Dave Metzner's How To Site

On this site I'll share some views of model projects under construction,
along with comments on methods I use in building and painting models.
I hope some of this will be helpful to other builders

Here is a Polar Lights Incredible Hulk kit,
not the greatest Hulk sculpt ever but very buildable.

 

I use MEK as a welding agent for styrene kits,
and flow it into seams pretty liberally
(you can see the glass syringe I sometimes
use as an applicatorin some of these photos).
I try to get enough solvent into the seams
that I can get melted material to squeeze
out of the seam when I clamp the parts.

Along with liberally using solvent cements,
I clamp parts together as tightly as I can.
Here you can see there are several
rubber bands wrapped tightly around
the  assembled parts.

After I've glued and clamped parts together
I generally let them sit for 30-45 minutes
so the melted material I squeezed out of
the joints can set up and the glue joints
can set up before I remove the rubber bands.

After the glue has set up, I'll dress all the seams ,
I usually use files and sand paper or sanding sticks.
I will use my dremel with a steel cutter to dress seams.
I always start with the coursest abrasive first then
work to finner grits so that the finished surface is
nice and smooth when I'm done.

I use a red lacquer spot putty as a filler.
Here I've filled the seams aroung the upper arms and a few other seams that I could see.
The white color of the plastic was chosen because it is easy to paint over, but it sure makes it hard to see defects in seams.
I think I'll make a change in color for plastic when we do our next figure kit,
maybe a nice soft primer gray color !?

After everyting has been filled and sanded I'll give it a coat of primer,
this is really important with the white plastic as it makes it easier to see
those seams that need a little touch of putty.

After the first coat of primer I filled the last bad spots
in the seams and sanded everything again.

These last two photos of the primered pieces show the kit components
ready for the base color coats. The seams are all filled and cannot be seen.
This was about 3 or four evening sessions at about two hours per session.
I have spent less time cleaning up good resin pieces and a lot more time
cleaning up and assembling 80 mm. white metal girl figures.
Also, a look at one of Hulk's feet to show that the seam between parts is gone.
I've started adding color here, the basic color is
Testors Zinc Chromate Green applied by airbrush.		 The base for Hulk's pants is Testors Napoleanic Violet applied with a brush. The kit base is Testors RAL 8000 1941 Afrika Grunbraun.
That's a German WWII color.		 I've added a dark brown acrylic craft paint color for
the hair and Testors flat
white in the eyes and teeth.
The pupils of the eyes are
dark Gray craft acrylic.

I'll break out the Artist Oils next week and start shading this kit.
I plan on adding Bright Green Irises to his eyes, Some shading and detail to the mouth.
I'll shade the pants out in shades of Purple and Hulk's skin in shades of darker Green.
The rope around his waist will probably go toward a light tan like new Hemp rope.
We'll see how the base turns out I haven't given much thought to it yet.