final pics ReRe Biltzer Beetle

These are the final pics I took before driving this project. I made sure I took a ton of them cos I'm not going to get all precious about driving it, it was bought to have fun with. I think the next kit I buy will be a Scorcher, that might get treated with a little more restraint. Please let me know if you want to see more?


Sayroll has asked about the bone paint and the bare metal look on the car. I'll start with the bone but first I should point out I have never done this before so if someone out there knows a better way please speak up, I'll take advice as much as the next man.


The nose was pretty straight forward, a couple of coats of primer (Tamiya rattle can fine) over the top of which I airbrushed some 'Citadel Bone White' its a warhammer paint from Hobbycraft of all places, it was thinned a bit but not much. over the top of that in the areas I thought there might be more natural shadow I used 'Citadel Bleached Bone' Thats the yellowy colour you see, again thinned a little and used sparingly, I still wanted to see the base coat through most of it.


The body was tougher, as I said I have no prior for this - I have airbrushed Munnys and Dunnys etc but never cars and as i didnt know how this would turn out I didnt take progress pics - sorry. the first step is to sand and prime, fine wet and dry (used wet) followed with the old faithful Tamiya Fine Primer rattle can, two coats with a rub down in between. On top of this I used a primer filler from 'Alclad' they make model paints for aircraft, I used this (2 coats with rubdown) cos on top of that I used 'Alclad Dull aluminium' the problem was it looked too plastic-y and new so I went over that with Tamiya silver but thinned out and only in some places to show some irregularity in the 'metal'. The next step was risky, I sealed the silver/Aluminium layers with matt clear and then used Tamiya gunmetal paint thinned 50/50, over the whole thing, its a really dark, almost black grey metallic and over that I put a thinned (50/50 again) bright green like the wheels.
My thinking was if it were a real car it would have similar layers of paint on it.
It worked cos when I rubbed off all the green through the gunmetal and down to the 'bare metal' the matt clear protected the 'metal but the green and gunmetal colours all but disappeared on the panels and left shadows and low points in the seams and panel gaps - I reckon i could have stopped earlier and had it look less 'finished'.
the detailing of the 'rust' is just a mix of earth tones with some candy gold in it for a metallic look and judiciously applied where rust might occur and I used the dregs of that mixed with loads of thinners to make it look like the filler cap was leaking fuel down the front quarter panel.

I've added a couple more pics of some details.

Thanks for viewing, email or comment if you have any more questions.