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Post by wardster on Dec 9, 2015 14:16:00 GMT -5
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Post by steelwoolghandi on Dec 9, 2015 16:52:20 GMT -5
Good to know as I have some Deals Wheels extra and I had in mind building a custom pilot for this when mine came in! good info to know.
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Post by scooke123 on Dec 10, 2015 14:20:11 GMT -5
That is a perfect fit!!!!! I like it!
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Post by bubbajoe on Dec 13, 2015 12:33:41 GMT -5
That looks GREAT!!!! made to order.. ok ok..now i want one.... I am going to be a poor poor man
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Post by modelmaster1958 on Jan 27, 2016 23:59:40 GMT -5
Im liking this build
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Post by Starryeyes on Jan 28, 2016 21:27:21 GMT -5
NEATO - KEENO !!
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Post by TooOld on Apr 22, 2016 11:36:45 GMT -5
I finally pulled the trigger and ordered one ! Something else for me to stare at forever and never build .  |
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Post by Count Dragula on Apr 22, 2016 20:44:23 GMT -5
I just noticed this thread.....man,talk about life getting in the way of some of us on the boards  Nice progress shots.... I couldn't help but notice that the first picture stated it was a level 3 kit.For a snap kit?  That's unheard of unless it's a Revell of Germany kit.They go up to level 5.... Most American kits start at 1 with 3 being the most difficult. So,how difficult has this been to build??? Looks fun to build to me! Todd  |
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Post by wardster on Apr 28, 2016 22:07:40 GMT -5
I just noticed this thread.....man,talk about life getting in the way of some of us on the boards Nice progress shots.... I couldn't help but notice that the first picture stated it was a level 3 kit.For a snap kit? That's unheard of unless it's a Revell of Germany kit.They go up to level 5.... Most American kits start at 1 with 3 being the most difficult. So,how difficult has this been to build??? Looks fun to build to me! Todd I've been away from the bench for months, now, so I can't answer how difficult and fun it would be. As you said -- "real life" gets in the way of a lot of things. I won't go into details, but that's been my situation, for pretty much the last seven months or so. |
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Post by grumpygrowly on Feb 25, 2017 15:32:16 GMT -5
Wow Sir, I just can't seem to stop thinking of this project. I think I might start my own.
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Post by wardster on Feb 25, 2017 16:31:48 GMT -5
Wow Sir, I just can't seem to stop thinking of this project. I think I might start my own. You might have to, since I'm obviously slacking off, rather severely, on it! In all seriousness: thanks, guys, for the compliments. Sorry that no more work got done on that kit, in all of this time! Honestly, it's not just this one project that I'm way behind on. It's "everything". Real Life went to heck in a hand-basket, on me, for the last year or two. Things are just starting, slowly, to creep back towards some semblance of "normal". (Albeit a "new normal," which is taking some time for me to wrap my head around, and properly adjust to.) But with that said: this is one of those kits that I want to get back to, when more pressing concerns are dealt with. Hmmm. Thinking out loud: I am already getting back into doing some (usually minor) sculpting projects, of late. Maybe that's a way for me to "get back into it"? To sculpt a new Deal's Wheels "scale" head? I may decide to use that idea (make a new head, that's less "car-like" but still "Deal's Wheels scale") as an excuse to mess around with Sculpey, a little bit? Whenever I have done any sculpting type of work, it was usually with some other product. Color me different, but I just like to know how lots of things work. And as such, I've been messing about with Sculpey, a little bit, instead of my usual epoxy-style sculpting putties. (Magic Sculpt, Apoxie, various colors of Milliput, etc.) If I go ahead with that head-sculpting work, I'll take pics and post them here as I go. |
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Post by wardster on Feb 25, 2017 22:51:13 GMT -5
A follow-up: no pics, yet, but I've been having really good results with doing something that's sort of cheating ... and when things get a bit farther along, will likely start up a "Tip" thread, on the general section of the board.
Short-ish (for me, anyway) version, for now: Youz Guyz talked me into a bit of experimentation, with some good results.
Background info, first: the head I'm showing in the pics in this thread is not actually a box-stock, un-modified Deal's Wheels head. I may have mentioned that? If not, then if you look closely, you may notice that it was modified, in subtle ways. Basically: I cut in a few gentle "undercuts" that an injected plastic mold can't have. Subtle stuff, but it proved to me (when I first did that work, ages ago) that doing such things made a big enough difference to make it worth my while to do some mild "touch-ups" on as-molded, kit-based figure busts. I had that head still around, so I used it here.
Like many things I do, it was done a few (?!?) years ago, just to push my learning curve farther along; and to see if it made a big enough difference, etc. Anyway, after doing it, I figured I had some casting rubber around, so I had made a simple mold, to potentially make more of them -- with the mods added in, already; and thus, without having to re-sculpt or touch-up every head like that, that I ever wanted to use. Which seemed like it was 90% pointless, since I didn't use the head on any of the completed kits I put together, since then -- since, shamefully enough, I pretty much didn't finish any kits that would use such a head! (Geez, I feel bad about that! but it is what it is!) Which left me with a cooler-than-average Deal's Wheels head ... plus, a mold to, potentially, cast others, from it. (Which all sat for way too long.)
Anyway, today, with a bit of added experimentation, I found that I could push some Sculpey into that old-but-still-good rubber mold, to make an impression of the somewhat-improved face (which I had cast, as the lowest part of that rubber mold, as it turns out) ... and bake the mold and the Sculpey ... and get a new head "casting". (Credit where due: this is nothing new. Lots of people do it -- except they're usually doing it to make simple "castings" for "jewelry" and such. I had seen others do it, before -- but they always did it with such simple shapes that I thought doing something with this much detail may not be possible. So what's new, at least to me, is the idea that, yeah, it has enough potential to get a very use-able casting.)
Other benefits, which I'm loving: I can add a simple, twisted-wire "sculpting armature" into the Sculpey, before I bake it. That will make handling the re-sculpt-in-progress work a lot easier. You'll see what I mean, when I get some pics going. (But first: more castings!)
Also: the final result will be solid; and it will all be in Sculpey. Not hollow. And not a mix of multiple different materials; such as plastic or resin or whatever. Why is that exciting, to Nerdy Little Me? Because it means I can start with a pre-existing DW face; and alter it, with very minimal hassle. It means I can cut-and-paste, or cut-off-and-then-add-on, pretty much as I wish: without fear that I will "break through" a hollow plastic casting, in the process. The idea that the "core" or "skull" casting, and whatever I add to it, will all be that same Sculpey material. (It's a pet peeve, but I hate running into "different substrates or materials" when a lot of re-work needs to be done. I hate to have to sand or grind down one thing, made of something that that cuts way too easily, when what's next to it is just the opposite. One will cut or sand faster than the other, and you end up with all kinds of subtle and unintended "damage" that needs correction, after primer.)
Anyway ... I'll shoot for some "what in the heck is he talking about" pics, as I continue these fun little head-sculpting experiments.
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Post by wardster on Mar 1, 2017 23:40:22 GMT -5
Okay. Photo time. I only have one, so far ... but it should help the info, above, make a bit more sense.  What you're seeing is some "finished" heads -- (some in dark colored Super Sculpey, and some in their almost-primer-gray "Extra Firm" Sculpey) -- with some aluminum armature wire added into the middle of the head, before I baked the mold and the head. More pics later ... but for now, I had to remember how to even put photos over on PhotoBucket, and link to them, here! |
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Post by wardster on Mar 1, 2017 23:53:29 GMT -5
Added info: the mold above is years old. I originally made it via pouring some mixed liquid rubber into a Dixie type cup; with the head already secured inside, on a sheet plastic "pour passageway" (when I'd later pour resin into the mold / holder-upper (for use when it originally went into the cup). Just a simple one-piece mold. After it had dried, I cut the mold open, slowly and carefully, using what some call a "Jeweler's Cut". Making it a three piece mold. Putting the three parts back into a standard plastic Dixie-style cup kept the three pieces of the mold all nicely together. Then, pour in some mixed resin. I did that, a few times -- got sidetracked (as always? Ugh!) -- and left the mold, sitting, unused.
I got the mold back out when I had the bright idea to try to smoosh some Sculpey into it; and bake the mold, with Sculpey in it; and with a twisted-wire "armature" in the middle of the head. (I kept adding Sculpey, to make the back side of the head, after this photo above was taken. And the mold was originally made with the face "pointing downwards" -- if that makes it more evident what I'm showing, above. I did it that way, so I wouldn't have seams on the face, after a pour.)
The rest I'll explain as I go, I suppose -- other than to say this: the "end game" I'm after, with this recent experimentation, is to start with the shape and detailing of a Deal's Wheels kit-based head ... BUT ... I want what I'm making to be (1.) completely solid, instead of hollow; and (2.) be made completely out of Sculpey, and not be made out of a mixture of multiple materials.
In a sense, it's almost like pretending the original Deal's Wheels head was made out of Sculpey; and I got ahold of that original part; and I could then cut-and-paste it, as it were; to make it into another Deal's Wheels "scale" head ... but, with completely different facial features.
The reason I want to start with a DW kit-based face, in the first place, is that they're intentionally distorted; and I want to retain that same set of "intentional proportional changes," from a standard, everyday, human face. (I want the eyes located where Big Deal put them, in comparison to the noses, etc., etc.) Being able to make changes, later on, means (in part) that I don't have to settle for the "no undercuts" rules the original sculptors would have had to accept, for this to come out of a hard metal mold.
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Post by wardster on Mar 9, 2017 19:52:47 GMT -5
Another pic:  This time, I'm doing more carving work, on the "sculpted" head halves. In the prior photo, I had done a bit of carving to cut a few features off: more or less starting on making a Deals Wheels skull. The eye sockets, I wanted to know about in particular -- since I'd be inserting "BB" eye balls, and then sculpting over / around them, to get "correct" eye orbs. In this most-recent photo, one of the Sculpey experimental "castings" is being gender-reassigned, as it were. I'm doing it that way because the main good-guy fighter pilot for the second (non 1970s) series of the Battlestar Galactica was a female. I just got out my DVD copy of the mini-series, and am working on beginning a (very) rough likeness, primarily from the cover art. The other things seen in this picture are a homemade sculpting tool, and a standard glass eye-dropper. (Used here as a depth-setting device: to push the new "eyes" forward or back, within the skull. I drilled all the way through the sculpture, to make that easier.) The sculpting tool began life as just a wooden (bamboo, maybe?) skewer from the cooking section of any random grocery or department store. It was cut and sanded into the shape shown. When the "blade" is how you want it, coat it with thin super glue, to harden it up and make it less porous / more smooth. Other shapes are possible, and it's cheap and easy to make all the tools like that, that you'd need. Not shown: I got curious and wanted to see if I could "push mold" some Magic Sculpt into that face mold. That worked out well enough, too. So if I wanted to start with a specific pre-made Deal's Wheels facial layout, with either Sculpey (which needs to be baked at a specific temperature, to harden) or Magic Sculpt (a two-part product, that needs to be mixed together, but which doesn't need to be baked) ... it's all good. Looks like push-molding a "facial template" from a DW kit head, and using it as a basis for sculpting, works just fine. |
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That's unheard of unless it's a Revell of Germany kit.They go up to level 5.... Most American kits start at 1 with 3 being the most difficult.
