Not that I’m up to that skill level, but I was curious as to what techniques would be used to reproduce collision dammage in an accident themed dio.?
I tried doing so as a kid by heating up the model ans smashing it against a heavy object, but it didn’t look convincing, soft plastic and sheet metal don’t really rect the same way to impact…
I’m just getting back to the hobby as an adult and would be interested to do things the right way now that I developped patience over the years.
The only thing that you need to do is down a soda and go for it … I used the alum can method after reading about it in the web. I practiced once and then went for it … got what I was looking for the second try.
As someone’s signature says on here … forget what other people think about it. Build to the standard that makes you happy. And there’s one thing that ALL of use have in common here … We ALL have the very first model … good or bad … we’ve all done it.
As far as bending up an alum piece … I try to stay away from too much detail. I.E. If you’re going to be crashing up a car hood, for example. I wouldn’t try to recreate the entire hood, but rather just a corner or one side. I’ve had a little success in laying the alum over a part and than working it over to try to copy the detail. Remember though, you’re still working with metal. But, depending on how smashed up you’re loooking for, a lot of detail could be … or could not be lost. The only thing that I’ve really used alum for is the internal ribbing in an aircraft. I’ve done 1x cutaway model, and 1x with wing damage. I’ve not done something on a larger scale which sounds like that’s what you want.
One thing you might think about is taking a trip down to your local junk yard. I think that it would give you some real inspiration and some good photo oppurtunity to help you with your subject.
Botom line though, The only way that someone can tell you that your model is wrong is if you’re not accurate in with your time period, your subject, etc … no body can tell you that your “dent” looks wrong!?! $10 bucks says that if you just go for it, you’ll learn more than you ever thought possible.