1/24 Revell Mini - First complete model

[Desertfish]

Sorry for the lousy pictures. I either need a better camera or learn how to use one properly (maybe both... )

Anyways, after a long struggle, I finally managed to complete my first model. She's not as perfect as I had imagined when I started, but considering this is my first build in over 25 years, I'm not all to dissatisfied with the result.

This has been a long journey, one with a steep learning curve and a lot of mistakes. Just to give you an idea, the body work has been stripped of all it's paint three times (yes, 3...) by means of putting the whole thing in a bath of brake fluid for about 48 hours. At one stage, the body was actually orange, then it went to silver before I settled on the current Alpine Renault A110 blue. I did mock up the white paint stripes the first time around so that had to be completely redone as well.

The headlights mounted on the front bumper are not original. Those are leftovers from another Revell mini kit that I'm currently building. The wheels are from a Tamiya Mini Cooper rally kit. Those were spray painted with Alclad semi matt aluminium. All the other metal effects were done with Alclad chrome, although they lost a little of their shine after I coated them with Alclad aqua gloss. The window sills and chrome band at the bottom of the body work are BMF chrome.

[bobbewieter]

Looking good

[WebbyNZ]

Nothing wrong with that after a quarter century away.
I have seen much worse from active builders who only do auto kits.

[Gav0909]

Nice work mate.

I have moved this to a more appropriate section of the forum for you.

[kiwigav]

Very cool mate love the colour.. roll on the next model

[Willem]

That's a very cool Mini.

[Paul]

Great work

[PaulAyrey]

Superb stuff!

[UKguyInUSA]

Nice job mate....my first ever car was an original Mini Cooper back in 1976 that I bought after passing my Driving Test. I modified it by putting an MG 1275 GT engine into it, flared the wheel arches, put wheel spacers and extra wide wheels onto it. Stripped her down to bare metal, rust proofed her with red-oxide then re-sprayed her blue with two whit stripes and finished her off with 4 Halogen Spotlights on the front grille. She was a fast little bugger!

Cheers

Martin

[Desertfish]

Thanks for all the kind comments guys.

[Lee]

A very big WELL DONE mate