Zhaith

Time for a wee update, not had much chance to much the last week or so but there is some progress. All the Led's are in place and indivually wired the hands are fitted with 0804 SMD's and the chest is a 3528, soldering wise they were fairly easy to do though i dont think i'd want to solder them myself. If you haven't tried it yourself it's worth a go as they work out far cheaper than pre-wired SMD, although I can solder the smaller 0603's i wouldn't want to try it with an 0403 which are tiny. I found a handy link which gives you an idea of the sizes, apologies for them being metric and not imperial. An 0805 next to a toothpick just for giggles. Using magnet wire on these make life a lot easier, if your want to solder your own SMD's be really careful when it comes to heat, you need to pre-tin the wires and SMD terminals first, make sure you let them cool down before attaching the wires, and when you do come to solder the wires be quick excessive heat will kill a SMD in a couple of seconds. The chest LED was then glued in place. Once soldered the SMD's were glued to the back of the repulsors with a few dabs of CA. Then the arms were drilled for the cable exits before the two halves were glued together. The eyes were masked with some white-tack, which I soon found out was a bad idea as it was a total pig to remove from the eye sockets, then given a coat of Alclad black base and buffed with a polshing sponge, I am rapidly falling in love with alclad's products they are really easy to use and the finish is really nice. The eyes were masked with some jammydog tape and the head was then given a coat of Duralinium Last but not least for now the main power cables were ran through his left leg. I should hopefully get a fair bit more done over the weekend so should have another update soon, thanks for looking.

Ok it's expensive but I just couldn't help myself, not normally a huge fan of next gen stuff but she is an amazing looking thing. I present the 1/1400 Romulan Valdore heavy warbird from Starcraft models. Can't wait for this to arrive on my door step I've gone for the deluxe version with some clear parts for lighting it.

Hey guys, Been a while since i built anything on here so here we go. This is going to be a fully lit War Machine from Iron Man 2, the area to be lit will be the eyes, chest and both hand repusors and will be run off of a 3.7v rechargable lithium ion coin cell battery. First up the obligatory box art In addition to the various LED's i'll be using are these (from Left to right, micro usb 4.1v Li-ion charger, the battery and a capacative touch sensor) I'll be able to place the sensor under the base supplied with the kit so that it will switch on the led's by just touching the base, no need to drill any holes to fit a switch and no need to then try and make the switch look like something else So on to the build the first thing I have done is build a small board that will be glued inside his head which will light up his eyes I expermented a bit with the led colour but ultimatey decided on red, I did toy with amber but it just didn't look quite right during testing. The amber led's which actually looks better in the photo than it did to the eye. As you ca see a bit of light blocking needed. The board was then glued into his head after some light-blocking, I used some old vallejo model air paint which i handbrushed in his head and onto the back of the faceplate. And with the faceplate in position A samall hole was drilled into the base of the helmet and neck and then the wiring was passed through both parts and will be teminated inside his chest. So far the fit has been good however there's a couple of gaps around the faceplate which needed some attention. I cut out a couple of bits of plasticard which once primed will be glued into place and i hope will block the majority of the remaining light leaks The 2nd half of his neck was glued in place as well at this point. Next step is to start on his hands. Each finger on one hand needed to be glued seperately to the hand. Once done the hand was light blocked, the repulsor lens glued in place and a single 0804 smd was glued on top of it. I got a bit carried away at this point and forgot the photos but i'll document the other hand better when I do that. Apart from some filling the hand is more or less done. Thats about it for this update, more to follow. I hope you enjoy the build.

I got mine from here. http://www.specialistpaints.com/products/airbrush-pearl Not used them as yet but Ian Lawrence has and they seem to do the trick quite nicely

1/48 MPM Jas-39D Gripen http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=234928095'>Link to build

Made some more progress on the Gripen today, made my first attempt at using phil's washes it's not perfect by any means but it'll never be finished if I attempt that, whilst on a lot of levels I have enjoyed this build on others I really think I bit off a little more than I could chew with so much of the build being things i'd never attempted before. Then sealed with a couple of coats of Alclad matt clear coat. Test fit of seats (still need to tidy them up a bit yet) and had a go at repairing the decal I almost destroyed. The undercarriage is almost complete, canards loose fitted Hopefully will get the weapon pylons and air brakes on tomorrow and hopefully the cockpit finished then it's pretty much weapons drop tank, and the remaining photoetch thats left to do

Well here she is newly repainted with a couple of coats of Klear ready for decalling. Well done some more of the Gripen, she's all decal'd up, the decals went on really nicely, and are not to thick....... Unlike me, had a bit of a boo boo and managed to put my finger right over one of the decals after I had put Microsol on it and ended up with a lovely fingerprint, smudge and damaged part of the decal as well, not much i can do about it now sadly. I did try to lightly sand around it but it didn't really work. I will chalk it up to experience but it's good lesson learnt none the less. Here's some piccies sorry about the lighting. The boo boo doesn't look to bad from a distance. Not so great close up. And how it should look.

I've used them since i started modelling about a year ago, and I finally have given up airbrushing with them, every colour varies slightly so there is no set ratio to thin them with, but also I have a few colours that will clog my airbrush no matter how much you thin them, from my experience the model air also require thinning as well. They are great for brush painting but for airbrushing I have switched to gunze aqueous and they are so much easier to work with, they thin nicely with tamiya x-20a thinners and even better with mr color levelling thinner the downside to the mr color thinners is the smell as it's lacquer based, however this is not an issue with the x-20a.

Had a bit of a paint disaster, the light grey clogs up my brush every time I use it and it decided to unblock itself at a really bad time, so paint has now been stripped and redone with gunze this time around and I have to say the gunze paint is so much nicer to use than vallejo

Finally getting to the interesting bit, sadly i've had some real issues with a couple of my vallejo model air colours namely light grey (050) and matt black, for some reason they both keep clogging my airbrush even though other model air colours are working fine, i've tried straining them, varying paint:thiner ratio but nothing seemed to help maybe I have a couple of iffy bottles. I don't know but maybe it's time to consider an alternative brand I have tried some of the gunze aqueous colours but i'm not that happy with the semi gloss finish but that is probably me at fault. Anyway at last some colour

Ah thanks for the pointer, thats one criticism i have with this kit the instructions are a little vague in places, will double check my reference photos just in case i'm assuming the rest of the instructions are correct

I'm thoroughly enjoying this build, it's going at a bit of a slow pace as almost everything is a bit of a challenge due to my lack of experience, but i'm learning loads and i think due to that i'm trying to my very best to make a reasonable job of it. I've switched to Alclad grey primer for this and have to say apart from the smell it's so much nicer to use than Vallejo's primer, and it's sand-able almost immediately Anyway some more progress made this weekend. Tip of the nose added, all primed up and canards temporarily fitted. Started on the wheel wells, but on hold until the underside is painted. Pre-shading complete, at this point i've decided I really hate Vallejo model air for doing them, I suffered from constant tip dry even with retarder and thinners no matter what PSI i used, switched to Gunze and problem vanished. Finally something is complete, 1st time using the gunze buffable metallics and i have to say i'm sold on them. Hoping to get at least the base coat completed by the weekend and i've finally decided that she will be painted in South African colours.

A bit more progress has been made, air intakes, nose and wings finished plus some more photo etch and the rear cockpit resin in place and she's ready for 1st coat of primer to see if my filling and re-scribing is up to par. I'm not sure of the best way of attaching some of the more delicate PE such as fins etc wether to add them after the primer or add them at the end before it gets a few coats of future prior to decals. Any ideas?

Had a couple of weeks off life has been a bit hectic of late but i've had a chance to make a bit more progress. Main fuselage all together. The wheel wells went in nicely not too stressful at all and are quite nicely detailed. So far the only big-ish gap to fill Air brakes details installed and tail detail added I've test fitted the canopy as I was a little worried that the gap above the pit was wrong and I had a feeling that the canopy wouldn't fit very well and may have needed some work but it fits perfectly, this model it's certainly pushing my skills and up until the fuselage going together everything seems to have take an age to complete, it's quite a bit different from the 1/144 stuff i have been messing with.

She's looking lovely, i've always had a bit of a soft spot for swedish jets especially for the viggen, never built one but i can see it progessing up my build list which seems to be growing very fast