Global Scale Modeller

Finally finished Carlos Checa's MotoGP racer from the 2004 MotoGP Championship.

That season saw the Factory Yamaha rider finish 7th in the championship with The Doctor (Valentino Rossi) winning the title that year. There is a bit of a mistake by Tamiya with this bike however, it is representative of the 2004 Yamaha YZR M1 bike, but they have Carlos Checa (No. 7) and Marco Melandri (No. 33) as teammates, but they were teammates for the 2003 season... I don't understand why Tamiya chose to do this as they are normally very accurate with their scale models.

Anyway, here she is, even with a couple of "boo boos" - I got the mask off on the right side between the front fairing and the rt side fairing. And had a "glue on the thumb" moment and jacked up the frame on the left side, but will mask and repaint that in a few days.

Completely built OOB
Painted with rattle cans
and paint brush (and occasionally my finger )
I did use Tamiya black and gray panel wash (but still learning how to use it properly)



















Thanks for looking! (I need to work on my picture taking and pic area)

Nice nice nice
She came out really great man

Now for photos, Just a clean drop cloth, clean backdrop and some decent light.
Show just this beautiful bike and no bench distractions around her.....
Oh Tamiya sprays and bottles! I wonder what was in that yellow bucket before? Ooo there is a pink cup there too, or is it mauve? I could never keep a white bench mat that clean, hey there's the kit box.
My brain is like a squirrel on crack strapped to a treadmill so ya gotta keep it simple for this simpleton

Hahaha!! you're right, Scott, maybe I'll set up a photo booth in the dining room (we don't use it to eat in there anyway) and re-shoot the pics. I should probably pull out my Canon DSLR too, as these are all crappy cell phone pics.

Thanks for the kind words, man!

And fwiw, the 2004 bike (Yamaha factory bikes) were sponsored by Fortuna, a european tobacco company... and Tamiya didn't do tobacco sponsorship. Also, the FIA & FIM ban tobacco sponsorship from certain countries and the sponsors being run on the cars/bikes.

this is Marco Melandri's bike from 2004 (with sponsorship).



The "Spain's No.1" was run as an alternative to the tobacco logo in those "ban" countries. . .
Here's Carlos Checa's bike with the sponsor I did.



Two of the differences are, the #7 bike has a black Michelin logo on the bottom pan, and Melandri's #33 has a traditional blue Michelin logo on the bottom. They also ran the MICHELIN Pilot logo on the tires not the block blue Michelin logo. . . just FYI (not that you care. )

Ok, pulled out the "real" camera and snapped a few. MAN! Need some practice with this too... haven't used my camera in a while, and it shows! Here are a few of the "better" ones - at least without "Scott-stractions" .

[I was playing with the shutter speed / aperture, so please excuse the variances in photo quality]

Oh yes

Indeed

Looks sweet Barry! Love the work and the detail you did here!
I am with Scott on the distractions so your latter shots look way better

Tips: Do not sweet the speed if you have a tripod or something you can prop the camera on. Just set your aperture for the depth you want. f/8-f/16 for example. But the lower the Aperature (f/16) the more light you are going to need to illuminate the subject as that lens is going to be really stopped down. 2nd As I do the two pieces of background with show in the shot I use 2 pieces of white foam board for quick shots with my iPhone for my forum shots and a light tent that I had for finished shots. The bottom one hide the ugly on my desk and the back one hides all the mess behind

Sweet build and HAGD & Week