First build - WIP - Tamiya 1/12 Panigale

That's a good start, bud. Looking forward to more.

That's a pretty technical looking engine mate, will look pretty good though, just take ya time, you will knock it out of the ball park i reckon.

Day 2 - some priming of new parts and first coat of some base colours :

Thanks! It's a mix of Humbrol gold (MET 16) and Bronze (Met 55)...a lot darker than the reference pics on the box art but it's the best I can do at the moment...looks very grainy. I'm hoping another coat thinned down will smooth it out a bit

Cheers mate def will do - I'm about 3 days from pay day - January blues and all that - and the local shop had a crap selection.

I'll be getting a lot more supplies after pay day...just hope the wife's '6th sense for irresponsible purchases' is dumbed down running-around-smiley-emoticon


I need to get another kit as well...to give me something to work on in between drying times. This looks pretty sweet :


www.hiroboy.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=3824

 Make a good carburetor color wouldn't it.

Thats EXACTLY what I thought when I first seen it! It also make a GREAT color for those Moroso valve covers that aren't painted, but stamped sheet metal, as well as the oil pans made with the same materials and those can even be the Milodon oil pans too that are stamped sheet metal unpainted! Racing parts! (I'm familiar with a lot of those companies....)

NICE work on the Bike engine tho, thats looking GREAT! the primer you did was the key. smooth going on, which shows through to your base color application, if the primer goes on well and smooth the rest will follow suit to it.....

NICE work on your first in 30 years! NICELY done, I believe you'll do well on the build, like riding a bicycle...........once ya learn you don't forget!

Latest pics - second coats on engine and some of the gold / bronze parts. Tomorrow I'll be doing a lot of undercoating and assembling. I'm in two minds about having a go at one of those washes to add shadows to the silver engine and darken it down...was thinking I need to varnish it gloss first. But it will be a few days before I think about that - want the enamel to be nice and hard.

The bronze / gold is a 50 / 50 mix of Humbrol gold and Bronze.

I was going to use an oil black wash - not enamel...although do you think a very thinned enamel wash would work just as well?

So much conflicting views - reading a lot and some people are saying gloss before a wash otherwise the wash won't flow into all the recesses.

Now I'm also reading horror stories about gloss varnish over enamels causing cracking so I don't know what to do...because there are a lot of decals on the kit and again the advise is 'you must gloss varnish before putting on the decals with set and sol (which I've bought).

SO I want to :

wash
add decals
seal them

...what order should I do it?

Black oil paint wash over the enamel in about a week to give the enamel a cure time?

Then a gloss varnish over the top? If so which gloss varnish? A humbrol gloss to match the humbrol enamels? Again the advise says to wait at least a month before varnishing. Then and only then the decals followed by a clear?

Pity one of you guys didn't live next door - I'd take round a bottle of JD and pick your brains for an evening

Hmm this seems to be what I might be after :

www.humbrol.com/humbrol-gloss-clear-125ml-bottle.html

i have in the past used a thinned down enamel for blackwash, it worked decently but i had a hard time with consistency and keeping it mixed properly. i've tried a thinned down acrylic and had zero success there. currently i'm experimenting with a mix of acrylic and floor polish with mixed results so far. it worked great on the grill of my dodge monster truck jerryscherrys.freeforums.net/thread/3363/monster-dodge?page=1&scrollTo=41133 but wouldn't stick at all to fully cured testor's one-coat laquer. it just beaded up and rolled right off smiley-confused005 hopefully other members can be more helpful.

Here's the main engine block almost finished - went with a wash of thinned enamel black, and then dabbed most of it off to just give a hint of shadows here and there. Exhaust done with C1 Metalizer powder over matt black base coat.

excellent progress, looks like just the right amount of black in the right places

I was thinking of a wash on the gold but not sure what colour would work well without darkening it down too much - any ideas what works well over this sort of colour?