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London Country 480 Routemaster - the old school bus!

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This is awesome Andrew. I'm really enjoying watching this come together.

Jason
 
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Moving along from the last post, here we have the front of the bus painted and weathered...

and the side view showing the driver's door. Its a shame they don't give you the option of having the driver's door open!

Next is the dents I've added into the roof - particularly at the front!

The purple is the masking fluid going on to help with the paint chipping and wear later. This amount of damage is not excessive, but usually found at the front, particularly on the kerb side from impacts with tree branches and so on.

The windows have been masked up to allow painting the opening mechanisms and frames:

Lots of windows!!!

Finally in this update, I've been working on the figures that will populate the bus interior, so let us first start with the conductor:

Here you see him with the first fittong of the belts for the ticket mahcine and change bag. These were all made from tamiya tape. The wide straps will be painted black and I'll be adding some silver clasps and hooks using some leftover cockpit PE from the spares box. I'm quite pleased with how the ticket machine came out. I salvaged some scraps from the spares box, including some old PE for the really small details.

The rest of the passengers are a motley assortment:

The faces have received and initial oil wash, which will need some touching up to remove the various "black eyes" that some of them appear to have acquired! The shinyness is from the oil washes they've received after the matt paint had been applied. There are two versions of the same figure, but I'll put one upstiars and one downstairs to keep them apart so its less noticable. Pity there aren't any more sitting dwon figures in this collection. Personally I think the bloke in the hat is rather supicious, sitting with his hands in his pockets liek that with so many women around!!!
 
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Yep! How many people! :)

Excellent work so far. The conductor is spot on!
 
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This is looking amazing, and coming together a lot quicker than mine!!!!

Cheers, Andrew
 
Very nice work on the figures Andrew should really bring the bus to life when completed
 
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Been a busy week so thought I'd take a few snaps to record the progress. Since I last posted, the lower desck has been completed, its roof added and the upper deck added. The figures have been finished and put in place. The wheels have also been attached and the underside weathered using washes and pigments. The underside of the rear deck has been extensively "muddied up has have the wheel arches.

I've built up a simple base using an old picture frame with plaster of paris infil, a layer of black emery paper to represent the tarmac road, some milliput to put kerbstones in and then black stained claycrete to represent the tarmac coated pavement. Some leaf litter and grasses have been added to give it a bit more life.

The outer panels have been primed, silvered, kleared, hairsprayed, overcoated and then distressed. They have now been assembled around the core and weathered some more.

Yet to do: windows need putting in and decals need sorting out. Having some issues witht he decals - the yellow text isn't thick enough to show up over the green paint. I'm goign to try again on the works colour printer on transparency mode to see if I can get it to lay down a thicker payer of ink.

So now for the photos - they were taken quickly so alignment is a bit out in a couple of them and the lighting a bit dodgy!

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This is a seriously dirty bus :)

I think I might have overdone the distressed paintwork on the upper deck panels, but the photos I found really do show the paintwork in as pitiful a condition!

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I looked through this thread and thought I had commented...obviously not. This is a wonderful build, really looks the photograph, excellent weathering and the figures add life to the model.

Superb build and a fave for me.

Si:)
 
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Dude this is an amazing piece of work, not my thing but Wow what a job on the pain work looks quality.

scott
 
That looks pretty much how I remember them...

Ian M
 
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Complete!

Here are some photos of the end result:

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I did have some issues with the decals for the "London Country" logos - the yellow is too faint on transparent decal paper so I had to try to match the background green on the decal which wasn't entirely successful and I've run out of white decal paper, but got some more on order so when that arrives I'll have another go with a rage of greens to get a better match.

However, in the meantime I'm very happy with the end result :)

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Andrew, this is absolutely extraordinary work mate. I love everything about it, I can almost smell the 70s and early 80s from my childhood when I look at the back entrance to the bus (never had double decker buses but the insides looked the same) Brilliant.
 
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I've very pleased and proud to announce that the model won the Member's Trophy last night at the Farnborough club - this is a 6 monthly special competition that this time around was for "Civilian Vehicles". There was some stiff competition from some other very good models, including a couple of decidedly knackered looking Minis :)
 
That brings back a few memories! Great job! Also congrats on the win.

Well worth five big stars.

Ian M
 
Hi Andrew,

So sorry for my lateness, this is simply stunning Sir, you have done it to a tee...

Top marks from me also*****...

Andy...
 
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