint on them!

Here's the first one, tentatively called Flaming Arrow. This is a '32 Ford Vicky. Originally I was going to use is as the basis for the Elvis car, but once I found a much better Elvis (see below) this one was relegated to a simple pursuit vehicle. Of course, should anyone have a better name for it, please feel free to suggest it below : )

I liked the rusty flames motif from my Flammencruizer, so I figured I'd follow it through on this one. The bright, rusty orange pops nicely against the flat black.

Currently I'm waiting this up with the Flammencruizer, so she has become a pursuit vehicle from Gas Town. Next up for the Gas Town fleet will be the VW Beetle, plus a couple of polecats.

I bought this car (a '32 Ford coupe) to donate the front fenders to my Nux car, but after I'd done that I realized it looked quite a bit like the Elvis car that is an outrider for the War Rig (the one that never gets to fire a shot as it flips into a pit trap set by the Buzzards in the film).

I had to extend the chassis a bit to accommodate the second engine, donated from a second '32 Ford to will now join the pile of potential War Rig add-ons.

The thundersticks are simply straightened paper clips topped with plastic rod and trimmed with some old string/

Next up will be the first of my plough cars (the ones with harpoons and ploughs) and the next "character" car I have finished - Bigfoot!

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - A few more cars on deck!

While deciding how I'm going to sculpt the fetish skull for the lancer's perch of the Nux car, I thought I'd finish up painting the two pursuit cars I showed in this post a few weeks ago. I decided to go with a heavy rusting look for the one on the right (equipped with the .50 cal style machine gun). It'll join my Citadel team/collection as soon as I add a few thundersticks : )

The one on the left is big and bulky and reminded me just enough of a Ford Bronco that I had to go with a white paint job. This one sports a mini-gun, so it seemed only right that it should become a Bullet Farm pursuit vehicle. Note the expended shells in the rear of the truck (below).

And finally, here's a look at the next four receiving attention. These will all be a part of the Citadel crew and receive various paint jobs (typically either shiny and chrome or rusty as hell).

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - Nux car under construction.

Obviously, one of the coolest Fury Road cars is the Nux car. It is generally noted as being a '32 five-window Ford coupe, but it turns out that it's actually a '33 or '34 Chevy. Anyway, tracking down something suitable in 1:64 scale is a pain in the butt.

I was incredibly lucky to stumble upon this beauty while I was away in Europe (in a cool toy shop in Florence). It's not the same (the roof has been lowered for a start) but it's the closest I've come to the original, so it's the one I'm going with : )

I've just started messing around with the thundersticks, so they are currently blu-tacked in. I'll adjust their lengths to match the top picture and glue them in once the car is painted.

The fleet continues to grow!

Cheers
Dave