The new Meerkat Six news thread

[Darth Marmalade]

Meerkat Six has its own web page now.

It's pretty minimal at the moment, just the essence of a web page, really, but I imagine I'll expand it as the car gets more elaborate.

And if you think I should get my van back on the road while I'm at it, you're right.

[Darth Marmalade]

New pictures on the Meerkat Six page. I've discovered pinstripes, and J3 has a new brain!

Check it out here.

[Darth Marmalade]

In the last few days, I noticed that Road Squadron has a Yahoo! group. I signed up, then uploaded some pictures because I could. There are a few photos that you'll see nowhere else, yet; in particular, there are pictures of the work-in-progress on Meerkat Six -- masking tape, newspaper, wet paint, and all. Check it out at:

movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/RoadSquadron/

In completely unrelated news, today we adopted a beautiful tiny baby coal-black Hamster, whom we have named Koltar the Magnificent of Anthracite (Coal or Kol for short). He has discovered his Wheel, and loves running on it, as tiny baby Hamsters do. You heard it here first.

[Darth Marmalade]

Let's see now. I just uploaded two more pictures to the Road Squadron Yahoo! group, not of the Jetta, but of one of its ancestors. Go look!

Weekend before last, I showed off the Jetta at the DC Area Star Wars Collectors' Club "Roadshow" event (not quite our kind of road, but more like "Antiques Roadshow"). It was a successful event, but attention was diverted from my car by the arctic chill in the air outside.

And in Hamster news, our Kol turned out to be a poor underage barefoot unwed teenage mama Hamster, and surprised us with a litter of baby tiny baby Hamsters on January 3rd. It's been quite an adventure, but they're almost grown now and three of them (Taviz, Princess, and Radiant) have been adopted already, leaving three more kids (Rose, Barion, and Ascher) still with us and needing good homes.

[Red Two]

J3 was a lamp shade?!? I can't imagine... The Meerkat's mask job must have been something to set up. Nice job. Haven't signed up for yahoo yet, but when i eventually do, I'll chk the other pix. Congrats.

[Darth Marmalade]

Did some painting today:



Mostly I'm happy with the design, although I think it looked better on paper. But I'm really surprised at how much of the existing paint came up with the masking tape:



So now I'll have to fix that. Maybe some white Rustoleum in a can, mixed with a little black to try to approximate the grey primer color, and a foam brush.

[hanchwy]

Your RS ride looks great. I know what it is like to have the tape take off part of the paint. I can't wait to see your ride in person. Keep up the great work.

[Darth Marmalade]

Meanwhile, this counts as news:

www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-ho.ar.artcars20jul20,0,7633537.story

Check it out while you can; I'm sure it won't be up for long. You might have to copy and paste the url into your browser's navigation line... window... thingy. What is that called? Don't forget to click on the "photos" link!

[JediAmy]

Coolness.

[Darth Marmalade]

Here are some pictures from these last few days at Artscape, the annual arts festival here in Baltimore. I was there with Meerkat Six for all three days. I was in a better parking space on Friday, closer to the other art cars. Saturday saw the art car parade through downtown Baltimore, and I managed to attach the hyperspace engines and J3 well enough to withstand moving at parade pace. J3 and the hubcaps are all held on with nice neodymium alloy magnets via eBay.







This was my inspiration for the hyperspace engines. I want to make the top half of the ring, but didn't manage it for this weekend. I'm not even satisfied with my engines yet, but it seems like all art cars are works-in-progress. I had already started painting my car before this toy came out, so the color scheme is pure coincidence -- but probably contributed to my decision to try a hyperspace ring.

There were three other cars there with Star Wars toys among their decorations, but all as collections of mostly random objects. Curiously, two of them, along with my car, had some version of Jar Jar Binks.

Friday I figured it was too hot to wear a costume. That was a mistake, and I knew it -- whenever I have an excuse to wear a costume, and don't wear one, I regret it. So Saturday I wore my Jedi robes -- hot on a summer day in Baltimore, but totally worth it (and this weekend wasn't as hot as it might have been; for July in Baltimore, the weather was just about perfect). Sunday I was in my sparkly robe that's not specifically Star Wars, but very skiffy and good for an arts festival.

Artscape was the last Big Thing that I had planned for this summer. There's still NASFic, and the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and Gaylaxicon, and maybe DragonCon, but I don't really need to do anything for any of them besides show up. So, a little time to breathe... then we'll see what project I want to tackle next. Maybe that full-scale Lady Cassandra I've been wanting to build....

[Red Two]

When I first saw the close up of the 'tape-paint pulls' i thought 'cool'. Then I read your disappointment and intention to fix the problem...

I've been looking at old, beat up cars on the road lately and that is exactly the paint-chip/weathering look they have and I was trying to figure out how to get that for my next ride. I think that pulled-up paint technique could be used to great advantage.

For instance, throw down a base silver as primer and let that set for a full week at the least, then overcoat with a gray or other base color and while that is still 'wet', mask your stripes/details. Then rip that tape off as violently as you can. This should yield a bare metal flaking effect.

Of course, at Meerkat's stage, this is a bit more complicated. But I think you could do it as a spot effect here and there -of course, letting your current paint job cure for several more weeks first. Use it on some orange paneling too. Those panels look sweet, but they're a bit clean.

Personally, I think that maroon undercoat flaking through is good. It gives the ship a 'generations-old' feel. Your grandfather's paintjob on the ol' girl coming through as it were. And if you could scrape even under that to the car's true base coat, all the better!

Throwing some silver on top to achieve a bare-metal look, will look like you threw some silver on top to achieve a bare-metal look. The deeper you can chip, the more authentic it will look. Afterall, Lucas' design goal was a truly gritty dirty universe. I say push it!!! Truly.

Those hyperdrives kick ass!!! Were they a custom fab, standard harware store parts, or random finds???

If you've got a proper airbrush, throwing a shadow line along the orange panels will make them pop off and give a nice depth look from few feet away. A counterpoint highlight would make them truly look like plating.

Nice work!

[Darth Marmalade]

I definitely need to be more open to serendipity in this project. You're absolutely right, the chipped paint is very much a part of the Star Wars aesthetic, as are the rust holes behind the rear wheels, which need to be covered somehow to keep stuff in the trunk dry, but which could really be made to look like battle damage. Likewise the battle damage on the right front corner.

I've repainted some of the roof, but not all. I'll have to leave some of the maroon showing... or pull up some other grey somewhere else.

The hyperdrives are buckets! A mop bucket for the intake, a five-gallon bucket for the middle, and a beach sand pail for the exhaust! They still need a lot more detailing (and I'm about to break down and buy two five-gallon buckets that match), and of course the ring (or demi-ring or arch -- the bottom part of the ring will have to remain partially phased into hyperspace so that the wheels can still touch the ground).

I love the airbrush shadow idea. I have an old secondhand airbrush around here somewhere....

[Red Two]

Those are simple buckets? No kiddin'! Genius!

You definitely gotta seal up those rust holes though... Throw some directional flat black spray around to suggest blaster hits... I guess for real battle damage, you would need a proper blowtorch to cut into the body for a drippy-fusion blast look -or a 16lb sledge could give some good blunt trauma! (or some artfully globbed-on bondo-type-stufff could be the ticket there!)

As for the airbrush idea, (spray cans are too random and clumsy) just hold a big piece of cardboard along the panel line and walk it around the car with you. Tape the opposing panel line off sharply as that would essentially be highlighted side of the next panel. You need the contrast to pop the illusion off the surface .-short of some kind of glued-on panels of some sort, I can't guess what would work for that offhand unless you got a full bodyshop going on...

The trick will be getting the fade into the sharp edge of the next panel... Practice getting the stroke down on some plywood laying around or something similar with a big surface -and then don't worry about screwing up on the car, cos it is a beat-up old (though cherished friend of a) starfighter afterall!

Rock that sh*t!!!

[Darth Marmalade]

Some photos from this year's Artscape here:

tinyurl.com/553bzx

Meerkat Six didn't make it (still no brakes), but I was there in my X-Wing Pilot outfit, and there were other aliens, and a Back to the Future car.

[Darth Marmalade]

Meerkat Six was stolen this past weekend, along with my old Van and Mercury Topaz. We were away for the weekend, and think our cars were hauled away for scrap sometime Saturday. Keep your eyes open for them, but I fear they may be lost forever.