Zil 114 (Tintin and the Picaros)

Tintin and the Picaros (French: Tintin et les Picaros) is the twenty-third volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The final instalment in the series to be completed by Hergé, in Belgium it was serialized in Tintin magazine from September 1975 to April 1976 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1976. The narrative follows the young reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy and his friends Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus as they travel to the (fictional) South American nation of San Theodoros to rescue their friend Bianca Castafiore, who has been imprisoned by the government of General Tapioca. Once there, they become involved in the anti-government revolutionary activities of Tintin’s old friend General Alcazar.

 

– courtesy of Wikipedia

The finished model:

The story:

Y’know, while practically everyone ranks Tintin and the Picaros as their least favourite of all the Tintin albums, it’s got a lot going for it from the model building perspective.  The story is okay, I guess, and I do like seeing General Alcazar back in action, but the South America setting isn’t that compelling to me.

Also, Tintin in bell-bottom long pants!? What the heck is up with that?!

Oh well, as I said, at least Tintin and the Picaros has a prominent place as part of my Tintin build project because of the sheer number of projects.

I’ve already tackled the Land Rover as well as the Mil Mi-1 helicopter, and I’ve got plans for both the Chevrolet 3800 Truck and the Santero B-707, but what I really wanted to do was the car that greets Tintin and his friends upon arrival, the Soviet-chic Zil 114 inspired limousine!

Or, at least, that’s mainly what it looks like. The car itself may be based on the Zil 114, but it’s not a true-to-life representation of one.  Rajesh Sinha has a great write up on it if you’re interested, but regardless, fiction is handy because it gave me a lot of leeway. There isn’t exactly a ton of Soviet-style limos to choose from in 1/72 scale. In fact, the only thing I found that even comes close is the Russian-made (in China) diecast Zil 115 from TechnoPark. I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

The build:

The build itself was pretty close to the most straight-forward of any of my projects. The biggest problem was the thick paint. It really looked like the entire body of the car was just dipped in paint and left to dry. Luckily it came off quite easily with some lacquer thinner.  Once it was off, I was amazed at how much crisper the details seemed to look.

From there I first gave the entire body a nice coating of Tamiya X-18 semi-gloss black. I’m quickly becoming a fan of that paint, it’s like the best of both worlds between Tamiya X-1 Gloss Black and XF-1 Flat Black… go figure!

After the body was fully dry, I carefully masked off the bits of trim and gave them a coating of X-11 Chrome Silver. This also included the bumpers – which are plastic and already had a heavy chrome dip. I supposed I could’ve left them, but it would have probably looked odd next to the paint.  Now it’s tied together much better I think.

For the interior I just used my tried-and-true X-59 Desert Yellow (although I did paint the steering wheel black) and then it was a quick reassembly. The real problem was what to do about the wheels?! The wheels that came with the diecast car were really terrible. They’re hugely out of scale, thick and basically just have some random swirly hub cap motif going on. I knew I wasn’t going to use them, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.  Then it hit me that the kit I used for my Opel Olympia + Gillet-Herstal Motorcycle project comes with two sets of wheels, and I just happened to have another other in my stash (patiently waiting for it’s time to shine in an upcoming project from The Seven Crystal Balls).  Problem Solved!

Finally, the last tricky bit was the little San Theodoran flag that flies on the front of the car. I thought about just printing it out on paper, but I decided that getting it two-sided and aligned properly was going to be more trouble than it was worth – not to mention thicker than I wanted it. So I printed off a couple of little decals. It’s a good thing I printed a few – it took me a few tries to get it right. There’s not a lot of leeway when using homemade decals that small. The first couple either got torn, or just started bleeding ink because I left them in the water too long.

I guess fourth time’s the charm! But check it out and leave me a comment to tell me what you think: