“Master Bruce?”
“Who else?”
“Of course, sir, but the signal, it’s coming from inside the–”
“That’s right, Alfred. I’m taking her out.”
First, a disclaimer — projects like this are never really done. Whenever Robo and Prod bug me about my city block playse t– Robo calls it “Distville” — I always counter that it’s not ready to show off because I haven’t done ____ yet. This isn’t quite that way, but there’s stuff I still would like to add should I come across the proper parts.
Anyway, that said, here’s where my custom one-off Batmobile ended up:
I did the pee-dance on colors for a while. I really wanted to incorporate some red striping, to evoke the ’66 Burris, but the lines of this vehicle don’t lend themselves to it quite like I had thought. And if you do red stripes on black the wrong way, you get the A-Team van, not a Batmobile.
But the jet black was boring. So, I did some airbrush work with a semi-translucent gray that I then streaked across the black base coat because, when in doubt, you weather. I added some metallic pearl when I did the wheels, and dusted some parts of the body, like vents or openings, with it as well. The interior I did in a similar fashion, with a mix of metallic and flat gray.
The armament is looking pretty good. I’m still looking for the right rockets to fill the pods with, since the dayglo, rounded-tip Transfromers ones it came with don’t match up. I debated on just fashioning some to fill the holes, but then I remembered that cool rocket effect coming with John Matrix — I might want to use that!
The Vulcan cannon just saw the addition of some wiring and labels, but maintains its mobility and removablity, if needed.
The interior was pretty close last update; I just finished the labeling and added the windows — some cut-to-fit smoked vinyl. The racing buckets got a little bit of paint, so they didn’t look so starkly colored, and I added some 3-point harnesses. These are just braided elastic, with the buckles cut from a 2003 Batman accessory. The bottom of the harness has a magnet on it, so I just drop the harness over the figure, and let it grab onto the magnets under the seats.
The interior LED is a hat-lamp, with a nice, easy click button. I initially planned to wire all the lighting up, but with as cheap and easy to replace as these self-contained ones are, there was really no contest.
It lights up the HUD pretty well, even in daylight, and adds a nice ambient light to the cabin.
The exterior lights are a combination of two LED pen-lights for the headlights and a click-face puck light for the floodlights. The light covers are from a R/C truck kit.
I added a rail to the back deck to make opening a little easier. Ideally, in “fiction,” this would be the access point to the vehicle. I might add additional hand-rails to the side panels later on.
As this vehicle was basically built with Mezco Batman in mind, it’s not surprising (but a little relieving) that he fits the cabin really well — I can drop him into the seat without having to remove the dash or the seat-deck. The adjustable seating should make it pretty to change that, just by adding or removing a magnet or two, to fit other Batmen, if that need ever arises — I kinda doubt it.
Lastly, I totally cheated on the tires. I just took this thing out back and drove it around the yard, no paint required. While making engine noises.
Hmm . . . maybe I could add a SFX box . . . NO! No. I’m done for now.
Thank you all for taking part in this build, hopefully I was able to get some of you cooking on your own benched vehicle ideas. And speaking of those ideas, I’ve got a couple for a villain build I might start next, so please let me know if you’d be interested in another “‘build diary.” It won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t. ‘Cuz I got a new Batmobile.