Mad Racer

Spent the day getting this one pretty much wrapped up.  This is pretty much it, sans final details and paint.

Cheers!

Mad Polikarpov

All two of you may have noticed the lack of anything here as of late...I have been spending a lot of energy on the other blog getting my "really cool" RPG into print.  But I know, no one cares.  You just want to see pics of naked plastic models.

This my "Palm of your Hand" ontray, from a Polish publication.  It is the USSR's last production biplane, Polikarpov's I-153.  To increase speed it had retractable landing gear.  It was built as insurance in case the I-16 was a flop.

As you can see...it fit's in...never mind.   This is an ICM kit in 1/72nd scale.

I've added the flying wires.  Model will be silver dope with tiny green squiggles.  Got about two weeks to get it done.  Hrummph.

Massive Voodoo is having an online Mad Max contest, I started this last year, pulled it out of mothballs and going to finish it up:

The ORIGINAL road warrior.

Shot of bottom.  Wheels are from an Atomic Cannon and Rommel's Rod.

I am having way too much fun on this one.  Body will be natural metal.

Bf-110 from Schnellkampfgeschwader 210

From Wikipedia: "Some 50 servicable Bf 110s took part in Operation Barbarossa from two units; Zerstörergeschwader 26 and Schnellkampfgeschwader 210. The Bf 110 gave valuable support to the German Army, carrying out strike missions in the face of heavy AA and ground defenses. In the opening air strikes, on 22 June, SKG 210 claimed 344 Soviet aircraft destroyed, more than any other unit, for the loss of 7 Bf 110s destroyed and damaged. A large number of ground kills were achieved by these Bf 110 units in the east. SKG 210 flew over the Central part of the front supporting the German army's encirclement and overrunning of Russian land forces in the Białystok and Minsk areas in the early phase of the campaign, and flew in support of the advancing Army Group Center advance to Moscow in 1941. Between 22 June 1941 and 26 July 1941 the unit claimed to have destroyed 823 Soviet aircraft on the ground and 92 in the air, 2,136 vehicles and 165 tanks destroyed for 57 Bf 110s lost to enemy action.

With the coming of winter SKG 210 continued to operate in support of the army, covering their retreat."

This is the 1/32 Dragon kit.  The kit is a C7 (a very odd version), I modeled a C4.

Overall a good kit.  Nacelles are pretty fiddly and the complete engines render it impossible to get them on without a lot of grinding.  But what is modeling without grinding?

The central bomb rack anti-sway braces were a mess.  After spending several hours on them, I just pushed them all the way in.  Totally not correct, but my patience was depleted.

The markings are all painted on using Montex masks.

The bottom showing off the purdy ordinance.  Gotta love ordinance.

I used a detail brush to add a few paint runs.

Here it is all done-done.  Going into this I thought it would be an easy project, but as always things seem to snowball out of control. Maybe, just maybe there is no such thing as an "easy" project.  If I were delusional, would I know it?  Questions probably inappropriate in a blog post about a Nazi warplane.  The kit is basically OOTB.  I recast the plastic tires in resin to create bulges.  They are at angles and turned out to more tricky than I thought.  Bottom color is Tamiya XF-23 hellblau.  Upper surfaces are Gunze Aqueous RLM 74 and 75.  Both appeared identical in the bottles, but as you can see look very different on the aircraft.  I love dirty stuff, that was why I picked this AC as it had a nasty looking whitewash slopped on it.  To apply I used the hair spray method.  First, I brushed on the hair spray right from the bottle (Tresemme).  After a few minutes I brushed Tamiya flat white over that being mindfull to simulate the sloppy brush strokes of the overworked groundcrew.  I then used water and a toothpick to remove the whitewash from high use areas. It is my understanding only the sides of the aircraft were camouflaged, as these were the areas visible during low level ground attacks.  As far as I can tell, from the photo, there is no whitewash on the wings.  Of course the wasp emblem is left uncovered for esprit de corps.  I cut masking tape stencils to paint the emblem.  The hardest part was not the cutting, but the positioning on either side of the nose so both sides matched.  Enjoy!

Next time:

Cute Nazi Plane

Just a quick update:

Lot of painting to get here, next time you see it, I'll have slopped on the whitewash.  Cheers.

Wasp

Upon returning from the Nationals, I decided to try and finish up some older projects.  One of these was a pretty much ready to paint 1/32 Dragon Bf-110d:

Nothing really useful here, just an update to let all three of you know that there will something substantive again soon.  The pic above shows the mask I am about to cut so I can paint on the wasp emblem on the nose.  The decals did not look to me like they were designed to fit any model made on earth.  A nice kit with some unpleasant defects.

I thought at first, I would save time and brush the wasp on.  I knew, deep down inside that this was an illusion, so I put my nose to the grindstone and cut masks for it.  It took several hours all in all, but I think it looks ok.  So that's it for now.  Once I get everything set, I'm going to whitewash this bugger for the Russian winter.

Yet Another Distraction # 63

 

I like to think of my self like an onion, many layered.  A couple of months ago I peeled away a few more layers and rediscovered painting miniatures.  Sure beats distraction # 62 from last week, "Why salt licks are fun".

 

Here is a finished shot with a nice fuchsia background.

 

 

This was a test run...I wasn't even sure if my tired old eyes could transmit the data to my brain.

 

 

I am assuming that most of you guys out there are Plastic Modelers, so here is a scale reference.

 

 

For fun I Googled "thejoyofmodeling" and got this:

 

 

...which lead to "Do fashion models hate their jobs?".  The truly amazing thing is that I have sucked you into wasting time with me.

 

 

I have been busy.  Center stage is a 1/32 Me-110.  My paint masks came yesterday.  Oh joy!

 

 

Saved this from Ebay.  Was gonna sell it, but there are a million of them and they are not worth a dime.  50's vintage (an antique) and a pretty good model.  Excited about this one.

 

 

UX-1 from Space Battleship Yamato 2199.  I have already built a new base.  Wish it wasn't 1/144.

 

 

Cosmo Zero A2 from above mentioned show.  New base that simulates interior bay of Yamato.

 

 

My reference if we need to slug it out.

 

 

Squadron finally figured it out.  Offer models at good prices or go out of business.  At the NatCon I bought a few things from them, got a $20 off coupon and went back and bought more.  Only took them a decade to figure it out.  At the show I saw a whole bunch of cute 1/72nd scale AC.  Looks like I'm on the band wagon.... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 2015 IPMS Nationals Odyssey

Welcome salty men of modeling!  On Thursday last, bright and early I tanked up, first at Starbucks.  

There were a bunch of us Sprues going.  Q: "Mommy, what's a Sprue?"  A: Well..., it's the left over part of a model, essentially waste product.  The part that gets tossed.  

The van loaded up with crap.  Models, I mean.  You know.  I had not been in a while, so I had 11 models. Plus I was giving a seminar, so I also had my tools.

We stopped a few times, I was almost tempted by the half melted pastries...

Six hours of driving to the event.

I was preregistered, so all I needed to do was get my boxes in and set up.  We had a club display on a table way in the back...

...Which looked like this once assembled.  "American Bom-Berz over Europe".  Nine aircraft in total.   I think it turned out swell.

Not too stressful.  Across the hall was a bar.  MJ was kind enough to buy me a glass of wine.  In addition he performed various comic impersonations.

A really cool Japanese tank with flotation devices incorporated into the design.

A pre-war American warship recovering a spotter airplane at sea.  This is what we drove these many hours to see.

A Honda F1, 1965.

Here is the placard showing my seminar.  Not the La Fayette room.  The Fayette room.  (A quick search reveals: In French the meaning of the name Fayette is little fairy.)

Sadly, I have no substantive documentation of the event, I had my hands quite full making sure the AV equipment was functioning and my tools were ready.  I was told that the seminar went well.  I was only able to get through about a third of my material, so perhaps next time.  However, not all is lost, MJ took notes of some of the things I said.  Here is his top 6 list:  #6 Plastic is your friend.  #5 Look at your tool and see if stuff is coming off.  #4 Remember, you should enjoy what your doing.  #3 Replacing kit parts is a pain in the ass.  #2 If it works for me, it will work for you. And #1...

Let us return to the models.  Here we have a beauty in 1/72nd scale.

Who could forget this one from the 1st movie of the Bond franchise?

A shot of the hotel.  This is most of our group returning from dinner.

A "walkaround" of the hotel.  Here is a shot of the floor.

Some of the ambiance.

Every few hours I went up to the room to give my feet a rest and I would catch up on my TV viewing.

The view out the window.

On Saturday morning from 9-10 am I attended the national E-board meeting of our fine organisation.

After the meeting I snapped this pic of a 1/48th scale Val in a controversial Hawaiian operation scheme.

The shells are very nicely done.

A fine representation of a GM product in 1/24th scale in 70's livery.

A nice note for the judges.

A shiny B-26 in 1/72nd scale.

Early war Rei-sen color is hotly debated.  In the pic above are three studies: The background pic is the model 21 on display at the Air Force Museum.  The upper left is a Zero model from the event and the lower left a skin section from an actual model 32.  A very tricky color indeed.

On Saturday evening is the eagerly awaited awards ceremony.

Immediately after the awards participants are directed to pack up their models and go.

On the way home we stopped at the Air Force museum.

Another example of the ordinance on display.

Our club display garnered this award.

Fortunately, for me the event is much more that a plinth of sawdust decorated with a sheet of tin. Cheers to the Sprues and everyone who builds plastic models.  Looking forward to the next time!