Over the holidays I went back to work on the Airfix Wallace and Gromit Anti-Pesto van from the movie The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I've been promising to get this finished for Debra for quite sometime, and with a little time-off, it was a pleasant diversion.
It was a fairly straightforward build. The parts are well moulded and flash-free. One thing I should mention is that I cut out and discarded the square window area in the side doors and kept only the triangular, no-draft portion. This makes it easier to see the interior, and allows for Gromit to stick his arm out the window.
I haven't mastered applying decals and there's a cloudy area under the main logo. Looks bad in sunlight, but it's not too bad in low light.
About half the components in this project were brush painted except for the body, chrome pieces, and wheels. Those were painted with a variety of spray can colours - mostly Krylon brand. For brush painting, I only use acrylics. They don't have an odour - which is important for working in the house - and clean-up with water. For this project, I discarded the Humbrol brand paints that come with the kit, and substituted with matching paints from my collection.
The figures had to be washed with some mild dish soap before painting.
[Cracking good coveralls Wallace]
Not all acrylics are created equal. I first painted Wallace's coveralls with a Tamiya blue, but didn't like the tone and overpainted with a Poly Scale blue. Bad idea. The paints reacted and caused a cracking pattern all over the body. I didn't want to start over, so I merely painted on several layers of Poly Scale blue until the cracks were more-or-less invisible. The end result looked ok.
The thing I find about painting figures is that once the eyes are painted in the whole piece 'pops' and seems to come to life. Until then, it's just some dead statue.
That's not some weird cargo in the truck, just my reflection in the back window. Those hinges work and the backdoor opens.
It's roomy back there! That's Corgi's diecast of the Anti-Pesto van they sold a few years ago.
The Corgi set comes complete with a BunVac 6000. I'd love to scratchbuild one of those babies for the Airfix van.
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