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'50s Batmobile interior

6K views 47 replies 21 participants last post by  Apachedug 
#1 ·
This is mostly an excuse to show off, and to get the hang of this camera. I'll get more detailed shots of teh interior after I unscrew the thing, but these show how the paint scheme works with the cool black body.

Since many cars of an older age had interiors that stressed wood paneling, I thought that would eb a good choice here. Batman's colors are a matter of personal taste, but I most think of him as black and grey, with the odd yellow highlights. This was painted to suit. Hope you like it. I was happy with it...

..and let me say again that this was one beautifully made kit. I couldn't be happier with it!
 

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#3 · (Edited)
Hey, thanks! :) Do give it a shot, it's just a matter of painting the interior.
I'm no car guy...well, I like them but am no good at them. That's what I love about this diecast, I can't possbly make the exterior look bad! :lol:

Hope I'm not using up my allotted space at Hobby Talk for pics. Myabe I better delete a few old ones...
 

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#6 · (Edited)
The interior is trimmed with Bare Metal Foil, except for the gizmo in back (tTestors aluminum) and the fire extinguisher handles (painted Testors silver and looking appropriately duller than the chrome trim by comparison).

The wood was painted in Camel and Cappucino acrylic paints from Folk Art, and grain added with reddish-brown pencil (then washed again very lightly with the Folk Art colors, just enough for tinting/blending).

For the readout on the gizmo in back, I ran a search on spectromatography, resized and printed up the best pic I could find (though for '50s technology it shouldn't have been in color).

The display screens on the dash have pics cut out of the film noir section of a Kino's catalog. The passenger side screen should be a radar image, but I couldn't find a decent one that was still intelligible when resized.
 
#8 ·
That is an amazing job!

I am doing mine in a dark cherry wood finish. Your dash is inspirational, though. Great pictures like yours raise the bar for me.

I have also decided that I like my Bat-cars in midnight blue, with silver (not chrome) accents. So, I have stripped all of the parts and am re-painting.

Thanks for getting me back into the studio!

Deane
 
#14 ·
I don't know what I can add that hasn't already been said. Just simply beautiful. Outstanding use of colors. Marvelous job of applying said colors. I am both inspired and intimidated to build mine now.
Excellent piece of work Dreamer. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, and I agree, JL did a fantastic job on this model.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Thank you, everybody! That kit was a joy to build (aside from screwing on the fin...) and paint.

Terry, that's just exactly the way I like to paint wood! :thumbsup: Didn't know if I could pull that off, but it turned out okay. For the wood paneling: I wanted that specific wood color to reflect the usual yellow in the costume's black, grey, and yellow (seems like an awful lot of yellow looking at just the interior, but once it's engulfed in that huge gloss black car body it comes out just right). As luck would have it, I have a folding food tray made of exactly that wood. Just painted the kit to copy what I saw in the real thing. Some trial and error was involved getting the right color of pencil for the grain, though, some too dark and some too red.

That follows my style in painting figure kits, which has always been to favor realism. My only regular formula or method is to find examples of kit objects to emulate, and then match the colors, patterns, and textures by eye. Batman, I went out and found a tree that looked the same. The Witch kit, found a book on Medeaval life with good photos at the library...that sorta thing.
 
#24 ·
My problem has been finding a color scheme for the interior that is consistent enough for my liking. Having a floor pan made out of diamond plate (chrome) makes for such a strange contrast to the rest of the vehicle.

The majority of my batmobiles have black interiors, but for the level of quality for this model, it just seemed like a crime to paint it all black.
 
#25 ·
Thanks, TRENDON & FT!

daikins, I know what ya mean. I had the same problem with the PL styrene '60s Batmobile. I finally decided the exterior would be a metallic black with red trim to emulate the tv car, and somebody here posted a really nice JL '60s diecast BM with a dark red interior I thought looked great. Plus, it matches the red trim...and an early Batmobile in the comics did have red stripes at the wheels. Not knowing what to do about the floor, I ended up painting it flat steel, and that turned out ok with the deep reds.

Honestly, I wouldn't know what else to do with it. Plus, I have an unfinished '50s batmobile from Horizon, and no idea what to paint that!

It won't look as good as this one here, because there were a few things I couldn't get the Bare Metal Foil to adhere to well and had to handpaint silver...which doesn't look as good to my eye, too dull compared to other elements and I just couldn't paint it as crisply as I'd hoped for.

I really ought to get back to it and finish. One of Robin's arms is missing. I hate to ask Dave if there's still an open kit of this for parts replacement when it's my own fault for losing it, but I ought to be able to make a new one with epoxy putty.
 
#26 ·
Dreamer-

You can have my un-used Robin. I like the cars without the figures.

I think I am going to paint the diamond plate gunmetal, so that it still retains the metallic aspect but does not offer such a jarring contrast to the woods and upholstery.

I too have the Horizon kit, as well as it's 80's counterpart. With the '80's I went with an all-black interior, after deciding the light grey color in the comics was just silly. I think the contrast works in the comics (needing neutral light colors as the background to the bright colors of the costumes, etc.), but not as a 3-D model.

The Horizon '50's kit is now on deck to be re-worked into the "Bubble-mobile" that was drawn in most of the late-50's by artist Shelly Moldoff. It had a full bubble canopy, flat trunk surface, and a fin that extended soley from the rear of the car. I have been leveling the back of the car and am trolling for a cheap Big Daddy Roth kit for the bubble top. Hoepfully the fit will be okay, but the laboratory will go the way of bondo (as illustrated in the comics). It should look really cool when done.

I just started using Bare Metal Foil and found it challenging. I used it on my PL Batboat. I went nuts on the kit, adding all the red-orange pinstripes, figuring out paint friskets, and decided that the silver paint wouldn't cut it. While I usually don't like chrome on my model cars, the BMF really makes that model work, but boy, the curves on the windshields and trim were tough.

I will figure out how to take some pictures of it and my 1940 Batmobile and try posting.

deane
 
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