Bill and Norm paint up these delicious castings from artist Alfred Paredes that were created for the most recent Monsterpalooza. These Crazy Cupcakes are Alfred's latest in his rotten food series of sculpts, and we try our hand at giving them a realistic paint job. Not all goes as plan, though, and this project turns into a lesson of adaptation and rolling with our mistakes. Find the kits here!
In this Ask Adam Anything, Adam is delighted to address Wolfin Sylvermane's question, "I've been enjoying Savage Builds very much and I've noticed you've been wearing a beautiful pair of brown gloves. I'd really like to know which they are." Ask your own question in the comments section below or on social media (tagged #AskAdamSavage)!
Model Behavior is back! This week's garage kit is a 3D printed model of Kaneda's iconic motorcycle from Akira. It was designed by Juri Pranjic (aka 3Dworkbench) and is super fun to put together! We hope that this inspires more people to support 3D artists who offer beautiful 3D models for printing at home.
The full hour of Adam's annual Sunday sermon from Bay Area Maker Faire 2019, including the question and answer portion after the talk!
Time for some distressing and weathering! Kayte and Norm take two scale models designed for tabletop wargaming and add paint, dust, grime, and foliage to age them a few hundred years. What does a house look like in the post-apocalpyse after nature has taken over? This is our idea of fun!
Kayte and Norm have fun applying some freeform water slide decals on two plastic figures, experimenting with different application techniques for getting the decals to stick on perfectly. What are your tips for working with water slide decals?
Continuing with our practice of experimenting with miniature effects we've seen online, Kayte and Norm try their hand at building a snow scene with a previously-assembled tank model and rocky terrain display. Watch as we make snow puddles, melted snow, and simulated powder for this winter war scene!
We're once again taking on a garage kit from one of our favorite modelmakders, Futuristic Models. This kit is based on the retro-tastic Grumman moon suit tested in 1965 and featured in Life magazine. Bill and Norm prep and paint the kit, polish the clear plastic parts, and break out the vinyl cutter to finish the job.
It's been a while since we've put together a garage kit from start to finish, so we're stoked to assemble this garage kit from friend of Tested Michael Sng (aka Machinatino Studio)! Kayte and Norm clean up the parts, knoll them out, prep and prime, and then piece this Panzer II walking tank together. As a finishing touch, we airbrush some shading onto the tank to give plates some definition.
You may have seen this figure in recent toy photography videos, and here's how it got this way! Bill and Norm take paint brushes and blades to two Mezco 1:12 collective figures to weather their clothes and give them a little more grit and grime. A little bit of distressing can go a long way with these figures!
Using the lessons we learned from experimenting with cotton batting to create smoke effects, Kayte and Norm try their hands on sculpting the exhaust for rockets in flight. We use photo references to guide our plumes, and light up the effect with some cheap LED lights.
Kayte and Norm experiment with a technique for creating smoke effects for our miniature model builds, using simple cotton batting and some paint. For creating smoke at this scale, we sculpt the cotton and trim it to work with our models and give it some volume. It's a fun effect that we're going to keep on using!
We're starting to the get the hang of these kits! Now it's time to finish the ARK fallout shelter with its final module: the vault door. We've had so much fun putting this together, and would recommend it even for non-wargamers. Now to think about the painting and weathering possibilities...
The team overcomes a few hiccups in the build and complete their respective sections, and it's time to start joining the modules. We're continued to be impressed by the design of this laser cut kit, which even can be populated by 3d printed decor. Next up, the big finale!
Now that we've gotten a sense of how the Black Site Studio laser cut kits come together, the team divys up the rest of the ARK fallout shelter set to being assembling individual modules. Norm runs into a hiccup with a missing piece, Sean demonstrates some on-the-spot problem solving, and Jeremy discovers the wonders of glue accelerant!
Jeremy, Sean, and Norm try their hand at a new kind of build kit: laser-cut modular terrain for use with tabletop wargaming. This set is from Black Site Studio, and is a miniature fallout shelter made for use with the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare game. Let's break open the package and see how the pieces come together!
Bill and Norm build this delightful garage kit from Daniel Dawson, a 3D printed flying retro car model. For this project, we wnted to give this car a shiny candy coated finish, and experiment with two different applications of glossy clear coats: an Alclad lacquer Klear Kote and off the shelf floor gloss!
One daunting aspect of modelmaking is the painting of figure heads and portraits. To get over our fear of ruining a sculpture, we mold and cast a batch of heads to work on. Kayte and Norm each take a sculpt and paint them in quick succession, learning from each practice attempt and refining their workflow.
Bill and Norm meet back up in Adam shop over a month after they first began work on the Iron Giant garage kit to continue the process of piecing this massive figure together and giving it another layer of paint and grime. With each pass, we're amazed by how this resin model's rusted look evolves into something that looks truly old and heavy. (Watch part 1 of this build here in case you missed it!)
One of our favorite animated films is Iron Giant, so for this week's Model Behavior, Bill and Norm begin the process of prepping and assembling a massive Iron Giant garage kit (made by FX artist Jon Miller). Using a posable Mondo figure as our reference for pose, we paint and prep the pieces to look like aged metal!
