Gav0909

Another update on last nights work. I masked up and painted the white stripe across the undercarriage doors. The dye injection nozzles were mounted and painted as well. Undercarriage and various fuselage antennae were all added. As well as the airbrake and the strakes that go either side. The wing flap strakes were added as well. Gear bay doors were painted inside and washed black as well. Next step is to paint and install the hydraulic arms that attach to the main gear legs and touch up the mount point for the main gear as they decided to break as I glued the gear in. I will then add the gear bay doors to the front and main gear bays. After that, all that remains is to gloss the entire model, give the panels a wash, add all the decals, then gloss again. I will also need to mask up and paint the canopy frames as well. So yeah, your thoughts are welcome.

Yeah I had a wee look and yes your right the inside and the airbrake well are both red. Oh well, lets call this artistic license In the future I intend to do all 9 Hawks in formation, but using 1/72 ones! Not sure I could mentally manage doing 9 of these, not to mention not having the space to mount 9 of them together!

Okey doke so I made some good progress today! The red is all complete now, and looks much better. I have still got to do a panel line wash, but I will do that later on. Today was a case of painting the numerous "odds n sods" such as undercarriage, wheel well bay doors, airbrake, wing strakes etc. And lots of masking on the fuselage. First up was masking the tail fin for the application of Vallejo Model Air Signal Blue. This kit only comes with the white decals, so the blue section on the tail has to be painted. Turned out pretty damn good if I do say so! And its symetrical on each side as well! Bonus! Next up, wheel wells and airbrake well. These were painted Vallejo Game Colour Stonewall Grey, washed with Citadel Badab Black and the pipes painted VMA Black Metal. Numerous "odds n sods" painted Then the big bit. Masking and painting the underside white arrow. The kit comes with decal sections for this, but I thought I would give a go at painting it! And boy am I glad I did! Minor panel line runs to correct, but bloody good if I do say so! I think for the most part its even symetrical which is awesome! The front isn't quite a point as that part is under the front mount of the dye tank which needs placed there. I left the flap actuator strakes off as this made the masking much easier. I have painted the one white that needs to be for each wing, and need to paint the rear half of the other but that is a much easier job than trying to mask over them while they were on the plane! Your thoughts are most welcome. I am really chuffed with how that came out I must say!

I got this kit recently for a bargain price and so just had to get working on it. I had heard in some reviews that the early release ones had some issues etc, but I must say that this one was a joy to build. Minor gaps to fill around the underside of the intakes (seems to be a common issue on all Hawk models!) but other than that, great so far! Here is a selection of pics of the build so far. Primed using Vallejo Grey primer Pre-shaded (badly) with Vallejo German Grey thinned with Ultimate Modelling Products thinner First coats of red using Revell Fiery Red gloss, again thinned with Ultimate thinner Got to get a good few thin coats on to cover enough of the pre-shading to take away the harshness. Using the Ultimate thinner works great, it thins the Revell acrylic brilliantly for a nice smooth finish. For those interested here are the Ultimate thinner and airbrush cleaner. I saw these whilst browsing eModels and thought I would give them a go having heard good things about this new company. I have heard that the thinner has been tested with every brand of modelling acrylic available, and unlike X20 etc it will thin them all great. So that seems good, and from what I see so far it does. They do a range of washes and sanders as well. I believe they are stocked by eModels and SnMStuff in the UK. Cheers

Thanks for the comments. I think next (though not for some time) I will pick up Academy's Warrior MCV and add the Accurate Armour Battery Command Vehicle upgrade set to it. I can then possibly place both vehicles on some kind of Canadian prairie style base.

The AS90 is now finished. Final pics can be found in the thread in RFI here. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234940283-trumpeter-135-as90-batus/

So here is my first large scale armour kit, a Trumpeter AS90 155mm Self-Propelled Howizter painted in a BATUS scheme. I am aware that now they just paint the BATUS vehicles in a plain sand colour, but I thought the sand/green camo was a better look. The sand shade is probably a little dark, and the green a little light, but I like the overall effect and think its turned out ok. Built with Eduards PE set, RB Models metal barrel, and painted with a mix of Citadel, Vallejo, Humbrol and Revell paints. Comments are welcome.

They look awesome, cracking builds!

So here I have some more pics of my AS90 build. The kit is now ready for primer. I didn't use all the PE on the frets, as I was modelling the kit with the hatches all closed (no interior detail) I didn't see much point in putting the PE parts on the insides of the hatches. Some of the smaller handles etc were left off too as frankly some were just too small and fiddly for me to manage. But it looks like an AS90 to me, and so that's fine. Oh, and I left off the turret stowage basket, which is a shame, but I broke one of the frame sides whilst cleaning it up (each part has like 4 sprue connections and two injection "nubs" which made cleaning the fragile parts a total nightmare!). I got the road wheels and sprockets painted last night. I am going for a BATUS theme, so the roadwheels were painted in a sand yellow from Vallejo model air. Its quite dark compared to pictures I have seen, but the example I was looking at was very freshly painted for a display, and "in the field" examples do seem a little darker. Cheers

Acky - thanks for the comments. I must admit that I am not usually one who is fussed about ultimately how accurate a model is to the real thing, so long as I enjoy the kit and it looks to me like it should. On this though I did cut down the travel lock as I was aware the kit one is too tall. And replaced the barrel with the RB models one so it now has the sag in the recoil sleeve. Hampden - thanks. As I said just above I have the RB models barrel which comes with a resin recoil sleeve with the sag. I would have loved the AA resin set but it was out my price range. Will get some mote pics up later as the model is more or less ready for primer.

Shame that it wouldn't get applied to the real aircraft, it is a better scheme than the tail art only they chose. Bit late now, the planes are already off flying a week of flypasts and displays etc this very week (I know one of the WSO's who has pulled display and airshow duty for 617 this summer). Cracking scheme though.

Silly question, but are the rocket launch rails unpainted? They look very kit plastic coloured is all. Very nice build though and a top paintjob too.

Cracking builds there. I wasn't around when the series was first on TV, but did find it on Youtube myself recently and thought it was brilliant. As for Robbie Lowe, he was, until recently I gather, a reservist and clocked up his 4000th hour in recent years on Tornado.

Hi, I am primarily a scale aircraft builder, but have been known in the past to dabble in armour kits. And my between years of scale modelling (from when I stopped as a young teenager to starting again within the last year) I was a wargamer which meant I painted lots of tanks in both 28 and 15mm scales. However this is my first real attempt at a larger scale armour kit. I am using one of the Eduard PE sets (not bothering with the grille set due to cash constraints) and the RB models metal barrel set. Other than that, its OOB. So onto some pics. Made the tow rope from twisted strands of picture hanging wire, looks better than the bit of thread that comes in the kit. This is my first real use of PE parts on a model, and some of the parts on this model are tiny! So although I have very thin CA there are often bits of glue overspill on the parts, and I won't be using them all. I am currently working on the turret stowage bins and making up the PE lids and fasteners for those, as well as the turret cartridge boxes and their holders for the turret top. C&C welcome, plus any tips on the use of PE without getting glue everywhere etc would be appreciated! I have a razor blade which has made folding the parts easier.

Scuse my ignorance, but are the rear wheels meant to be silver? Or have you just forgotten to paint them? Other than that, it looks fantastic, very unique model indeed, and a great paint job.