“Three Wheels on My Wagon” (Season of Scenery)

Cars count, Dave Stone said so, therefore I’m counting this toward my output for this years “Season of Scenery”. The other month I went to “Phalanx” wargames show, not because I really wanted anything but more just to get out, and do something “normal” (normal for us not “normal” for the “normal” people😉), and though a good time was had by all (well me), I didn’t spend a lot of money. I did come back with a second hand copy of “Robo Rally” (a board game I have been after for years!), a figure (yes one!), that will be going in my advent calendar for this year (more on this nearer the time), and two little three wheeled vehicles from a new company “Kore” (not to be confused with “I Kore”, the now defunct originators of Celtos)  Now I was told on the day that both this and the other car I picked up were based on actual classic electric vehicles, but a quick “google” search just brought up this image 👈 and no information, but it is pretty close so I’m going to say this is what the original 3D render was based on.

Though cast in resin the slight “graduations” could be seen here and there, along with a line along the top of the car/windscreen where the mould “joint” was slightly off, but a little filing and sanding pretty much took care of this, and it was out for a coat of matt black. This was mistake number one as I had no idea what colour I was going to paint it and after much head scratching (which reminds me I must buy flee powder!), I decided on cream and red, so a white undercoat would have been so much easier! Still luckily my coffee paint that would form the base coat for the cream covers very well over black, so on this went, and then, not so much highlights, but basically an almost complete repaint with cream went over this.   For the red I first undercoated the wings in pink burgundy, then like the cream before I covered this in bright red, looking at it however I felt it needed “more” so added the “slash” of red at the rear in the same colours, I’ll just add that it was a pain in the “bum” getting these lines crisp and equal, and entailed a lot of touching up. In fact touching up was very much a theme for this whole vehicle, every time I painted anything on it I’d end up marking the bits I’d already done! Anyway next on the list were the bumpers and trims, chainmail was my friend here, I added the number plate in white with some black letters and some orange took care of the indicators.

Glass, now regular readers will be aware, that I’m not a fan of painting glass on vehicles, for many years I just left it black, and wherever possible (like my “wasteland” vehicles) I’ll cover it with a “mesh” or “grill”, I did even consider “Mad Max’ing” this car, but you couldn’t really see the “Humungus” tearing up the highway in this now could you? (Well you lot would! But I couldn’t), so I was going to have to paint the glass, but how? Youtube threw up a couple of suggestions, and I went with this from “Miniature Landscape Hobbies” though he is painting what looks like 20mm WW2 lorries the technique should transfer right? (I’ll let you judge the results 🤔).

So once the windows had all been repainted black, I went in with the navy blue, then the royal blue, ocean blue, a mix of blue grey and porcelain blue (blue grey wasn’t “blue” enough for me) for the first “arch”, mid grey for the arch highlight and white “dots”, as per the Youtube instructions. Be gentle with me, it’s my first attempt 🙏. Once dry the whole lot got a coat of “Quickshade” light tone, and I could have left it there, I did think about masking the windows and matt varnishing it, but I quite liked the “glossy” finish as I thought it suited it (please don’t tell Simon, or I’ll never hear the end of it! 🤫), so I just dry-brushed some khaki around the lower edges to add a little “road dirt” (well I couldn’t leave it clean now could I!😉). I dug out “Dee Dee” and “Jessica” for the photo’s to show the scale and add a little “Brochure Glamour”. I hope to get one more car in before the end of the month, though that one isn’t quite so “cute & cuddly”.

So till next time, cheers Roger.