History
It all began a few years back when
Dan's Mon-Key was watching Australian Rules Football on Satellite TV. The
whole lack of any apparent rules got his interest up. Then there were the
Mad Max movies he rented on video. The complete lack of concern for human
life and limb truly impressed him and Dan's Mon-key was convinced all
Australians were living a lifestyle identical to the characters in Mad
Max. Then when it was announced that Indy car racing would be going to
Australia, there was no stopping Dan's Mon-key from building a car...entering
the race and trying to go home with the winning purse.
The first obstacle was designing a
car. Due to cost considerations.....Stupid Cousin Larry was in charge of
designing and building the car. To guard against any fatal design flaws,
the car was equipped with an ejection seat. The design was
sound....take a basic Indy Car....bolt a couple of A-10 Warthog engines to it
and fully arm it with a mulit-barrel cannon and Maverick missiles. It
seems the part about cars conforming to some basic INDY standards was lost on
these two greedy Mon-Keys from hell. Stupid Cousin Larry is not the
brightest Monkey in the family tree and this was realized shortly after the
first test drive of the new race car...this was car #
01. It seems he
bolted the Warthog jet engines onto the car backwards, so instead of providing
forward motion....they provided reverse motion. No one noticed this slight
flaw in design until after the initial test drive. Dan's Mon-key suited up
and strapped himself into the race car and fired up the engines. When he
hit the gas pedal the car flew into reverse and shortly hit 600 miles per hour
with Dan's Mon-key shrieking all the way. Just before the car hit a
concrete wall leading into the turn....Dan's Mon-key ejected and safely
landed. The car was utterly destroyed and the engines flew for 1/2 a mile
before finally landing in a packed parking lot for a local biker gang...they
were not amused either.
So Stupid Cousin Larry set about
fixing the design flaws in the original car...this was of course after he was
healed from a severe beating from Dan's Mon-key that was inflicted with a
Williams Bros B-10B model kit. Car # 02 was perfect except
for the fact it didn't meet even the basic of Indy Car car construction
qualification rules. Our two 'heros' were not daunted by this and decided
to open their own Indy Race Car Driver training school. the concept was
simple. Insert student driver in unarmed car. Dan's Mon-key would
chase the student driver around the track trying to kill him with either the
mulit-barrelled cannon or the sidewinders of Maverick missiles. Sadly they
were unable to sign up and drivers interested in improving their driving skills
and the driver training school went bankrupt.
The model
Click on images below to
see larger images |
|
|
The model was
simple....buy two kits and make the various parts fit one way or
another. The car kit was the 1/25 Indy car kit from Revell.
The A-10 Warthog kit was the 1/48 Monogram A-10 kit. The sidewinders
were from the spares box from some other Monogram jet. The ejection
seat was an Aces II seat from True Details and the gun was donated by Russ
Sharp (an Armour Modeller in my local club). The A-10 cockpit had to
be cut and trimmed to fit into the car. the nose compartment in the
car had to be cut open with my X-Acto knife. the A-10 engines had to
be raised so they werehigher and
closer together so they would clear the rear tires. On the A-10
model the engines are much further apart. The nose cone also had to
be modified to permit the cannon to stick through. The bulk of the
modification were done with my Dremel Mini-Mite.....a tool that makes any
modifications quick and easy. |
Click on image below to
see larger image |
|
|
Painting
The beauty of car kits is they
require no filler due to the lack of seams and due to the complicated nature of
the paint scheme I wanted to do......the lack of seams and filler meant I could
paint the model and then assemble it.
First all the black painting was
done. the cockpit was black so this was airbrushed prior to
installation and all details were dry brushed with white to bring
highlight them. I love Monogram kit for their excellent raised
detail in their cockpits. The instrument panel on left was
airbrushed flat black......lightly dry brushed with white and the dials
were given a few coats of future till they had the correct enough
look. Without a flashlight the detail on this instrument panel is
impossible to see. |
|
The cockpit received the same
painting treatment as the instrument panel. The seat received a
combination of airbrushing and brush painting. The seat belt buckles
were done with a silver paint pen......you can find these at a stationary
store. The seat belts were hand paint with a fine brush with flat
brown Humbrol enamel. |
Click
on images below to see larger images |
|
|
|
The gun wasn't modified to fit
the kit and it seems to be designed for the nose compartment of this
car......I like to call this a lucky break and I've found that kit bashing
is full of lucky breaks if you remain flexible. The gun was given
the exact same drybrushing paint treatment as the cockpit and instrument panel |
Click
on images below to see larger images |
|
|
|
Dan's Mon-Key's Race car
wouldn't be complete without some nudie nose art...........unfortunately
it's pretty well hidden by the front suspension when the model is fully
assembled. |
|
Painting the body of
the car was simple as there was no concerns for filling seam lines
etc...this is a car afterall and I'm sure there are lines between the
various body panels. First I painted the body panels and engines the
lightest shade of blue to the whole surfaces of the body panel
parts. Special thanks to The Two
Bobs and the inspiration I got from their F-14
Aggressor Decal Sheet.
For the main body panels and nose section I
used many tiny over lapping pieces of Tamiya tape. These gave the
look I wanted from the masking. For the engines I used large
sections of scotch tape cut in very angular ways.
Once everything was masked....I painted the
medium shade of blue. then I did more masking over the medium blue
as well as the first layer of tape.
Finally the third layer of paint was
applied....after a bit of drying time all the tape was removed and the
paint job was complete.....except for the false canopy on the
bottom and the engine intake and exhaust areas. |
|
|
|
Click
on images below to see larger images |
|
|
Note
false canopy painted on the underside |
Click
on images below to see larger images |
|
|
|
If you ever see
this in your rearview mirror....
"Pull the hell over to the side of
the road!!!" |
The less
dangerous end of things. |
Drybrushing does wonders for bringing out subtle details |
|