What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...

This vignette was created using an old Burago die cast Mercedes Benz that belonged to a former work colleague. He asked me what could be done with it and I went to work  The model is 1/18th scale and it was in very bad shape, with broken wheel supports and missing rear view mirrors, not to mention a horrible pinkish purple colour.  I decided to turn it into an escape car of a big heist turned bad. The deserts in the Vegas neighbourhood probably hide a lot of these dirty secrets. and the idea alone allowed for a lot of creative input. The hitmen probably used some pretty heavy ammo to do as much damage as possible. An engine fire then develloped but was probably extingished before the smoke got too heavy and could attract the cops. The bodies were disposed of elsewhere and the Merc's carcass was left to rot and rust slowly buried by the sand.
Working on the model,  the bullet holes were first drilled and then carefully funnelled to give them their caracteristic shape. It took a couple of hours to do this with a Dremel tool and 3 different dentist drill bits. Off course I had a lot of holes to to on the plastic parts too. These were done with a hot needle. The terrain was sculpted in a 14 x 12 inches piece of foamboard and the allready painted car glued on .The car itself was first painted in 4 different rust shades. then I applied waterdrops on it and sprinkled salt all over it. After drying over night I sprayed it in the semi-gloss white paintjob you see in the pictures. Under the running water tap I cleaned of the salt. Rust streaks and dust were all airbrushed, as well as the surrounding groundwork. After brushing a coat of white glue on, sand and small pebbles were liberally strewn over it. Islandic moss was glued on some spots to simulate tumbleweeds, well known from western movies.  The small lizzard comes from a 1/35th scale German Afrikakorps figure set from Dragon and adds a bit of life.