WWG Sportscars

These four sleek-looking sportscars come from the WWG Bits of Mayhem set. You have a choice of four colours - black, red, white and yellow - to choose from. I've made one of each colour.

As you would expect, they are quite low to the ground. I should have included a figure in the pictures to give a sense of their size.

Can anyone recognise what make of car they are? No, I couldn't either, not that I'm very good at car recognition. According to the instructions that came with this set, this is a Lambourarri. It's good to see that WWG designers have a sense of humour. Actually, I like the name. It is obviously not meant to represent a particular sportscar, rather it is just a generic sportscar.

One of the problems with WWG vehicles is that each particular vehicle has the same number plate. Although to be fair to WWG, in this case, four alternative number plates are provided as optional extras. However, it is a bit of a cop-out as they all contain the same six numbers and letters of the original, only they have been rearranged differently. I suppose it would be an easy enough task to kitbash some new plates as well as some vanity plates, which would be cool. On the other hand, given how small they are, who's going to notice? Still, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my card models, so I will make each one different at some point.

These side views show how sleek the cars look. I must warn any potential builders out there that this is not any easy car to make. Basically, you have to make the front half and the back half then glue them together. Looking at the instructions, I couldn't help but think how incredibly fiddly it looked and the joining of the two halves seemed fraught with danger. I totally ignored the instructions because of the way that I make my card models. I began with building the roof and working down from there, making the sides next, follwed by the back, then the front and penultimately, the undercarriage. The wheels went on last.
I have mentioned countless times before that I print my models out onto photopaper and glue the parts to thick mounting card (or artboard if you live in the USA). As a consequence, when I cut the parts out, I also cut off the tabs for joining the pieces together. At first glance, this may seem like a dumb thing to do, but it does make sense. You see, mounting card is thick enough to glue to itself along the thickness of the card. Therefore, there is no need for locator tabs. Plus, the thickness of the mounting card would totally screw up any nice flush joins if I left the tabs on. Often, I have to cut the mounting card slightly smaller than the piece I'm gluing it to just to get a snug fit. It is a very different technique to the one shown in the WWG instruction guides but it has become second nature to me. The primary reason that I build this way is simply because I want my models to last. There is no question at all that my way is a lot more time-consuming than that recommended by WWG but my models will surely outlive me!
One other point that I want to make about my four sportscars is that some of the joins around the windows were not as smooth as I wanted. So I added a thin strip of modelling putty to them and smoothed them with my finger. The result - perfect edges. I was able to do this because of the strength and thickness of the mounting card. Finally, when it comes to "edging" (i.e. colouring in the edges) my models, I always use Citadel acrylic paints. I prefer to use paints to felt-tip pens because I can match the colours far better and the paint helps to seal the edges.
I built these as a batch of four rather than making them individually to save time. Build time was three days, working at least a couple of hours per day. They were complex models, compared to say, the pick-up trucks, but the end results are stunning. I'm very proud of them.