Non-railway modelling

[johndon]

Currently progressing on the workbench, the Aoshima 1/48 Airwolf.

 

 

It comes with a fully detailed rear cockpit section for Dominic that becomes completely invisible once the fuselage halves go together!

 

 

John

 

[johndon]

She's starting to look like a Mach 1 Attack Helicopter...

 

[PhilH]

I don't know if this has been on here before I found this fascinating and quite frankly incredible. I'm definitely going to have to visit this place before I push up daisies.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/234342143003228?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V

[JZ]

I've had the mask for the Zero cockpit a couple of weeks and today decided it was time to use them.

 

I gave it a coat of grey primer before the green.

So much better than doing it freehand, or even using masking tape and/or liquid mask. I have now ordered masks for some of the other kits I have. Next will be to get on and finish the B-17

[JZ]

Just sprayed the B-17 cockpit and other glazing using masks. Why I hadn't considered using them before eludes me.

[Darius43]

Some rtr 1:18 GT40s…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and a slightly smaller one.

 

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[railroadbill]

 

1:72nd  F16 AM  Royal Danish Airforce serial  E-191 in Danish national flag display colours.  The actual aircraft  was painted in 2019 to celebrate 800 years of the Danish flag.  The aircraft carried out a tour of Denmark to "show the flag".  I'm told it still had the paint scheme last year at the RIAT display.

 

 

The kit is a Revell F-16  (cat. No. 03860). It is retrofitted with Quickboost F-16 block 5-10 elevators (cat. No. QB 72 196) as Danish F-16s haven’t all got the larger elevator upgrade that other F-16s did). The markings came from Syhart Decal 72-118 which also includes masks for the red/white paint scheme.

 

 

This is the last of my Covid projects, (not that it's the last of pre-Covid projects of course).  :-)  It had really dragged on, for reasons explained below!

 

 

 

An aircraft with a complicated livery. The Syhart decals and masks made it possible, particularly markings like the tail and you do get an option to use either masks or decals (or in my case both in places) for some of the trim lines. There are a lot of stencils to be applied, some very small.

 

 

When the basic airframe was assembled I sprayed an undercoat of Halfords white primer (which became the white coat). I then applied the masks from the Syhart set and airbrushed Tamiya XF-1 red. So far so good, I removed the masks and applied Johnson’s Clear to give a gloss coat for the decals. Some of the lining can be done with decals supplied with the set, and I ended up using a combination of masked paint, touched up in places and in some places the decals. I thought I’d apply another gloss coat over another coat of clear, and used a spray can of Humbrol gloss varnish over it. This is where things went wrong.

I’d used the Humbrol gloss varnish before and had a nearly empty can that had given good results and so I used the new can, thinking it would be the same. Alas, the top coat of Clear didn’t protect the underneath red paint and it started to melt and run in places! The Humbrol varnish (acylic) had obviously reacted to both the Clear and the Tamiya acrylic paint. There was nothing for it but to leave the model to one side for everything to harden. Eventually I had another go, touched up the red and white paint where I could. I then took a deep breath and sprayed several light coats of Halfords gloss acrylic lacquer (the stuff you spray over metallic car paint) and that gave an increasingly gloss coat, without any effect on the coats below. Phew.

 

 

 

[TomCrewe]

I do some plastic kits from time ti time but like to put a spin on them sometimes. 

 

[Northmoor]

11 hours ago, TomCrewe said:

I do some plastic kits from time ti time but like to put a spin on them sometimes. 

 

 

Is that a 190A-3 as accidentally delivered to the RAF in 1943?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Faber

[Rugd1022]

Not mine - some recent finds via pinterest...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ben B]

 

Yesterday was, apparently, Gerry Anderson Day 2024.  As a massive fan, I wanted to do something, a build, a project, some photographs.  My original plan had been to build a trio of Airfix Angel Interceptors which I picked up from Pennine Models over a decade ago, to accompany my Imai Cloudbase toy/kit I showed on here last year... but somewhere in the intervening years since purchase and starting them, I'd lost the canopies for the Angels.

 

 

In the end, some eBay purchasing turned up a pair of Imai Angels; one smaller and a bit more toy-like, one larger and a little better quality (there was also an Imai SPV which was pretty horrendous to build and finish).  Airfix Angels go for frankly stupid money at the moment.

 

 

The Cloudbase; very toy-like in places, really nice in others, but quite enjoyable to build.  I did a simple paint-job with some weathering, but the transfers were too old and dried-out to use, they fell to bits trying to apply them.  I also lost one of the Angels which pinged off who knows where when testing the insanely-powerful catapult.

 

 

I hasten to point out that the model-making isn't up to the standards seen elsewhere in this thread, I was more bothered about creating something to have a play with for photography purposes.  My intention was to shoot outdoors, doing long-exposure pics whilst on holiday in Wales, and there was a good chance these models would get damaged shooting outdoors.  The Angels had a waft of primer, then sprayed white, a minimum of detail painting and some weathering with Citadel 'Nuln Oil', then finally some rather poor transfers owing to the age of these kits.

 

 

To capture the Angels in flight, I'd built a rig using a hand-held tripod, camera baseplate, two telescopic aerials, and a load of duct-tape. I wanted to do as much as possible in-camera, rather than messing with Photoshop, and had all sorts of ideas of sunsets, mountain backdrops, lakes... and then Storm Kathleen happened.  Bang went the location shoot, and then the following week of work left no time for a re-shoot back in Yorkshire, so come the Saturday, I improvised these pics.

 

 

Two boards with sky backdrops (that I usually use for miniatures shoots, created a few years ago for the Port Eden layout), a load of cotton wool, and a small camera tripod under Cloudbase.  The shadows under the clouds are a bit annoying, though from certain angles could be being cast onto an ocean far below, and it was a bit of an improv at the last minute, but it was a fun little project to do.  I deliberately used a slight fisheye effect to help make the pics a bit more dynamic, and the graininess and noise hopefully makes it look a little like 1960's film.  In any case, it was a nice change from railway modelling for a bit :)

 

 

 

 

[33C]

Gerry would be proud. Top work.

[JZ]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

 

I hasten to point out that the model-making isn't up to the standards seen elsewhere in this thread,

Who cares? Modelling is about enjoying what you do, not what others think.

A friend of mine is also a very big Gerry Anderson fan, so I sent him a link to this.

[Darius43]

 

Absolutely superb photo.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[roundhouse]

In recent months I have been working on quite a few non railway models.

 

Firstly, these were a commission for a fellow railway modeller using resin kits. A fair amount of filing and filling plus some research to add extra details such as wing mirrors etc. but not quite 100% accurate. There is a book on Rugby Cement vehicles but is not cheap for potentially a one off build. number plates have been added since the photo was taken.

 

 

Next, a few aircraft for my self.

This Airfix FW190 was bought for £1 . The kit decals are showing heir age but once weathered the yellowing should blend in more. The tail decals are no longer supplied in many kits so a whole sheet cost £5 and are a little large but will do till I find some the correct size. It must be around 40 years since I last built a German WW2 kit.

 

And lastly for now, an Academy Kit of a USN F2H-3 also known as a  'Banshee'. A kit that had been on a show traders stand for months and I finally decided that it needed building.

 I managed to get a bit of overspray under the masking tape on the canopy so I used a bit of IPA to remove it but it fogged the canopy. Not had this issue with other kits but luckily a bit of polishing and Pledge clear varnish sorted this out so be careful with any Academy clear glazing.

 

[railroadbill]

13 hours ago, JZ said:

Who cares? Modelling is about enjoying what you do, not what others think.

A friend of mine is also a very big Gerry Anderson fan, so I sent him a link to this.

Re Gerry Anderson day, there was a 12 hour (!) live feed on YouTube of various interviews, documentaries and episodes relating to Gerry Anderson's shows. I only came across this half way through a making of Stingray documentary that was the last item. However a recording of the whole lot was then available on YouTube so you could pick and choose what you wanted to watch....it's  probably still there.

The opening segment goes through absolutely everything Gerry Anderson made, some more obscure than others.

F.A.B. Virgil.

[Ben B]

 

It took me a while to get this one done; I picked it up last summer from the wargaming shop in Llandudno, but only got around to finishing it in April!  I've never been a massive one for playing Warhammer, but I'm into the books (the "Ciaphas Cain" and "Gaunts Ghosts" series are terrific), and I love the models and designs.  It was my friend Owen buying himself a Rhino (for a tenner! Ah, 1995, those were the days) that first got me into 40K, and I soon bought myself a Rhino kit with my pocket money, starting me down the 40K route.  The kits tend to be high quality, and when the Rhino was updated and re-released a couple of years back, I had to get one of the new takes on the design. 

 

 

Modern 40K tends to be very high-quality, nicely detailed kits in excellent-quality plastic.  We do a lot of the figure sets with our Scout group, Citadel supply a large box with figures and paints, and basic versions of the game rules.  I hadn't built one of the vehicles in a while though, so the Rhino was a bit of a refresher.

 

 

Though a rare problem here- there's a design fault with getting the floor plate to attach to the side assemblies.  Apparently this is a fault of the kits, other modellers complain about it... nothing a little bit of filing-down couldn't cure, but a surprising little slip-up at the design stage.

 

 

The model assembled.  It harkens back to the original 1990's Rhino but looks a bit beefier and heavy duty.  The mouldings are nice and crisp.

 

 

Undercoated in black acrylic.

 

 

Rather than use proper Citadel paint shades for the main coat (I was in Wales at the time and didn't have any to hand) I ended up using a tin of gloss yellow from Wilkos.  Which I suppose could now be counted as an antique...  I'd also lost the transfer sheet somewhere in the intervening year, but luckily a chap on eBay was selling some cheaply.  When I was first into 40K I collected Dark Angels marines (painted in green), but for a change thought I'd go down a brighter route with this model, and went for the Imperial Fists in yellow.  A bit of dry-brushing dirt, and a wash of Nuln Oil (my favourite go-to for weathering vehicles) bought it all together.

 

 

Trying to think where a bright yellow IFV would blend-in, I thought I'd take it with me to the beach :)  Point of fact I was in Criccieth to get some shots of the Cambrian Coast Express...

 

 

...like so...

 

 

...and knew I'd have a couple of hours to kill.  I rather like getting miniatures pics out in the real world, trying some forced perspective, natural lighting shots.

 

 

Back near the caravan we were stopping in, I thought I'd try some pics up on the hillside where the moss helps the forced-perspective work.  Shame about the weather.

 

 

I thought I'd have another go when we're back in May- same shop in Llandudno, I managed to get one of the Imperial Guard Rogal Dorn heavy battle tank kits which had been out of stock near where I live, so if I manage to get that built in time, I'll be trying for some more pics soon...

 

It's also re-kindled my interest in a long-stalled project, building an armoured train.  A few second-hand purchases of Guard tank kits, and two cheapy Newray G gauge train sets later, hopefully I can get that project underway over the summer :)

 

 

 

 

Edited April 28 by Ben B
Grammar

[Johann Marsbar]

On 15/04/2024 at 19:38, Ben B said:

 

Yesterday was, apparently, Gerry Anderson Day 2024.  As a massive fan, I wanted to do something, a build, a project, some photographs.  My original plan had been to build a trio of Airfix Angel Interceptors which I picked up from Pennine Models over a decade ago, to accompany my Imai Cloudbase toy/kit I showed on here last year... but somewhere in the intervening years since purchase and starting them, I'd lost the canopies for the Angels.

 

 

In the end, some eBay purchasing turned up a pair of Imai Angels; one smaller and a bit more toy-like, one larger and a little better quality (there was also an Imai SPV which was pretty horrendous to build and finish).  Airfix Angels go for frankly stupid money at the moment.

 

 

The Cloudbase; very toy-like in places, really nice in others, but quite enjoyable to build.  I did a simple paint-job with some weathering, but the transfers were too old and dried-out to use, they fell to bits trying to apply them.  I also lost one of the Angels which pinged off who knows where when testing the insanely-powerful catapult.

 

 

I hasten to point out that the model-making isn't up to the standards seen elsewhere in this thread, I was more bothered about creating something to have a play with for photography purposes.  My intention was to shoot outdoors, doing long-exposure pics whilst on holiday in Wales, and there was a good chance these models would get damaged shooting outdoors.  The Angels had a waft of primer, then sprayed white, a minimum of detail painting and some weathering with Citadel 'Nuln Oil', then finally some rather poor transfers owing to the age of these kits.

 

 

To capture the Angels in flight, I'd built a rig using a hand-held tripod, camera baseplate, two telescopic aerials, and a load of duct-tape. I wanted to do as much as possible in-camera, rather than messing with Photoshop, and had all sorts of ideas of sunsets, mountain backdrops, lakes... and then Storm Kathleen happened.  Bang went the location shoot, and then the following week of work left no time for a re-shoot back in Yorkshire, so come the Saturday, I improvised these pics.

 

 

Two boards with sky backdrops (that I usually use for miniatures shoots, created a few years ago for the Port Eden layout), a load of cotton wool, and a small camera tripod under Cloudbase.  The shadows under the clouds are a bit annoying, though from certain angles could be being cast onto an ocean far below, and it was a bit of an improv at the last minute, but it was a fun little project to do.  I deliberately used a slight fisheye effect to help make the pics a bit more dynamic, and the graininess and noise hopefully makes it look a little like 1960's film.  In any case, it was a nice change from railway modelling for a bit :)

 

 

 

 

 

In the 1990's, when I started going to Airshows again after a bit of a gap, one of the traders at the annual Waddington Airshow seemed to have an awful lot of the Japanese Gerry Anderson kits to dispose of at fairly low prices. I bought examples of most of the ones on sale and actually made the things up fairly quickly at the time, unlike the kit "stockpile" (now mainly 1/35 military, but loads of OO carriage kits in there as well...) that seems to have built up since then!

 

Three of the 1990's efforts as they are on display at home now.....

 

[Ben B]

2 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

In the 1990's, when I started going to Airshows again after a bit of a gap, one of the traders at the annual Waddington Airshow seemed to have an awful lot of the Japanese Gerry Anderson kits to dispose of at fairly low prices. I bought examples of most of the ones on sale and actually made the things up fairly quickly at the time, unlike the kit "stockpile" (now mainly 1/35 military, but loads of OO carriage kits in there as well...) that seems to have built up since then!

 

Three of the 1990's efforts as they are on display at home now.....

 

 

Those are some nicely turned-out builds!  I notice your Cloudbase still has the missiles, mine pinged off somewhere across the garden, to confuse future homeowners or archaeologists ;)

 

The Sky 1 looks good, I'd not come across that one before.  I think it's what annoys me about these Imai kits. there's some good bits there, but they're either slightly too kit-like to be toys, but too toy-like to be kits.  Though I will say, the larger Angel went together nicely and if anything, I think I slightly prefer it over the aged Airfix example.

[Johann Marsbar]

3 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

Those are some nicely turned-out builds!  I notice your Cloudbase still has the missiles, mine pinged off somewhere across the garden, to confuse future homeowners or archaeologists ;)

 

The Sky 1 looks good, I'd not come across that one before.  I think it's what annoys me about these Imai kits. there's some good bits there, but they're either slightly too kit-like to be toys, but too toy-like to be kits.  Though I will say, the larger Angel went together nicely and if anything, I think I slightly prefer it over the aged Airfix example.

 

The transfers have faded a bit on the Cloudbase and Spectrum passenger jet models as they received direct sunlight where they were displayed in my previous house. The Spectrum jet has working missiles as well as Cloudbase and I used to "entertain" a couple of cats I owned at the time by firing those!  The grey painted missile heads on Sky 1 fire on springs as well.......

 

Apart from those I've got a Shado Mobile, Spectrum Persuit Vehicle, Spectrum Patrol Car and a selection of much smaller Thunderbirds models of TB2/TB4/Mole, plus figures of the Tracy Brothers with smaller scale TB1-5 models attached on the display bases.

 

All seem to be able to fire missiles or have other working functions which obviously appealed to their market at the time.  The Sky 1 is a bit odd in that it has a fold-down rear panel which contains minature versions of a Shado Mobile, Sky 1 and Ed Strakers car!      At least all of those kits compliment some of the Dinky and other models of Anderson equipment that I've got here at home as well.

[Ben B]

51 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

The transfers have faded a bit on the Cloudbase and Spectrum passenger jet models as they received direct sunlight where they were displayed in my previous house. The Spectrum jet has working missiles as well as Cloudbase and I used to "entertain" a couple of cats I owned at the time by firing those!  The grey painted missile heads on Sky 1 fire on springs as well.......

 

Apart from those I've got a Shado Mobile, Spectrum Persuit Vehicle, Spectrum Patrol Car and a selection of much smaller Thunderbirds models of TB2/TB4/Mole, plus figures of the Tracy Brothers with smaller scale TB1-5 models attached on the display bases.

 

All seem to be able to fire missiles or have other working functions which obviously appealed to their market at the time.  The Sky 1 is a bit odd in that it has a fold-down rear panel which contains minature versions of a Shado Mobile, Sky 1 and Ed Strakers car!      At least all of those kits compliment some of the Dinky and other models of Anderson equipment that I've got here at home as well.

 

 

I couldn't get the transfers to apply to most of mine, the kits were so old the transfers fell to bits or wouldn't separate from the backing paper.

 

 

How did you get on with the SPV?  I found it a very odd kit- the 'working' features really complicated the build (it had all the gubbins to motorise it, but not a motor itself which it said had to be bought seperately), and the caterpillar tracks at the back didn't work well with the aged rubber tracks, but the body moulding was rather nice.  Again, I struggled with the transfers, but it was fun to paint even if I made a mare of the shade.  The can of spray I bought turned out to be a different shade, and rather watery, compared to the label.

[Johann Marsbar]

6 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

 

I couldn't get the transfers to apply to most of mine, the kits were so old the transfers fell to bits or wouldn't separate from the backing paper.

 

 

How did you get on with the SPV?  I found it a very odd kit- the 'working' features really complicated the build (it had all the gubbins to motorise it, but not a motor itself which it said had to be bought seperately), and the caterpillar tracks at the back didn't work well with the aged rubber tracks, but the body moulding was rather nice.  Again, I struggled with the transfers, but it was fun to paint even if I made a mare of the shade.  The can of spray I bought turned out to be a different shade, and rather watery, compared to the label.

 

The SPV went together OK, though mine's in "showroom" condition rather than weathered.  The rubber tracks went on OK, but after about 5 years of making the thing the rubber forming them had perished beyond redemption so they all ended up in the bin and I've never managed to find suitable size rubber bands to take their place.

The only kit I saw at that time which I didn't bother with was the Angel Interceptor, as I have an original Airfix one of those.

 

Those kits all seem to be available today, as I had a browse on the "Scalemates" site last year to see what was still about, though a few if them appear to have been upgraded (as has the price...) in the past 30 years....

[Ben B]

52 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

The SPV went together OK, though mine's in "showroom" condition rather than weathered.  The rubber tracks went on OK, but after about 5 years of making the thing the rubber forming them had perished beyond redemption so they all ended up in the bin and I've never managed to find suitable size rubber bands to take their place.

The only kit I saw at that time which I didn't bother with was the Angel Interceptor, as I have an original Airfix one of those.

 

Those kits all seem to be available today, as I had a browse on the "Scalemates" site last year to see what was still about, though a few if them appear to have been upgraded (as has the price...) in the past 30 years....

 

There seems to be two Angels- I used both in my pics. There's a smaller one, with toy like wheels at the wingtips, which came in a double pack with the armoured car. The bigger Angel (about on a par with the Airfix one) is nicer, but the pilot is horrifying, with big goggle-eyes. I recarved it to look like a full-face visor...

 

 

[railroadbill]

 

 

 

It's done the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, meet at Docking Bay 94 and don't get too cocky, kid. 

 

Revell 1:241 scale (apparently, but can you be sure with a space ship that's taller inside than outside?)  Very well detailed little kit  and fits together beautifully.  It's 100mm long. It actually includes Solo and Wookie (don't annoy it) figures for the cockpit but they don't actually show when it's all together. The original film set cockpit doesn't have glazing (so they didn't get reflections while filming) and the "flying" models have the glazing painted black. (At least in the earlier films).

 

Despite having seen these films many many times over the years (starting in the Odeon Leicester Square in 1977, 70mm print with dolby sound), one issue, which I had never ever thought about before, is what colour is the Millenium Falcon? Revell call out 371, Hellgrau, that I managed to get after I'd sprayed the thing with Halfords grey primer. It did get a wash of that before a flory wash. As far as I can make out, the ship's main colour looks a warm grey when flying over the sands of a desert planet but a darker grey when in deep space. The sets are a darker grey with more weathering.  So not too consistant.

 

I found a Revell X wing fighter and  Tie fighter kits in the same series on sale in Hobbycraft, so...I've got a bad feeling about this.

 

Don't forget now, Greedo shot first.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ben B]

Looks good, particularly the weathering on the panel lines!

 

(Back to Gerry Anderson again, but... Star Wars gets a lot of credit for the whole used/battered/weathered science fiction angle, whilst it has to be said Derek Meddings and his team were doing that back in the 1960's).

 

Will be interested in seeing how your X-Wings turn out, I have one in the stash which I keep being tempted to build, but don't seem to find the time...