Thumbs up
Mellow Mike said:
Maybe I'm a control freak, too.
No, that's just good business sense. You've got something nobody else has and it's your golden goose until somebody else figures it out and wants to market it themselves.
Now if you were just a show-off like me and didn't kiss and tell, well, I'd have to book a flight to the Pacific NW to give you hell in person!
Now, I'll give you my reaction to the additional photos you posted, Mike (you can't wait, I can tell
). First of all, it's nice to see you do cars that aren't completely beat to hell. You do those as well as anyone I've ever seen, but your subtle cars are really demonstrative of your skill. Discipline, restraint. Sometimes it's the notes that aren't played that make a virtuoso shine more than the ones that are played, if you get my meaning.
That log load is pretty amazing. I don't know if it tops the scrap load in overall knock-out factor, but it's got to be pretty close. I hope somebody locally wins this car so I have a chance of seeing it in person, because I'm really curious to see the extra blue you pushed on the logs. I'm not sure how it comes off in person, but in theory it seems like a good idea, to sort of bring your own ambient light, if you know what I mean, by painting it in there.
I like the additional modeling you've been doing with your last several auctions. Some of your old Front Range models were proof that you could simply paint the illusion of detail rather than model it. I know of a few people who wondered aloud how good your models might look if you did do some upgrading. Well, now we all know, don't we?
Now, about using backyard twigs... I don't know if crape myrtle is a native tree in the NW, but I have a few in my yard and every winter when I prune them I get plenty of pulpwood load fodder. The bark grain is incredibly tight and with the right amount of touching up with some paint, it actually does look like birch pulpwood. Obviously, you can't just grab some post oak or piñon twigs and call it good, but some plants actually do work.
Anyway, I think I'm officially inspired enough to do that First Union bulkhead and the other bad ordered one it was coupled to in my photo. That is, after I finish my Louis-Dreyfus hopper...
So, there it is. Way to go!