TRANSPORTER MOBILES
A Variety of Modelling Techniques
This pair of futuristic trucks each began life as a chassis section with six wheels that came from a cheap, $10 plastic fire engine toy from my local Solly’s outlet. With sheet plastic bracing added, the basis for the mobiles was now strong enough to begin building on to them.
The original toy fire engine chassis with its three pairs of wheels. Styrene plastic sheet was used to strengthen the section as it was fairly flimsy and made from soft, cheap plastic. The wheels were removed and painted separately. The various locater tubes for the screws were cut off and a “floor” of styrene added to build the trucks’ body shapes onto. The two trucks were worked on together.
The cargo container for the red truck was a plastic remote control unit for a toy. A model train carriage “roof” became the top, while Evergreen strip and corrugated styrene detailed the body. The other truck was constructed from sheet styrene completely.
Since I wanted the two cabins to be identical on the trucks, I carved the basic form from balsa and vacformed a pair of them. The ”protuberances” at the front were trimmed towards the end of construction. These became the mobiles’ headlights. Some disguised kit parts were laid out flat and a mould made in order to have them copied in resin.
The interior of each mobile is identical because of the use of the resin kit copies. After grey priming the various sections, the cabin interiors were sprayed with acrylic lacquer and then masked with Tamiya tape while the exteriors were painted. I used a combination of two basic colours on both trucks, a red and a silver-blue, to emphasise that these were operated by the same company and were quite similar in appearance and function.
Detailing was achieved with pinstriping tape and a few decals. Weathering with an airbrush completed the pair of mobiles and they were sealed with a combination of gloss and matt varnishes.
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