What's in the box: Hokum's House of Burlesque by FOS Scale Models

I have no idea who this Hokum guy is but I wouldn't mind at all if someone named such business after me. Looks like fun place to be around.

Project Update: Texaco Gas Station by Micro-scale Models

I am performing my victory dance. Not literally. More like mentally. Although I may have danced for real after applying finishing touches to the Gas Station. What is the reason for such celebration? This project should have been finished ions ago but few setbacks pushed it to the background. Bringing projects back to foreground for me present quite a challenge but I did it. Therefore, I think I have good reason for my victory dance.

What's in the box: Deignan's Bikini Car Wash by FOS Scale Models

Deignan's Bikini Car Wash says it all...

What's in the box: Rankin's Steakhouse by FOS Scale Models

Our office was closed one day last week during Snowmageddon so I had some unexpected free time. I worked on my projects and then I was taking pictures of them when I remembered my WITB project and how I had pretty much abandoned it. So I grabbed few boxes off of the shelf and took some shots of their content. I have more kits I could do WITB on but they all are behind other kits on the shelf and they are so nicely stacked. This is downside of being organized. One of the days I will pull them out and photograph but for now I have 7 kits that were easy to access.
First up is Rankin's Steakhouse by FOS Scale Models. It is hard to believe it has been entire year since its release.

What's in the box: Execution Rocks by FOS Scale Models

Want to a peek at what is inside of $600 plus kit? Here it is. Interestingly, I haven't seen any builds of Execution Rocks yet. There have been at least two right after release of Red Hook. However, since then its price on eBay reached almost $1500. I suspect not many are willing to start their kits which potentially may be worth that much.

Project Update: The Magic Shop by FOS Scale Models

All right here comes yet another project. The reason I started it was because I had nothing to work on during my lunch breaks. Everything I had at the time required home workbench setup. Actually story goes few months back. I prepared parts for it few months ago during my extra modeling time I found sometime in August of 2013. I didn't get the kit when it originally came out. Several attempts to buy it on eBay didn't work out until sometime in the fall of 2013. When I received I realized that it had heavy smoke smell. I couldn't take it home and put on the shelf in my modeling room. The smell would have been unbearable. Good thing parts didn't have a chance to absorb all the smoke. In addition the kit had been started. Not much progress had been made only windows and doors had been cut off of sprue and storefront parts had been removed from their sheets. A little later I realized that some windows had been misplaced and some replaced with ones of wrong size. That led to purchase of wrong windows. I should have checked openings in the walls instead relying on the windows I found in the box. Anyway after preparing parts I put them on the shelf until I can dedicate more time. The opportunity opened up couple of weeks or so ago.
It took me some time to figure out painting scheme. Then I remembered FSM Skinner's row. One of the buildings there is painted in three colors. Most of the time I try to avoid more than two but this structure was calling for something special. Skinner's instructions call for Floquil paints. I only had one color and with Floquil basically gone I had to find substitutes. I also didn't want to mix Floquil and acrylics. I have quite extensive collection of craft paints so the task wasn't extremely difficult. I had to guess green though. I had nothing to compare against. I think I did well. After painting all walls and windows I see that all colors working together. I will have to put this project on back burner soon though. I received a kit to build yesterday so it will take priority. It is quite large kit so it may be awhile before I'll have any update on this project.

Project Update: Texaco Gas Station by Micro-scale Models

While posting pictures yesterday I noticed that they had slight lemon yellow tint to them. I have been using same light setup and custom white balance for quite some time. Then I realized it must have been new goose-neck LED lamp I bought at IKEA couple of weeks ago. I think it was on at the time I was taking pictures. I bought the lamp to give me some more light in my work area. I wanted stronger light but I couldn't justify the price of bigger fixture. I found this small light that was producing quite strong light for its size. It isn't big enough to light entire workbench but is very good for spot lighting. Apparently the light is strong enough to mess with my pictures though.
The gas station is making baby steps but is surely moving forward. I could swear I had somewhere a file with scanned enlarged Texaco signs. I couldn't find it anywhere. Anyway I repeated the process yesterday and printed the signs. Now I have to weather them and glue over existing ones. I have mentioned why I want to do this in one of the earlier posts but I don't want to make anyone go back and look for it. Basically, dry transfer signs don't weather well. Anything I use just runs off without staining them. The signs look too new. Therefore I am replacing with ones. To make sure they completely cover old signs I have enlarged them a little.