TVR T400R LeMans -04

Hmmm Are there any more people that can't see the pictures? I can see them...

JohnP! Hehe, why not?
Nice to hear that some can see the pics. Are you still not able to see them Thomas? They are from my photobucket site, but I could move them to a gallery here at slotforum too, being a plusmember and all ...
I got myself a new tube of filler late today, so I'm busy shaping now again... great flashbacks to the P68...
I've also got myself a couple of different paints to try to finnish it of eventually. I think the paint used on the real car has a "candy" effect that goes from deep blue to purple, and that would be really cool to have on the little one too. Problem is it seems to difficult to get in 1:32 scale. I haven't decided if I'll go for just a blueish-purpleish metallic paint job or if I should try to make it "candy". I suppose to make a "candy" job look even half decent and evenly applied I'd need to invest in an airbrush though... . Not overly keen on that at the moment. The paint is of course also depending on what livery I go for, since the cars raced at LeMans are candy and the ones raced in the LMES seem more purple in the pictures I've got. Any help with pictures is of course very appreciated. I've gathered a few at www.motorsport.com but apart from that they are not easy to find on the web.
This is the car that raced in LMES:


Here's a pic of one of the LeMans cars:


Both pictures from www.motorsport.com

So anyway, more pictures always welcome!

Strange . Anyway, sorry about that Thomas, but I just created a gallery with the pics in the Gallery section here on the site, so you should be able to view them over there. (Not that they are that exiting... )

Thanks for the kind words and for steering it away from pic posting! I'll hope to get some more done on the car tonight, but we'll see...

QUOTE I think the problem with making a TVR correctly is that even the real ones are hand made and so every one is slightly different!
Hey this gives me some room in my intepretation then too I guess . Ah, well they're all different anyway...

This has been a long time really! Anyway, now I'm fairly happy with the overall shape of the car, and I've recieved paints for it too . It is a very special colour on the car, so I have done a bit of research. Thanks to "PAB" here on the forum I've learnt how to create a candy look! He has also helped me acuire a small selection of very nice paints from Acrylicos Vallejo. I've got a transparent blue and red, a metal medium (miniscule metal flakes, creating a metallic effect), a gloss varnish, a satin varnish, a transparent smoke, and even a fine putty. Those paints are really nice and very easy to work with, and I can easily recomend them to anyone They come in small bottles with a drop dispenser for easy mixing. That was completley new for me and seemed strange at first, but now I love it for its simplicity. You just drip the amount you need into a small cup and then use that with the rest of the paint safely tucked away in the closed original bottle. They have a range of 220 colours and they are all mixable with eachother to create some truley stunning effects. If you're interested go here to read more.
I started out testing a few different methods of creating the candy effect for this car, and now I've come to a conclusion of how to make it. First I start with a base of Humbrol Metalcote (#27001), then I've applied one coat of my special mix from the Vallejo paints, and last I added two coats of varnish to get some more deapth. The mix contains the following:
3 parts transparent Blue
5 parts transparent Red
3 parts glossy varnish
1 part metal medium

The result is very nice!!! Very deep blue in some lights and angles, and quite purple in other lights and angles. Sweeeet! I've used a couple of old Scalextric sidecars for trial painting , they are great because of their flowing curves and smooth surfaces. I'll try to get some pictures of them tomorrow in daylight.

I've also spoken to Mr Iceman about decals, and he said he'd make me some when he comes back from his holiday. I decided on the #96 car from LeMans this year by the way.




And a little teaser of the real one...


There are still a few things that differ on the body of the car, but they are around the a pillars and I think I'll just have to leave that, otherwise I'd have to remake the windows too to make them fit.

...another update, if anyone's interested.

Here's a shot of an old Scalex sidecar painted with my mix. It needs a little more fine tuning with the shades of blue and purple, but it has the candy effect right at least (hard to notice in this one shot though).



Here are some shots of the car after I modified the area around the bottom of the windscreen and the rear points of the bonnet. This area was completely wrong before, and I'm still not 100% happy, but I'm soon there.



I also put on a front splitter today, made from a plactic card:

Thanks for the kind words!
I've made some more progress today, and I've actually painted the first coat of the Humbrol Metalcoat. Very exiting! I'm just wishing I had an airbrush. You can see the brushlines quite clearly, and I'm not thrilled... . I might just have to invest in a Airbrush system, but it seems so expensive to get started. The expense of a compressor, tank and the airbrush itself. Any good advice here? Do I need a double action one or is single action enough for most things?

Here's a couple of shots of the latest progress:

Thanks for all the advice! The thing is, to get this candy effect I think I need to use special paints, so I think the Halfords are out anyway . I've now sanded and applied more coats of the Metalcoat and it's possible to get it really smooth. And finally when it's all smooth and even, I brush the surface up using an old toothbrush, to give it an even texture. I must say it's looking pretty nice at the moment. The hard thing with trying to sand the metalcoat paint is that you can't use too fine sandpaper or you'll loose the matt surface texture (I'm using the 27001 matt here to get a good base for the candy), so no finer than 1200 grit or you cant buff it up again. Anyway, I might add the first layer of the special mix of the paints from Acrylicos Vallejos to it today. I think I'll try using brushes for now, but I'd better get myself an airbrush later on... I've heard that you can use an old car tyre for the air pressure, and fill it up time end time again at your local petrol station. Anyone tried this? Then you'd just have to invest in the airbrush itself, no need for tanks or compressors . Sounds too good to be true

Hehe, that sounds a little easier I just read somewhere that the small propellant bottles, because of their small size and high pressure loose their temperature very quickly and thereby forcing you to have an unwanted break in the painting process. (I read it over here by the way if anyone's interested. It's a very extensive site containing various painting advice, perhaps a little overkill. ) If this is not a real problem I'm quite keen really. This guy is might be a little too picky, so I'd surely take your word for it, if you say they're fine Howmet.

Lots of nice advice guys, thanks! I now have an airbrush on my christmas wishlist. I could however not wait till then to get this baby painted. So I tried the good old brushes. The result is quite pleasing but a fraction on the dark side, but it's hard to say now that the sun has gone down. I had to do a few more layers than I really wanted, in order to get an even layer over the silver base, and since the paint is transparent, the more layers the darker the shade. But the candy effect is definitley there . Clear blue in some lights and angles and purlple in others. I've also painted the kit wheels black and started on the interior. Now all I have to do is build a chassi...
I'll try to take some pics of it now having been painted, but the lighting needs some adjusting first.

Thanks for the kind words! I was actually a little dissapointed with the way these pictures turned out, because it looks smoother and not as stripey in real life. But maybe I'm being to harsh on myself . Anyway I'll see if I can get some shots outside today, although it's pretty grey and miserable, so it'll be mostly blue in that light.

Ok, I went a bit crazy and took some more shots (many more ) of the car as I said I would. But maybe I went a bit overboard I'm just really amased how the candy turned out. All these pictures were taken outside today in grey weather, so in that light the car looks deep blue, it needs direct sunlight to bring out the purple in it. Allthough to the naked eye it looked a little purple even today in that light, from some angles. I also put the painted wheels on for better looks They are only covered once and need at least one more coat to look 100% and withstand racing. I just sat the car directly on the tires for now as I haven't yet made a chassis for it, so it looks almost a bit too low at least at the rear. I have only clear coated it twice, and I want to wait for the decals before I do more coats, so that they become nicely sealed too. Oh, and the black at the front has only one coat too...
Anyway here are the pictures:







And here's one taken with the flash outside:



Sorry for the large amout of pictures, but I like seeing other peoples pics, so I hope you don't think it's too much I'll take some of if you think there are too many.

...here's just another picture of the real things:

From www.motorsport.com

A little question to John.P, were you at LeMans this year and saw these cars yourself? I got that impression above... I'd love some feedback about how the cars looked there, and if you've got some pictures I'd be thrilled to see them

Oh, sorry John! I must have confused the two of you in my head... I just thought it was you and I didn't backtrack it. Well then the question goes over to you Alan...

Cheers for all the nice compliments! I can't wait to get it properly finnished now, but I think it might just have to wait until after the holidays. I'm going down to Melbourne Australia next Sunday, for a month. So I guess this is all that'll be made up until then. I'm eagerly awaiting the decals that Iceman is kindly making for me too, and I've had word from him that the ball is in motion . Then of course there is the whole chassis business. I'm going to make it front engined because the real thing is. The bonnet is long and the interor is fairly far back so the wight distribution shouldn't be too off either. I haven't decided if I'm going to make a flexible design chassis (torsion bar) or not. But it would be cool to have a carbon fibre chassi of some kind under this one , we'll see...

Here's another teaser:


It's very hard to catch the candy on camera, but I guess you can imagine it a little having seen the car in different lights now. The thing is that in real life it's a lot stronger and the angles have more of an effect rather than just the lighting as seen here in the pictures.

I'll have to mention the Acrylicos Vallejos paints I used to creat the candy effect once more too. They are really easy to work with and I'll definitley get more of those in the future. They all mix very well with eachother and you've got 220 colours to chose from to begin with so any colour or effect should be possible. I've tried the Tamiya acrylics before, but I have never been really happy with them, so I've then gone back to Humbrol because I like them better. But the downside is then of course all the messing about with different cleaner fluids, and the smells they bring. I really like the drop dispenser feature on these bottles now too Mixing is just so easy Another bonus is the quicker dryingtime with acrylics too.

About that rear wing, glad you mentioned it Doug! The original wing from the kit is not the same as the one on the widebody version of the car, so I'll have to find another wing to fit there (kit one is curved and too small). I need something about 56mm wide with a wing profile of 10mm and with the endplates a little longer at the front. Now that might not be easy I'd prefere not using any filler on the wing because of the high risk of race damage. But any sugestions on stuff that is close to those measurements are very welcome!

QUOTE ....and the shell is just AWESOME
It's my new favourite ...but we'll see if I dare race it All that filler might not withstand hard racing.

I'll look closer at that Marcos wing, a mate of mine has one, so could see if it looks right. It might be a fraction oversize, but we'll see. The LeMans regulations state a maximum width of 1800mm rear wings, so that'll be about 56,25mm . But I'm not that picky, as long as it looks right I'm happy!

Now that would be sweet wouldn't it!
I have no idea of how it works though, and what I need to make it happen but you might be on to something there... I'm kinda' keen to make some more for myself too