Mark's Models: The Batman Forever Batmobile is a difficult model to build... now with 100% more Batwing!

Good watermelons are hard to come by. You to the store, you pick up a large, green, delicious looking cucurbit and you begin to fantasize about cutting it open to find deep red summertime goodness. You imagine your kids with water melon juice running down their hands and face while laughing with excitement, perhaps after a fun day at the pool.

But instead you get a watermelon that's kind of mushy, that is just "alright, I guess", and you eat it anyway because it's summer and well, you bought it so might as well. Even though you know you've been let down. Even though you wish it was better.

It's kind of like watching a batman movie after Tim Burton but before Christopher Nolan.

Thankfully, there were only two of those flaccid turds and the first of the two was the better one. Yes I'm talking about that summer time blockbuster that temporarily made "Seal" a household name, Batman Forever.

Batman Forever had an ensemble cast with Val Kilmer playing the Dark Knight after Burton was relieved of director duties. Burton stayed on as a producer, but Joel Schumacher directed. Keaton exited the role upon learning that Tim Burton wouldn't be directing, and Val Kilmer was his replacement. Other cast members were Chris ~~Cornell~~ O'Donnell as Robin, that same old guy from the last two movies as Alfred, Nicole Kidman as Tom Cruise's wife, Jim Carrey as The Gay Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Agent Gerard who is suffering from such bad PTSD from chasing down Richard Kimble that he turns into Gay Two Face (which I guess makes him Bi, technically). Look, I got no problems with the flamboyant nature that these characters were played in, I just think it's hilariously "schlocky" that Tommy Lee Jones tries to out Jim Carrey the actual Jim Carrey in the same movie as Jim Carrey.

The movie is a sequel to Batman and Batman Returns, which growing up I never realized. Val Kilmer's Bruce Wayne is the same character as Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne, literally. Likewise, George Clooney's Bruce Wayne is the same Bruce Wayne as these others, as Batman and Robin is a sequel to this movie and the previous two.

This totally blew my mind when I realized it, and it does make some sense as to why Gotham City still feels very "Tim Burton-y" as a whole. And why Alfred is played by the same guy in all four movies. (To be fair, Michael Gough is fantastic in all four movies, and is a wonderful actor in any role you catch him in. Also, Drew Barrymore is in Batman Forever, which is kind of a fun fact.)

But we're not here to critique a movie, we're here to talk about the AMT Batman Forever Batmobile 1/25 Scale Model. I was talking to my brother Jeff around the time I was finishing up the 1966 Batmobile and browsing Amazon when I noticed this model was in stock. While I never really enjoyed the movie when it came out (I haven't seen it in years but I should give it another watch for fun), I do really like the design of this version of the Batmobile (Keaton's will forever be my favorite though). Jeff took it upon himself to ask his wife to order it for me, and the two days later a surprise arrived on my doorstep. Which was totally cool! I can't say thank you to him and his wife enough!

Because it was a gift, I wanted to do a really good job, so I spent some time looking at different paints and putting a lot of thought into how I wanted to approach this.

First, of course, I washed the model and then premiered everything in Stynylrez grey because it goes on smooth and I like it.

Funny Enough,

I can't put these side by side.

Which is kind of weird.

Once that was done, I had to make a couple of decisions. The "Kilmer-mobile" is the replacement for Batman's destroyed Batmobile from Batman Returns. As some time's passed he's made some upgrades. The new Batmobile is sleeker, and more flashy. It features engine components that "glow" depending on the shot, with rib like body work protecting it. While the 1989 Batmobile looks like it could disappear in the shadows, this new car stands out. Batman is more established in this movie and his car reflects that.

One of the things I really like about this version of the car is that it's obviously inspired by H.R. Geiger, who famously designed the Xenomorph for the Alien franchise. The car itself looks like an Xenomorph, which is really cool to think about when viewing it at certain angles.

In some shots in the movie, the car glows blue, but sometimes it's white. I chose to go for the blue motif. The kit comes with these "engine" items plated in chrome, and it would be just fine to assemble the model with these parts left chrome.

But I wanted to do something special, so I decided I wanted to try and give the car that "glowy" blue effect as best I could.

I considered a lot of different options, such as researching if it would be feasible to add a "glow in the dark" agent to a blue paint for effect. Ultimately though, I decided against this and instead painted two test spoons with two different blues.

One was Tamiya's "Clear Blue" over a chrome spoon, and the other was Wicked Color's Florescent Blue. Compared side by side, I tend to like the clear blue, however I wasn't sure this would look right under the bodywork. I wasn't really happy with either one, to be honest.

Riddle me this: which blue?

Then one night I had an idea to primer a spoon with white primer and spray the florescent blue over that, and that was the way I decided to go. The white primer lightened the florescent blue just enough to get as close to the color I was looking for as I believed I would get.

That settled, it was time to chose the base coat. As previously stated, I don't believe any Batmobile is ever just "flat black", so for this model I chose Wicked Color's "Pearl Black" which is just a fantastic color in my opinion.

I did a bit of testing with the color to ensure I could spray it correctly and got to work. I was happy with the results, so I painted the interior "wicked black" which is more semi-gloss and the chassis and other parts "flat black". The whole model is done using Createx Wicked Colors, which is an Acrylic paint that I really enjoy using.

Once the body and interior parts were painted, I tried to hand paint the wheels, which also glowed blue. This, was a complete disaster! The problem was that for the blue shades to match I needed the white primer. However, the outside of the wheels remain chrome, so I couldn't just airbrush the whole wheel. So I painted the inside of the wheel with white primer by hand.

Every day.

For like a week.

And it looked... awful. Just very poor. So I gave up and removed the paint (another point for acrylics in my book). I then spent a few very tedious hours masking the outside and inner walls of the wheels, so that I could airbrush the inner wheel with the primer, and then with the blue. The scary part was that until I was done, I wouldn't' know how well of a masking job I did.

Nervously, I peeled off the tape after letting the last coats of paint fully cure and... it looked amazing. Putting the decal of the bat symbol on finished the look. I couldn't be happier with the results.

Holy florescent blue wheels, Batman!

With all of the airbrushing done, it was time to assemble the model, and this is where things took a turn.

This kit was not easy to put together, which felt weird because it's not a very complex kit. What I came to realize was that it's not that the kit is designed poorly or manufactered poorly, but my specific kit was damaged. There was warping on a lot of the parts. I suspect that the kit got hot sitting in a warehouse somewhere and the heat warped the plastic.

At first, I thought it was just the thing parts. The back wing in the movie had a couple of different positions. Sometimes it would be split apart like two V shaped wings. Other times they'd come together to for m one, tall tail fin.

Because the pieces were so warped, there was no way I was going to pull off the "V" look, so I opted for the "Fin" and glued the two together, hoping that this would give them enough strength to straiten up.

This gamble worked, and while the fin wasn't perfectly straight, it was very close.

It's amazing what you can do with a little super glue and a lot of clamps.

While that was going, I glued in the chrome "engine detail" pieces (the other blue parts) and clamped those down tight as well. I felt like I was out of the woods and turned my attention to the interior.

I'm remembering this out of order, I did the interior first. Oh well, pretend I got it right.

Interior details were pretty good, with decals for the dashboard and various other Batmobile gadgets like you'd expect. Through the center console is a pulsating blue... something, which I painted with a brush and some light blue Acrylic paint and then used a cotton swab and some water to remove the overlap, leaving the "grooves" blue.

This is much smaller in person.

I told you.

By this point I was getting ready to put the body together. This is where the real damage was from the heat. With the body on the chassis it became obvious that the chassis was warped significantly.

So those are supposed to join together naturally.

This warping left me in a tricky spot. I didn't want to scrap the project at all, I had put in a lot of effort so far and besides, I wanted to do a good job as this was a gift.

I considered ordering a new kit so I could source parts and replace the warped chassis. This was causing other issues as well, such as the front fender fitment.

Ultimately, I decided it was time to get creative, so I got out my heat gun and applied gentle heat to the chassis, once I felt like I had enough applied, I put on a lot of super glue and using a regular project house clamp, I clamped the body and chassis together and left it for a couple days.

Holy Big-Ass Clamp, Batman!

Carefully, I took off the clamp to face the music. Did the heat/glue/clamp combo work?

Oh please, Oh please...

YES IT DID!

Luckily, my fix worked and the car now fit together well. I finished up the last few pieces, painted the jet exhaust, and put on the finishing touches. WHEW! What an adventure!

Gallery:

Seriously, why can't I put pictures next to each other?

Cockpit, you can see the blue in the center console area.

I really like how the blue turned out.

Another of the cockpit.

Much Xenomorph vibes. I painted the "teeth" with a sharpie.

Wierdly proud of how this came out.

So this wasn't the end of my Batman Forever modeling Adventure. I came across the Batwing form the same movie. This kit went together much the same way, but with 100% less warping issues. Actually, assembly was a breeze.

I used the same paints but with a couple of extra items. First, I dry brushed some white on top of the florescent blue in order to give off the effect of "heat". Like the engines are white hot at the extremities. This worked out really well and I wish I had done it to the Batmobile.

Second, for the turbines in the wings I dry brushed silver on the turbine blades, then blue, just to give them some contrast to the wings and those blue parts. I think this is ultimately the color to go for, if I was to ever do either of these again. I might do the car again one day, I've seen an "arctic color scheme" which makes the Batmobile white and it looks amazing. Anyway, here are some pictures of the batwing, which weirdly uses a car steering wheel (but not the same one as the Batmobile). I'm sure that's not really what it's supposed to be but that's what was in the box! Again, thank you to my brother Jeff and his wife for the Batmobile kit and therefore the inspiration to do the Batwing! These kits are for ya'll!!