bRIBEGuy

The "scale" thing in RC actually really bugs me, as it's not very close as the best of times, and at the worst it's just an arbitrary number. You can take 3 different 1:10 scale trucks (for example, Tamiya, Traxxas, and Axial) and not only will they all be grossly;y different in size compared to each other, but none of them will be 1:10th the scale of a 1:1. Now, sill rant aside, I would have to say that 1:10 is probably the sweet spot for most of the running I do personally. Bigger is fun, but requires "more" (space, batteries, challenging terrain), and smaller is cool, but can be limiting. Switching BACK to rant mode, I almost think we have too many "active" scales in the hobby right now. 1:35, 1:24, 1:18, 1:12, 1:10, 1:8, 1:7, 1:6, AND 1:5 just seems excessive. I kinda wish that 1:10 didn't take predominance, as in a lot of way, I think having 1:12 and 1:8 would be a better balanced mix.

Adding on the helmets/heads and mounting up the interior to the chassis cover, and things are coming together nicely.

Some more paining touch ups along the way, and then the dreaded driver stickers. This is slow going, but with a hairblower and some pointy Tamiya cotton swabs, the results are pretty good so far (IMO, at least...). Seatbelts and co-pilot done... Then driver, and some helmets additions...

And time to start paying a bit more attention with the painting... we're getting close here now...

Chassis cover trimmed and mounted up...

RCAS is real! Ha ha ha! The place where I find myself bad sometimes, is when I stumble across a good deal on something that I really have no interest in whatsoever. As an example... It is no secret that I really don't like the ORV chassis vehicles (ironically, with the exception of the Monster Beetle). The Frog is terrible, and the Blackfoot is the worst attempt at a truck since the SRB F-150 (which I also bought at one point...). And yet, I have almost bought a Blackfoot no less than 3 times in the past year, just because of finding one at a good price. Why? Why would I waste good money on something I don't want? Yesterday I stumbled across a crazy good deal on a never run, box art, King Blackfoot. A truck I have NEVER had any interest in owning, no love for, and no real place for in my collection. But 1/2 dozen messages later, I had the guy down to $140cad and was setting up a pick up time later this week. Late last night I was tinkering with another RC project, and started thinking more about this, and I ultimately ended up sending the guy a could of apologetic messages that I was backing out of the deal. But why did I even engage in the first place? It's funny how our minds work sometimes... I have a running list of items I "need" to finish projects, complete collections, etc... and MANY of these I haven't picked up since I can't justify the cash right now. But then BOOM! Something comes along that I have no use for and I'm reaching for my wallet so fast I feel like I'm drawing in an old western gun fight. Strange things our minds and our quirks...

Interesting. I'm quite familiar with Crust bikes... did not know they had branched into online RC Sales. Cool...

The drying time gave me a chance to (extremely poorly) mask off the helmets for black trim. I'm fairly bad at doing this freehand, and seeming worse at doing it with tape. So now there is black paint bleeds everywhere. Drivers eyes have been close in a bit more here, bust a bit more work will still come on them...

Tamiya's instructions call for pretty much everything to be black in the interior, but I figured I'd use my own artistic liberty, and copy the great seats and such over from the TB01 Lancer Evo VI that I built some 20 years ago... My wife likes blue... so blue seat belts it is... After drying, I made a wash with 1/2 oz or so of water, a drop of flat black, and 2 drops of flat brown. This was brushed all over the drivers and left to dry...

Interior begins.... poorly, and with a child like disrespect for colouring within the lines... Navigator has what appear to be the largest hands ever...

Drivers are a little wide eyed at the sudden spike in project productivity...

Body bits... More progress... And some wheel details...

Lots of curves and folds. Heat gun (read: hair blower...) is pretty much mandatory here, as is patience... Window trim on these bodies has to be my least favourite aspect (aside from the main hood sticker) of the job... The general theme of the whole process is breath deep and move slow... Bit by bit it starts to come together... harsh lighting will make you feel like you're doing a really bad job when you look at the photos you're posting...

It's been a busy three weeks as far as non-RC (aka "Real") life goes, so the Evo has been sitting unloved for a while now. Over the past week or so, I've been plugging away with the good old "a few minutes here... a few minutes there..." method, and things are slowly starting to take a bit more shape. It's always a built of a commitment to sit down and start a Tamiya rally body from a stickering perspective... especially when it's a box art scheme on a long discontinued body set...LOL. Stickers are in pretty good shape, with only a few wrinkles...