So, I've been reading the Tony Hillerman mystery/crime novels for a while now. If you're not familiar with his work, it centers around the Navajo Nation Tribal Police, and tells stories based in the American southwest. I decided to pay homage a little bit by dressing up this Jeep kit in Navajo police markings showing a rural crime scene.
The kit was pretty rough to assemble. Lots of gaps between parts, ejection pin marks in obvious places, accuracy issues, scale issues, and fit issues. Seems Revell took a shortcut and simply lengthened their Daisy Duke CJ-5 kit to make this one work, only they lengthened the body in the wrong place, leaving everything else out of whack. I put in lots of time detailing the engine with plug wires, fuel lines, vacuum lines, and brake lines, and I also fabricated some steel tube bumpers and a sleeping bag to throw in the back storage area. Painting went ok though, as did some fantastic decals from Bill Bozo decals. I hit it with a little weathering, then moved on to a simple but fun base for it. Anyway, on to some pics:
The highway sign is made of metal from a Coke can. I cut it to shape and size, then primed and gave it a coat of Krylon True Metallic Chrome. Then I painted with MM Turn Signal Amber. The lettering is a custom decal printed on the inkjet, applied and coated in Future.
The irrigation ditch is 3 layers of Enviro-Tex Lite resin. I made a tarp to lay on the ground out of Kleenex painted in Burnt Sienna. Barbed wire fence is ship rigging line painted black, with twigs out of the backyard for fence posts.
After the highway sign was finished I poked holes in it with my airbrush needle to simulate shotgun damage ;)
Red light on left, and blue on right? Or blue on left, and red on right? I've only ever seen a police unit with the blue lights on the left side of the lightbar one time, and that was around 30 years ago. I did it this way to be different:
License plates for front and rear were also made out of Coke can metal. I slipped on some decals, then bent them up to simulate a nice beat up license plate:
I did forget to decal the two small body markings on the rear, above the tail lights. Oh well :/
I plan on adding a few more things such as a scale dead person and some crime scene associated gear when the budget allows. For now it's done though. Let me know what ya think!
Chris