Building the King!

What a gal!

That's the way to go, good to hear you have a daughter who are a involved in your building.

Please keep us posted on the King's progress. I't seems to be a funny project and it should raise some eyebrows when finished.

Niclas

LOL......What a hoot!!
That's great, mate.....I love it......the only thing that might be hard is to get the extremely fore-shortened look of The King.......much shorter and taller than the real thing.
But you've made a great start - and please post more pics as you progress in the build.
Mate, your daughter is going to be as pleased as punch.

Cheers!

proosen wrote:

Please keep us posted on the King's progress. I't seems to be a funny project and it should raise some eyebrows when finished.

That's half of what I love about this project, raising the eyebrows!   The movie Cars is actually a great flick that both of us love.  And I just had to build King as I do love the racing & the Superbird is just too neat of a design to pass up, especially when it requires some subtle mods like King has.

proosen wrote:

That's the way to go, good to hear you have a daughter who are a involved in your building.

Oh, she has her own builds to get involved in!  The Dutchess (as I like to call her) is now six & has been building her own kits for two years now.  Her first kit was the Polar Light's Pteranadon:

And she's won a Silver & then a Merit Award for her Herbie model & a Star Wars dio she built!

I love the concentration here!   You have to get it juuust right!

Can you tell I'm a proud Daddy?

leemitcheltree wrote:

LOL......What a hoot!! That's great, mate.....I love it......the only thing that might be hard is to get the extremely fore-shortened look of The King.......much shorter and taller than the real thing. But you've made a great start - and please post more pics as you progress in the build. Mate, your daughter is going to be as pleased as punch.

Yep, I knew I was in for some plastic surgery when I compared the two side by side.  King is a bit more "chibi" (Japanese for small, cute, chubby) than the real thing.  Hopefully when I get a coat of primer on him I'll be able to see the changes better & know if there's anything more I have to do to him.

The Dutchess is quite excited by the progress so far.  She keeps me moving on the projects she's interested in!

Archangel Shooter wrote:

Opps! let me get out of here, thought someone was building a King Tiger tank, better scoot back to the armor group, bye yall.

Scoot, ya armor goof!

A tank in the auto forum?

Good to see some more new blood in the hobby.

My son Adrian is also building a little and on the pic you can see his pride, "the burning truck", as he calls it.

Took a second at a show last spring with it. He's also six years old, just as your daughter.

Keep it coming!

Niclas

That's awsome!  Great job on your second place, Adrian!  You built yourself one great looking truck!

I showed Samantha his picture & she said to say that he's got "a cute shirt", & was wondering if he recieved any other awards?

I also just noticed tonight (after watching Cars with Sam) that I need to do some more surgery.  I can cut out almost a cm in the area between the hood & the windshield.  That area has some vents that King doesn't have & will shorten the body a bit more very nicely.  I might even cut out a sliver between the rear of the door & the side vents, too.

Got a few more updated pics for everyone.  Basically since my last post I've basically been sanding.  That's it.  Just sanding.  And sanding & sanding & sanding & sanding.   I slapped some Aves along the previous cuts & from there my version of heck began.  But in manhandling The King, I also noted I needed more length cut off him.  So here's a couple more pics showing the two new cuts I made.  The first is just behind the door & before the side vent.  The second is between the hood & the windshield.  I noted King has a very short distance in this area with no vents.

Here's a compilation shot of the cuts:

The Superbird started out at 9.25".  King now sits at 8.25".

Now on to even more Aves & Squadron green!

Got another small update for everyone.  I know it's not much, but since my last post I've been doing nothing but putty & sand, putty & sand, putty & sand!   With making all those cuts to shorten the kit, it's presented many tiny holes to fill.  And then when I seem to get them all, I find a few more!   Sooo frustrating, but I really want to get a perfect finish on King.

So here's the final shot of him after I got everything sanded down.  He looks like a reject from a bondo factory!

Now on to a primer coat of white & mixing the paint to get a "close enough" Petty Blue!

I hear you, it's not much fun doing all the sanding but it's essential so what can one do?

Looking forward to see him in something else then his underpants

Niclas

proosen wrote:

I hear you, it's not much fun doing all the sanding but it's essential so what can one do?

Essential it is, but it's the bane of my building existance!

Looking forward to see him in something else then his underpants

RadMax8 wrote:

While I hate to see a superbird chopped up like that, I think that's really cool! I enjoyed that movie, nad wondered if some company might make a snap together kit or something. What are you going to do for the decals? Good luck!

Thanks, Radmax8!  As for decals, I have the decals that came with the Petty Superbird, so that takes care of the 43s & such.  But as for the Cars Universe decals for businesses like LeakLess, Gasprin & No Stall, as well as the Piston Cup logo, I'll tackle that when the time comes. 

A small update fror everyone.  I just got back from vacation a few days ago, so there's only a bit here.  I've finished King's rear wing, which is a bit larger than the kit supplied version.  I had to decrease the length of the base by about 2mm & the height jumped up 1cm.  I did use the supplied horizontal part of the wing.  You can see the difference in this shot.  I also cut a hole for the gas cap that I'll have to scratch & widened the rear wheel well.

I also took a bit of Aves & created a small rearward curve at the base of the fin.

What I'm currently tackling is the underside.  Fortunantly (or unfortunantly for King) in the movie he takes a big crash at the final race, spinning in the air nose-down.  A few screen caps later & I have a real good reference.  It's neat to note that the underside of King is very accurate to the car/model.  A tribute to Pixar's researchers &  animators.

I started the engineyesterday & more pics will come.

A couple update pics for everyone!  I got some paint on King, so now he's not in his skivvies!   Here's a shot of the whole body.  I mixed the paint from several shades of blue.  It's the closest I could come to King's color which is slightly darker than Petty Blue.

Something else I finished is the windows.  I Future'd the front & back & created side windows out of clear sheet.  The front "eyes" I painted a warm white & the others were a mix of greys to achieve the color, which is not represented well in this shot.  It shows way too much purple in the greys.  After the paint was dry I coated them in Future again.  I'll take a shot in the daylight to see if I can get a better color.

I held all the windows in place & man is he looking good!

Prince of Styrene II wrote:

a tank in the auto forum?

Hmm, let's see :

1 it's made of steel,

2 it rides on the ground

3 it has wheels and an engine,

4 you need a permit to drive it, 

yup, why not. 

That is absolutely freaking excellent! I can't wait to see more photos.

Regards,

Wow that last pic looks great!!

David

Really nice work on the car.  I usually hide out in the Aircraft forum, but sneak over here now and then for change.  Very pretty paint job.

Darwin, O.F.

yardbird78 wrote:

Really nice work on the car.  I usually hide out in the Aircraft forum, but sneak over here now and then for change.  Very pretty paint job.

Many thanks!  It's nice to get compliments from this forum.

Here's a few more shots, nothing earth shattering, but it's progress.  First, a shot of the BMF being applied.  Note I had to make a vertical post for the window.  I also need to BMF the door handles & key holes.

Next is two shots of the completed paint & BMF.  Tonight I painted the darker blue around the front windshield.  Turned out to be a real good match for the color!  The windows are also installed as well as the small pipe out of the left "tail light", which I assume is some kind of vent exhaust.

Prince of Styrene II wrote:

Thanks, guys! I Future'd King's body & picked up some Bare Metal Foil to do the trim around the windows, door handles & rear bumper.  I'll post some shots afte I BMF everything.

Can hardly wait!

Niclas

proosen wrote:

Can hardly wait!

Then just scroll up!  Except for the door handles, the BMF is done.

As a small side note, I've got King's upper & lower eyelids cut out & painted.  I just need to Future & glue them into place.

Waste Land wrote:

I'm loving your build here. Please post as many WIP shots as possible

Thanks, Waste Land!

I just Future'd the eye lids & painted the rims today.  They should be dry already.  As soon as I get them on I'll take a pic & post.

Whats your plans for the eyes and teeth?

Also.....just my opinion I think it would be more tot h emovie story if the hood were to be glued shut and outlined well. While the motor is always the funnest part for me...the realistics of the motor may crash with the animation style...

Waste Land wrote:

Whats your plans for the eyes and teeth?

I plan on using some kind of jpeg to make decals for the eyes.  The teeth are already cut & awaiting the dentist!  They're basically two strips of styrene, as that's all they pretty much look like in the movie.

Also.....just my opinion I think it would be more tot h emovie story if the hood were to be glued shut and outlined well. While the motor is always the funnest part for me...the realistics of the motor may crash with the animation style.

It will be glued down & there will be a very basic, cut down engine.  In altering the length of the body (I made two cuts in front of the windshield, plus three others) & sculpting the mouth, it left almost no room for the engine OOB, so I had to alter it.  If it wasn't included there would be a fairly huge hole on the underside.  Plus the engine walls will pretty much hide the fact that there is no full engine.

Interesting...

 I love this build!

Very interesting build and of course I envy your patience, but I would like to see if you get the "cartoon look" from the movie, anyway and outstanding modelling work.

Mario Covalski
Editor
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