Whew! I've been working on this thing almost every night for two weeks. I can't remember having to work so hard on an "out of the box" build in a long time. This is a deceptive little bugger.... always a new detail lurking behind every corner. I've still got a ways to go (and so the canopy is not glued on yet) but it can be displayed while I walk away from it for a while and I get my second wind .

Basically this is an out of the box build, with only a few mods so far. I added a new base and some detailing to the mount for the scanner, added some detailing to the radar dish, and built a small mounting bracket for the laser rifles (not shown in the pics).

I diverged from the kit's painting instructions in a number of places, mostly to add a little bit of depth and detail here and there, but also to correct a few fairly major errors (such as, the floor is light gray, and not orange).

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/john_trek/LIS%20CHARIOT/Chariot1_half.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/john_trek/LIS%20CHARIOT/Chariot2.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/john_trek/LIS%20CHARIOT/Chariot3.jpg

There are a couple things I really don't like, such as the curtains and especially the treads. I have yet to paint and weather the treads, which should help remove a lot of the 'toy' feel to the model. I skipped installing the 'cross cabin' curtains because they just don't look right to me. I did a lot of highlighting with the window curtains, and they came out looking very nice.

But all in all, I'm pretty happy with this kit. For what I paid for it, and considering how long we have waited for "the real thing" in this subject, I'm a very happy camper. Thank you, Moebius.

Beautiful build. Beautiful paint job. I love the various metal tones - they really bring depth to the model and make it seem like those could be photos of something much larger.

Very nice!

That's an excellent build man! I finally got my fiasco with my order straightened out and mine should be here next week! Looking forward to starting it, but really looking forward to getting some of the resin figures for it!

GREAT JOB SIR!!!!:thumbsup:

VERY NICE BUILD.


BP

:thumbsup: That is one fantastic job mate. Well done I say, well done.

I like the mix of metalics too. Some good ideas/tips you have shown there. :)

Very clean build; your diligence, patience, eye for detail and very steady hand are serving you well on this magnificent build-up! :)

MAN!!! That looks FANTASTIC!!:thumbsup: I hope mine turns out HALF as nice as that!!

Wayne

Hello John

Very nice build, what orange paint did you use? It is the tint of orange I would like to use on mine. From the images an the live reel I saw, it is the color I figured it should be..... GREAT...

Gaétan

:thumbsup:

Looking good!

What painting solution did you use for canopy inner orange outer silver dilemma?

Looks great! Only thing I really want to add to mine is working headlights I think. Maybe an interior light or two?

I used Testors Model Master International Orange - FS12197. It comes out a wee bit glossier than I would like, but that is most apparent on the larger surfaces, and most of those are either on the interior, or underneath, so it's not a huge problem. I may yet go back and spray on a bit of dull coat over the orange foot wells and transmission case just to tone down the problem.

As for the inner orange / outer silver problem... my solution was not very elegant. I painted the inner framework orange, and then turned around and did the outer frame gloss silver. The inner frame was done 3 or 4 frames at a time, individually masked, and hand painted! That was pretty painful, and the paint tends to not adhere well, so you get lots of see-through spots and .... well, I'm preaching to the choir on this one. We all know what happens with a gloss paint on an unprimed surface. And we all know what happens when you aim an airbrush inside a concave surface... the whole area fills up with a paint fog that goes everywhere except where you're aiming. So you have to mask EVERYTHING on the planet. Including the wall, the floor, other nearby model parts, and the cat. Just not worth it, IMHO.

Painting it by hand worked fairly well. A couple things I discovered as I went along. Try to make the inner frame at least as wide, if not a little wider, than the outer frame. Definately avoid making the outer silver wider than the inner orange strip. To exactly duplicate the Chariot appearance the inner frame is something like twice as wide as the outer, but I don't think that needs to happen everywhere. To the human observer, from any given angle, even seeing orange peeking around the edge of half or even one quarter of the frame gives a very good effect. Plus, your eye is naturally drawn to the interior, and the orange frame on the far side really stands out.

Something else I found .... it's really easy to cheat on the interior. Most of what the casual eye sees from the outside looking across to the other side is the vertical frame parts on the opposite side. There are a number of horizontal sections (and a couple of verticals on the upper curves) I forgot or never got around to painting. You really don't notice unless you go out of your way to mentally ask the question: am I seeing orange on every single frame piece on the opposite side? Well heck, if I stand next to just about any model and spend five minutes looking at every depression and rivet I am bound to find errors, ommisions, and tricks the modeler used in his build. In this case, the large number of frame pieces and the geometric complexity and clutter really help out. As long as three quarters of the frame paint job on the interior is correct, the observer is very unlikely to notice... and even if he does, he is most likely going to assume that it was supposed to be done that way (as long as the 'error' follows some sort of pattern).

fantastic job
that robot looks like hes getting around, nice job on him too!

Thanks John, very enlightening...

Gaétan

Very nice model. One minor detail on the Robot you might want to fix/change... since the claws are red, and the spinning thingies on the neck are red and yellow... the back of the chest plate (rectangle where the lights are) should be black. Those colors were added for season two. Season one had an all metal robot with silver claws, silver spinners and silver chest plate.

I debated the Robot's paint job as I started in on it. I ended up with a hybrid... the arms and legs are a darker grey than a 2-3 year paint job, but a bit lighter than year 1. I thought the red upper chest "talk" light looked so-so when it was animated, but didn't like the idea of it when static, so I backed it with a dark ghost gray. The chest plate should be a very dark gray, came out lighter than I wanted, but it looks darker in normal room light than the pictures show. I made the claws a slightly darker red than the year 2 version. And so on.....

I'll say this about the Robot part of this kit. It is excellent. It is so well engineered that it is almost like getting a second model in the box for free. The only change I plan on making is to add a small power pack on the right side.

How's the scale of the robot with the indiana jones figures, or the smaller scale Gi Joes? He might make a good companion for them as well...

one of the nice things about this build is the perfect job he did on the canopy frames. You have to appreciate the nice, clean silver and orange lines. it's the hardest part of the model to get right and clean. Hope I can get mine half as nice!

I was working on the robot today... IMHO he is more of an afterthought. Not "bad" but somewhat poor. The funny cut marks behind where the arms fit are poor. And the way the leg seam goes right through the detail on the sides of the base is impossible to fix. Also the claws are more or less flat but on the real thing they curve inwards.

John, I agree with everyone. FANTASTIC job on the Chariot. Seeing yours makes me want to paint my floor a shade of grey now. Doing so really does make the seats and the benches on the wall stand out well.

I had a question on your build though. Is your sensor dish missing the "probe" in the center, or am I just not seeing it? I didn't know if you added it after the pics, but just thought I'd point it out to you.

Again, fantastic job on the window trims, and all the other fine details. Seeing your curtains you "weathered" really does show that the kit provided ones can look great.

Best of luck with the base finishing, and detailing the robot. I added a power pack to the side of mine as well. He really looks "wrong" without one on his side. ( You would think they would have moulded one for him in the kit parts! )

Congrats, and keep up the great work!

Sincerely,
Scorp.

"Boldly GO!" :woohoo: :wave:

Thanks Scorp. I had originally painted the floor orange, and installed the benches and robot stand. Only afterwards did I notice that the floor was really gray. Took a bit of work to mask everything off at that point and repaint the floor, but it was really worth it. Makes the contents just jump out at you.

You are correct, the center probe on the radar dish is not installed yet. The dish isn't glued on yet, it's one of the unfinished items. I'm also planning on replacing the 'luggage' with individual pieces, and lord knows what else when I get back to this job in a couple weeks.

Sigh.... it never ends. But damn worth the effort.

Nice job on the model, I'm building the same model now. What's the best way to glue the treads? I'm finding they won't stay together. Thanks.

Nice job, indeed! How did you glue the treads as I am building the same model & the kit's instructions aren't clear on this step. Thanks