Model Forum / General / Models / June 2006

Well, the toy store where I found this stuff (Our Shop In Toyland or
www.ourshopintoyland.com) is in Purcellville VA.  They seem to have the DC
superheroes pretty well covered.  Of course, Superman's the flava of the day
what with this new movie coming out.  I'd rather pay $18 and shipping
outright than have to go to eBay and bid too much for something I can get
for a reasonable price without having to go through a process.

Also, no offense to those who buy or sell on eBay, but IMHO that marketplace
has become far too unwieldy and sprawling -- to such a degree that fraud is
rampant (by both buyers and sellers), and eBay appears to lack the
infrastructure to self-police and enforce its own charter.  I'm embarrassed
to say how much money I've lost there to shady merchants with very little
redress available to me, other than charge-back (another process).  I'll go
there to bid for something I can't find anywhere else, but I'm going to have
to be convinced that it's available nowhere else before I do.

It would have been cool to see more Marvel characters, like Spider-Man or
Thor.  I built two Spider-man kits, but the little bastard kids who
accompany their Moms to attend my wife's parties while I'm at work keep
taking them home.  A reissue of the Superboy and Krypto kit would be nice.
I remember ruining that one when I was a kid.  Didn't have any flesh tone
handy, so I painted his skin light orange. It was all downhill from there.

Nice to have a second chance at the 1964-era Superman, Batman and Robin
reissues, though.  I know it's considered heresy now, but I intend to paint
Batman's cape and cowl *blue* just like in the old comic books.  Once I'm
done with those, I intend to move on to the Star Trek kits (they've got a
James Tiberius Kirk and one or two others).  Then I'll look around for some
old "Rat-Fink" car kits, and then it's back to military aircraft.

I've been toying with the idea of doing some clay modeling.  I also collect
R. Crumb figures, but they're either out-of-reach price-wise or
out-of-print.  I own a set from Crumb's own website that cost me $340 back
in 2003.  Wonder how much it would get on eBay?  I'll bet modeling clay and
some paint would cost far less.

Thanks!  That's about how mine looks.  I've got some touch-up work to do,
though -- so while I'm about it, I may as well ask: what color are
Keaton/Batman's eyes?  I made 'em blue, but I can easily revise.

This is also my third go-round on the bat-emblem.  I had it perfect(!), but
then I forgot to mask it when I was spray-painting over some Bondo to smooth
out a seam at the right shoulder, and it got some over-spray.  Not
insurmountable.

Also, I think I may have cut away too much of what I believed to be "excess
material" at the bottom of the boots, so now it's no longer capable of
free-standing.  Mind you, I got this copy of the kit from Singapore and it
wasn't even in its original box -- it came in a plastic bag along with a
very poor, virtually unreadable copy of instructions.  My solution was to
improvise shims for the irregularities in his stance and then "Liquid Nails"
it onto a finished wooden display base.  There's still very minor work to be
done on it, but I'm satisfied enough with it that I can put it aside for a
second to work on the retro projects I recently acquired from
www.ourshopintoyland.com.

The only differences I see between the example shown in your link and mine
is that the Bat-suit on mine is flatter, but that was personal preference,
(with some influence by my wife, who is very influential), your completed
kit is capable of free-standing (unlike mine) and your facial detail work
exceeds anything I may have thought to do.  I'll check the link and try my
luck.  Thanks for the advice.

Also, thanks for the vindication of my use of mixed mediums.  I tend to use
spray (and usually flat) enamels for large uniformly-colored parts such as
Keaton's bat-suit and acrylics for detail work.  Also, my primers are
usually enamel.  People talk about acrylic vs. enamel primers as though it
makes a difference as to which is better to be used, but I can't tell...  I
like spray primer because I can prime an entire "sheet" of parts in two
passes and get on with it a lot sooner.

At the moment, I'm working on both the 1966-vintage Robin, the Boy Wonder
and the 1989-vintage Batmobile.  When I get bored with working on one, I
move on to the other.  Robin's more of a challenge, or at least his head is,
because it's less than an inch high and requires a lot of detail.  Also,
there's no "R" emblem on the right side of his suit, nor is there a decal
for it and I'm a purist, so I may just paint one in.  The Batmobile's a pain
in the a** only because the kit requires me to paint features that aren't
visible, and won't be in the finished product.  The cockpit's about 1" wide,
and they require the dials and numbers to be painted red and the bezels to
be painted silver.  I may skip that step.  I've built the 1964 Batman and
Superman kits before, so it will be easy to improve on the ones that were
destroyed during moves from place to place, or stolen.  The Batman kit from
'64 will be painted blue and grey, because that's how he looked back then.

Thanks again for your help and your welcome, dbpbandit!