"OK, show me..." Christine (1/25 Plymouth Fury) and Darnell's Garage Diorama

Frantikgirl

New Member
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After finishing my Mad Max War Rig last year. I wanted to develop some different modeling skills: glossy paint instead of matte, clean instead of dirty, a detailed diorama, and most importantly, lights. I'd never done lights before. So, I decided to try another car. I'm a big Stephen King fan, and there was really only one car that had everything I wanted. My old girl Christine.

One big plus to kit-bashing your own War Rig, is that you end up with tons of random unused model car parts just sitting in boxes waiting for a purpose (not to mention decal sheets, tires, etc). Perfect for building a junkyard garage like Darnell's from the movie.

One thing I wanted was to recreate the mood from the '83 John Carpenter movie poster.
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The ghostly glow from the grill never appears in the movie, but I love the look, so I had to cut lots of little slots in the solid plastic grill of the model, in order to get the glow effect.

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I have a lot to learn about making flawless gloss paint. It's far from perfect, but I can live with it as a learning experience.

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I also wanted evidence of Christine's crimes to be visible. So there's bloody tire tracks leading up to the garage stall.

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The garage has lights behind the huge windows, but most of the Creepshow-style lighting comes from Christine herself. Green from the interior dashboard lights, red from the taillights. and blue from under the hood.

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I'm really pleased with how the garage came out. Lots of small details and cruddy rust, as a contrast to clean Christine.

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And finally, I didn't want to have to dust the diorama every other day to keep it looking nice, so I decided to build it a clear acrylic case (also something I've never tried.

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And that's that. I love how it all came out.
 

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That's fantastic! I would be really cool to do one with a panel or two as an air bladder in a somewhat flexible material that could be deflated to look crumpled and inflated to pop out and look new. I'm sure it would take a lot of experimentation, and it might be difficult or impossible to do and retain that perfect glossy finish, but it would be epic. :)
 
This is fantastic. The car model itself is amazing (a '58 Fury is my bucket list car IRL because of this book/movie), but I think my favorite detail is the "s" missing from the oil drum so that it reads "hell." Brilliant.

I have a kit of this and every time I look at it in the stash I debate whether to do a pristine Christine, or a rusted junk heap as she was when Arnie first sees her. Maybe I just need to get a second kit and do both...
 
This is fantastic. The car model itself is amazing (a '58 Fury is my bucket list car IRL because of this book/movie), but I think my favorite detail is the "s" missing from the oil drum so that it reads "hell." Brilliant.

I have a kit of this and every time I look at it in the stash I debate whether to do a pristine Christine, or a rusted junk heap as she was when Arnie first sees her. Maybe I just need to get a second kit and do both...

I can't take full credit for the "hell" oil drum. I saw something like it in a Vietnam war documentary. A Shell station in Saigon was on fire and the "s" was missing. I realized that I happened to have left over shell oil decals from my War Rig build. Viola!

I've seen a lot of rusted out Christines. It's a great look and weathering is super fun. I had just done a ton of rusting and weathering on my Mad Max stuff, so I wanted to go different.

How about split the difference? There's a point a few weeks after Arnie gets Christine where she's half wrecked and half shiny. It's one of the creepy things about how he's putting her back together... half the grill is new, one quarter panel, etc. Might be cool.
 
Nicely done!

I haven’t seen this movie in years but you nailed that garage scene!

I think I have a ‘58 fury in my model collection (unbuilt) if anyone wants one. Might be a JoHan...
 
Love the detail work on this diorama. The license plates from Bullitt Mustang GT390 & the Lincoln Continental from Entourage is a nice touch.
 
This is a truly astounding work of art for so many reasons! Congratulations!
Christine is the one book I've read more than any other, and whilst the film was a bit of a disappointment, there are still many great scenes - "Show me" being one of the best!
I started my own project many many (15?) years ago to do a diorama of the the LeBay's driveway scene where we first see her all rusted up - this required the use of 2 of the AMT kits so that I could open up the doors and boot (sorry, trunk!) on one body and have usable parts cut from the other. Then all the other body damage was being added too but sadly it fell by the wayside. maybe this will be the inspiration to dig it all out and finish it off!
 
This is a truly astounding work of art for so many reasons! Congratulations!
Christine is the one book I've read more than any other, and whilst the film was a bit of a disappointment, there are still many great scenes - "Show me" being one of the best!
I started my own project many many (15?) years ago to do a diorama of the the LeBay's driveway scene where we first see her all rusted up - this required the use of 2 of the AMT kits so that I could open up the doors and boot (sorry, trunk!) on one body and have usable parts cut from the other. Then all the other body damage was being added too but sadly it fell by the wayside. maybe this will be the inspiration to dig it all out and finish it off!
Thanks!

My last big project, the War Rig from Mad Max, took about 5 years and seven separate model kits. So I feel your pain. :p Hope you go back to your diorama. I love the feeling of finishing something this complex.
 
Unbelievable! Fantastic job

I built that model 5 or 6 years ago and it's just sitting around collecting dust. You may have just inspired me to pull it out and make something cool.
 
Fantastic work. Always nice to see Christine projects.

I've always wanted to do the "attack" version with the gouged/torn hood which makes the jagged metal look like a fanged mouth.

So, which model kits are there of the 58 Fury? I remember thinking of a Christine project many years ago and there weren't any mass produced kits.
 

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