Revell Corvette Stingray with New Tooling
This is the fifth part of the Revell 2022 Corvette Stingray Z51 Coupe New Tooling 1/25 Scale 85-4556 14556.
Small details are essential to a scale model but sadly, they are often overlooked. And this is actually a good thing as it means as a modeler you’ve done it right. You’ve added finer details that the viewer/audience expects to be there, and on a subconscious level, we don’t register them at first glance.
I tend to rush building and adding on these smaller details as I used to find them to be more tedious than necessary to my model. However, over the past few years, I’ve tried to slow myself down and pay special attention to the smaller details as they are indeed critical to the completed model.
So next time you think the parts are insignificant, slow down for a moment and perhaps give it some extra attention, you never know how one small thing will affect the rest of the build.
I added these inserts to the sides of the car body. They would have been difficult to mold with the rest of the body so they were separate. Black C-shaped parts will be placed inside that also have details for the intakes.
The four exhausts were painted with Tamiya X-10 Gun Metal. These parts were a bit tricky to clean, as they are quite small and difficult to grip. I thinned the Gun Metal with Mr Rapid Thinner, which has special properties for leveling metallic paints. I’ve never seen Gun Metal paint turn out this nice. Even though they are tiny they have an excellent sheen to them, and I’m strongly considering painting the rims in this color.
The two side intakes are hollowed out to allow you to see through to the radiators that were painted earlier. There was some cleaning of these parts that needed to be done first, some thin flashing that was easily carved out with an Excel #11 blade.
The parts were as usual primed with Mr Surfacer 1500 Black. I then used Mr. Color 2 Gloss Black, which I thinned a bit more than I usually would, I’d say somewhere around 60-70% thinner.
I sprayed the black on in 3 light layers, and doing this allowed me to build up a nice shine to my gloss. I will demonstrate this further when I paint the car body, but I’ve found that painting a nice gloss requires thinner paint and light layers.
At this stage of the build, I decided that I should paint the widows as well. I masked off the inside sections of the clear parts, and then with a sharp new knife I very carefully cut around the frosted sections of the windows.
I will admit that this was a bit trickier than I had expected, but the frosted sections weren’t as pronounced or defined as I had initially anticipated. I wish that maskings were included for the windows, or at the very least a guide that I could copy from.
I painted on Mr Surfacer 1500 Black around the edges in very light passes to avoid building up paint around the edges of the tape. The windscreen and the rear window are flipped around and this is how you will see them on the completed model. They look really great, and I’m eager to see how they will fit onto the completed model.
I mentioned this in Part 1 when I looked through the parts that these clear parts were incredibly clear. But now that I’ve had a chance to handle them I want to add to that evaluation that these clear parts are also really thin, and I was concerned that I could snap them in half while I was cutting out the masking, so use a bit of extra caution when handling these parts.
The headlights, tail lights and the sides of the mirrors all have sections with lights that need to be painted on. Because of the complexity of the parts, it will be easier for me to hand-brush these details.
These parts were first painted with Mr Color 2 Gloss Black, just as I had done earlier.
Hand-brushing Lacquer paints is difficult as Lacquers dry faster than most paints. But because of their properties, they can produce some of the best and shiniest metallics.
I’m going to first paint all of the light sections with Mr. Color 104 Gun Chrome, and I’ve added a drop of Mr Leveling Thinner to the paint. The retarder in the Leveling Thinner will slow down the drying time of the paint and allow me more ease to carefully paint these details.
Two layers were all I needed to paint on these sections, and the shine from the 104 Gun chrome looks excellent. It’s difficult to see in this picture, but I also painted the small triangles on the sides for the turn signals.
I painted the brake lights with Tamiya X-27 Clear Red, and they really stand out with that base coat of Gun Chrome. This picture is a bit deceiving, and it looks like there are gaps in the red but this is just a reflection from my desk lamp.
The reversing lights were painted with Tamiya LP-11 Silver as this color looked close to the real car.
The headlights were also painted with Mr. Color 104 Gun Chrome, and the bulb in the middle was quite difficult to paint making me wish that the headlights were broken down into smaller parts. However, this would add to the cost of the model so it’s understandable.
For the turn signals, I painted on Tamiya X-26 Clear Orange. These headlights will eventually be attached to the inside of the car body and then the clear parts will be added from the outside of the car.
I test-fitted the tail lights, exhausts and rear grill just to get an idea of how this is going to look when I add these parts to the painted body. I really like how well those tail lights stand out, and I can only imagine how much better they will look on the completed model.
This project just continues to be more, and more fun. And now I’m finally able to paint the main body color. I’ve been looking forward to this stage ever since I began the project, but I’ve still got some minor painting to do first.
The car body will be the main focus of this project when people see it, but all of these small and subtle details that we’ve been painting are going to go a long way in adding to the realism of this model. At the moment I’m just getting too impatient, and I guess I’m just too excited to see this project come together.
But now patience is the key, and in the next post, I’ll go through the process of adding a main color and then a gloss coat.
To be continued…
Jared Demes is a modeler from southern Alberta. He has been building models since he was 4 years old when his Dad first introduced him to the hobby. He has written for several magazines including, Fine Scale Modeler, Scale Aircraft Modeling, Phoenix Scale Models, and others. He has an interest in all modeling subjects, with a focus on WWII Japanese aircraft and Science Fiction.
Jared has won several IPMS awards for his modeling, and currently operates his YouTube channel rebelsatcloudnine, where he showcases model builds and product demonstrations.
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