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Here is my contribution to the group build, HobbyBoss's VK 45.02(P) "Vorne". The VK 45.02(P) was an improved version of Porsche's earlier VK 45.01(P) updating the hull with a new sloped armour layout and a new turret equipped with the larger 8.8cm L/71 gun. Development of the VK 45.02(P) didn't leave the drawing board and it was canceled in favor of Henschel's VK 45.03(H) design which went on to become the Tiger II. I had originally planed to 3D print a VK 45.02(H) for the group build but due to some technical problems I was unable design the 3D model in time. For now I'll build its brother/rival the VK 45.02(P) and the VK 45.02(H) can join it in the future. Here are the obligatory sprue shots The hull is made from two upper and lower parts and not much more... Four sprues for the running gear, along with the few tools and handles for the hull. Most of the plastic in the box is for the turret which comes with a fully detailed interior. The tracks are individual links with each sprue containing four tracks with six connection points each. They should keep me busy for a few days... The kit comes with some photo-etch for the engine grills and also includes a generic set of number decals. Curiously they suggest painting the tank in Dunkelgrau even tho it had been replaced with Dunkelgelb by the time development of the VK 45.02(P) had started. Looking at the kit there are a few issues that stand out. The weld seams are very messy and misaligned, the ones on the side of the hull are ridiculously over sized too so I'll need to fill and re-scribe them all. The tank is also missing fenders over the tracks, I'll try to scratch build some from metal but I might also design and 3D print them instead.

I’m currently fiddling around with a few projects at the same time – not like me, but it’s all in the name of procrastination regarding my 1/16 Italian tank crew which I’m STILL putting off. I’ve got an ancient SMER Alfa Romeo Racing car underway over in the vehicle section, and as a foil to that very old and basic kit, I thought I’d make a start on another birthday pressie – this one a HobbyBoss Beutepanzer oddity from my girlfriend. It’s a beauty – fantastic interior detail, crisp mouldings, a good PE fret and nice, hard plastic. My recent armour builds have all been vintage Tamiya; great kits, but not up to the level of detail included in a lot of more current offerings and I’d forgotten just how good many newer products are. That said, the cover art is a travesty, and doesn’t look much like the actual vehicle at all. As with the Alfa Romeo, I made a start with the engine. Both kits seem to devote around half their parts count to the engine, but where the Alfa engine comprises 12 parts, this one is at least 50! Actually, before I did tuck into this miniature feast, I concluded that it would be a crying shame to end up hiding it all, so I plan to have as many hatches open as possible. There are a few provided as separate hatches, but not the main engine cover, so the first job was to carefully cut it out, taking care to save the upper moulded louvre for later. The inside louvre was unsalvageable unfortunately, so there’ll be a bit of scratchbuilding to come for that. I found some good interior photos of the parent Renault R35 online and as a result added a line of bolt heads and strip to the internal “shelves”, whilst shaving off the moulded cables/wires etc. I should really have done this before fixing the tub together, but it wasn’t too tricky with a curved No. 10 blade. On reflection, the bolt heads are too big, so I’ll shave them off and redo with smaller versions. I’m not too sure about interior colours – the instructions indicate that the interior should mostly be Panzer grey, but whilst It’s sort-of open topped, there wouldn’t be much to see from outside, and I can’t see the German army bothering to repaint everything inside, though I could be wrong of course. Either way, I’m happy to go with the rather more colourful interior scheme that the original French tank carried. I glued together the gear lever and drive shaft construction and added a sprue “foot” that should be hidden to support it – I’m not confident that the PE legs will stand up to it otherwise. I annealed them to assist in bending and they’re pretty floppy as a result. Putting the engine together was great fun; good fit and amazing detail – it even comes with individual spark plugs, and this is a little engine; no V12 Tiger beast here, but more like a Renault 5 4 pot. I left a couple of parts off for now until the painting is done, but it’s mostly there. I painted the engine and other sub-assemblies with a highly thinned mix of Revell red-brown and silver rub’n buff. It’s a bit light for slightly corroded steel, but the subsequent oil washes etc. will darken it down and it’s only the lowest of undercoats – the engine will be painted green/black/steel and so on over a hairspray coat, so only a few glimpses of this base colour will eventually be visible.

Hi all, With the Airfix Me-410 on hold whilst I wait for a delivery, I thought I'd crack open a quick, small project of an aircraft I love. Living very close to RAF Fairford, I've seen plenty of the current U-2S airframes fly in and out and so finally I'm building one - albeit, the earliest version. HobbyBoss released their 1:72 U-2A in 2021 with the U-2C following in 2022. The cockpit is straight forward with a fairly detailed multi-part ejection seat, however, I did add some left over Eduard SuperFabric seatbelts. They may not be 100% accurate but I plan on closing the cockpit and so very little will be seen from the inside. For this reason, I also wasn't too bothered by the lack of cockpit side wall decals. You get a main instrument panel decal, albeit basic, but nothing for the sides. Again, it will be closed up and not seen. All sub assemblies I could possibly do were carried out on the fuselage halves. This included the very good fitting engine intakes, closing the speed brakes and inserting the wheel wells. None were painted at this time apart from primer to help future processes. That's all for now, I'll do another update soon.

Bf109F-4 of 8./JG 54 - Flown by Max-Hellmuth Ostermann. Kit is a Hobbyboss easy-assembly kit in 1/48, decals by Aims. Thanks for looking in!

The aircraft novelties in the HobbyBoss 2024-2025 catalogue Sources: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/8844047357 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ug4y1S7Sh/ New kits in this folder, I mean not previously announced in red: (previous catalogue - 2023-2024 - link) 1/48 - ref. 80385 - Chance-Vought F4U-2 Corsair - thread - announced since 2021 - ref. 80391 - Chance-Vought F4U-5N Corsair (late version) - thread - announced since 2021 - ref. 80394 - Chance-Vought Corsair Mk.I - - announced since 2021 - ref. 81761 - Sukhoi Su-33 "Flanker-D" - thread - announced since 2015 - ref. 81762 - Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark/"Flanker-X2" - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81775 - Consolidated B-24D Liberator - thread - ref. 81779 - Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc/Trop - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81780 - Hawker Hurricane Mk.IId/Trop - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81781 - Focke-Wulf Fw.190A-6 Würger - thread - ref. 81782 - Focke-Wulf Fw.190A-8 Würger - thread - ref. 81784 - Douglas TBD-1A Devastator - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81785 - Lockheed U-2S Dragon Lady / Senior Span - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81787 - Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-35 " Fulcrum-F" - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81791 - Messerschmitt Bf.109E-3 Emil - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81792 - Messerschmitt Bf.109E-4 Emil - thread - ref. 81793 - Messerschmitt Bf.109E-4/TROP Emil - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 81794 - Messerschmitt Bf.109E-7 Emil - thread - ref. 85810 - McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet - thread - announced since 2022 - ref. 85815 - Lockheed-Martin F-35A Lightning II - thread - ref. 85816 - Lockheed-Martin F-35B Lightning II - thread - ref. 85817 - Lockheed-Martin F-35C Lightning II - thread 1/72 - ref. 87265 - Douglas C-48C Skytrain - thread - announced sinc 2020 - ref. 87272 - Douglas TBD-1 Devastator - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 87273 - Douglas TBD-1A Devastator - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 87274 - Grumman TBM-3 Avenger - thread - announced since 2023 - ref. 87275 - Grumman TBM-3C Avenger - thread 1/144 - ref. 83901 - Antonov An-12 "Cub" - - announced since 2023 The targets and bins on tracks and wheels... V.P.

HobbyBoss is to release in 2024-2025 a 1/48th Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II family. - ref. 85815 - Lockheed-Martin F-35A Lightning II - ref. 85816 - Lockheed-Martin F-35B Lightning II - ref. 85817 - Lockheed-Martin F-35C Lightning II Source: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/8854669690 V.P.

The HobbyBoss Tiger II with decals from the old Italeri kit. A new vac canopy from Rob Taurus was installed, together with several other improvements. Thanks for watching! Luka

Hi folk's looked at this kit on a good few occasions and the recent Creative models sell off meant a mere £9:75 free delivery spurred me on to have a go. being an easy kit it is simplified especially with no choice of open cabin doors etc but is nicely molded with a beautiful clear sprue. This is the 1/72 kit by Hobbyboss built a while ago.

Here are photos of HobbyBoss's Scammell Commander released about a year ago. I recently finished reviewing it for Finescale Modeler, a US model magazine. (https://finescale.com/product-info/kit-reviews/2023/11/workbench-review-hobbyboss-135-scale-scammell-commander-with-62-ton-crane-fruehauf-semi-trailer) This was the most ambitious and challenging kit I've completed in my 50+ years of building scale models. Per the review, the kit suffers from instructions with holes and engineering mistakes for PE parts. However, at the end of the day, I'm pleased with the result. For an excellent detailed walk-through of the build, I discovered Nigel's Modeling Bench on YouTube where he has a many-part video collection of his build. I highly recommend it if you're interested in building this kit. Thanks for looking and for your feedback! Sincerely, David

Hi folk's built for the KUTA GB this is one of a few Hobbyboss 1/48 easykits I have for quick build and paint practice.Brush painted in Vellejo matalics only using the airbrush to post shade it's been a joy to discover these paints after all these modelling year's this is the second kit brushed with them next one will be moving into the Jet age with Monograms venerable F-86 Sabre.Thanks for looking in. Here's the first effort using HB's 1/48 P-47.

Hi all. I´d like to show you a modell finished earlier this year. It´s the nice 1/72 scale Hobby Boss kit of the iconic U-2. I purchased the kit at an modelling fair this spring and imediatly started building it. The fit is quite nice and with some etched parts from eduard for the pit and some other details you can get a nice little spyplane. For the presentation I added a GPU from a Hasegawa set and a scratchbuilt ladder. The flaps were also lowered by myself as the kit didn´t provide this option. Regards Daniel

Some time ago, I can't remember if it was spring of 2021 or earlier, I started a 'quick' project involving a few T-6 builds: I like this subject a lot and already have a few built to which I wanted to add more. Unfortunately, as it often happens, this transformed in a lenghty/stalled/frozen project, mainly due to building kits of three different makes which had different issues to solve. In the end I had to face this as three separate builds to make some progress and here I am hoping to complete the whole project. The first iteration is an Heller T-6 in the last 'Red Chequers' livery, it is actually complete but for some reason I stopped before applying the final satin coat. Will have to remember the (surely good) reasons for that before doing anything and finding later why it was a mistake! While waiting for my brain cells to work on that, I present the second build, which is an Academy T-6 with the earlier 'Red Chequers' livery in silver/dayglo red and fern leaf roundels, also courtesy of a Ventura decal sheet. The third one for the moment I won't tell, just say it will be based on the Hobbyboss easykit. Cheers Fabio

Another cheap and cheerful kit. This time it is the HobbyBoss 1/72 Lavochkin La-7 (80236). Built OOB and painted with a hairy stick. Dave

So here is my fifth completed build in the scale, Hobbyboss's Yasen Class sub. I bought it as a practise piece really as i wasn't to worried about things going wrong as it cost a whopping £3.70 off ebay...bargains can be had sometimes! The Yasen class are a series of ships from a counrty that wont be named at the moment, large as they are nuclear powered but designed as cruise missel submarines, there is a later variant that is used to fulfil a hunter killer role according to wikiepdia, Construction of the kit was simple, the seam between the upper and lower hull halves was just simple sanding, apart from that it went together in a couple of hours. The lessons came in when i came to painting it - it may work for others but brush painting modern subs seems very very hard to do if you want a really smooth surface. She isn't weathered as i build 'em clean as they say but were i to, then it may hide the many little bits that have got stuck in the paint and the un even finish. When i got to the clear coats, that was done by air brush.....so much easier and quicker. In truth she needs a pin wash or something but i got over zealous in the sanding the seam and lost several bits of detail and am not confident trying to scribe them back in. Decals went on easy, all in all if you want a simple modern sub to do then this would fit the bill, just use an airbrush not a hairy stick! Any way here she is, Thanks for looking,

Hello Britmodellers, This 'easy assembly' kit was entered in the ww2gb hosted by Rob Arnehov. Mostly built out of the box, with a few detail improvements and new decals. Thanks for watching! Luka

Expected in late October in China, Hobby Boss is to release a 1/48th Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29K Izdeliye 9.41 " Fulcrum-D" kit - ref. 81786 Source: http://www.hobbyboss.com/index.php?g=home&m=article&a=show&id=238 Box art At the All Japan Hobby Show 2023 Source: https://hobby.dengeki.com/event/2089974/ Source: https://www.facebook.com/gustav.jung.7/posts/pfbid02EXMhH4KzXBy114doAH9LkGqLL3vAE4BVcGT6FkWacTsFcK57HExvQxmZYpGYihnal V.P.

My diorama..... a Flak Bergepanther making a final stand in the ruined streets of Berlin. Slapped together with parts scrouged from deserted vehicles and leftover factory parts. Thanks for watching! 👍👍👍 On to the next one.

I see @Bobby No Mac has beaten me to this one so I will follow his progress with interest. I have a bit of a thing for these early British jets, having built a Meteor and Vampire over the last few months. Maybe it is the clean, smooth lines, they just look like proper airplanes that are pleasing to the eye. I have never built a HobbyBoss aircraft before, although I have made a couple of their AFV’s. Looking in the box it all seems quite nice to me. I am planning to go with the HMS Albion version as I have never painted identification stripes before (decals are provided btw) and it will add a bit of colour to the display cabinet. I am currently involved in the Entropy GB where I am building a Tractor https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235127443-tractor-blues/ The build is nearly complete so once I get to the paint stage, I will have time to start having a go at this. I would really like to do a Hellcat as well, but will have to see how time and other commitments go before taking the plunge. George

Hi all! Here's my Hobbyboss Bf109G-6 in 1/48- one of their easy-assembly offerings and a pretty nice kit for the price. A rare foray into props for me. WIP can be found here: I have two luftwaffe builds lined up for the Go Large GB but I rarely build props and I've never tried a mottled scheme so trying to get some practice in. This is my first attempt at mottling and I'm pretty happy with the result considering the airbrush I have is quite basic. As for the kit it was decent, not as beginner friendly as their P-51 or P-47 easy assembly 1/48 kits but considering its half the price of the Tamiya G-6 kit I don't have many complaints. Painted with Vallejo acrylics, Vallejo panel line wash and weathered with AK Interactive pencils. Here are the photos: Thanks for looking in!

You've guessed it.... time for the next build. Got to keep the production line going 🤣 This Flak Panther never existed irl. It was a concept that never saw production. I think it's an interesting model and i can't wait to start the build. No vignettes or diorama's this time. I think i'm going for a wooden base with a little plaquette. However, first things first.... the build itself. It's a full box that comes with PE, NOT working tracklinks and a shitload of parts 🤪 So let's start the checklist. Spruecutter ✅️ Sandingsticks ✅️ Glue✅️ Glasses✅️ Cold beer ✅️ Let's crack on! Feel free to tag along. It's always nice to have you guys around. Cheers! 🍻🍻🍻

I really don't like building aircraft that are white or have a metal finish, I always envisaged this one being Drab Olive over Light Grey with Invasion Stripes. But against my better judgement I decided to go with the metal finish as per the instructions. After doing a half decent paint job and Decals applied I thought it looked a little 'uninteresting' so I decided to do a wash to bring out the panel lines and that's when things went wrong. I think I left the wash on to long, because when I tried to wipe it off it wouldn't move. Long story short by the time I had removed most of it the paint job was ruined. At that point it was destined for the bin of despair but I decided I would experiment with pastels, this is the end result. Not my best work and I'm the first to admit I might have overdone it, but I'm happy to share my failures as well as my successes. As always all criticisms and comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.

Sevastopol, 1942 It was morning over the Crimean peninsula when Aleksey woke from his rest, not from a call to fly as was usual but rather by the movement of a vehicle outside his barracks. He rose and clothed himself in haste, not expecting the Regiment Commander to arrive unannounced. He burst open the door only to find not his superior, but an Army Commissar followed by a number of cameramen. Slightly startled by the exit, the political officer introduced himself as the NKVD Propaganda Manager for the region, and that he would like to include a segment on Aleksey's unit in the next film, requesting permission from the deputy commander. Aleksey agreed to this, and while there were no combat missions being flown that day, a segment was filmed with himself and the commissar explaining the details of his own Il-2. Nearing the end of the film, Aleksey looked into the camera and smiled; the camera clicked as the cameraman extracted the tape from it. The NKVD commissar thanked Aleksey and his unit for the opportunity and left in their truck, putting the film together back at their headquarters, only to find that the segment filmed earlier that day could not fit - much of it had to be cut away, leaving snippets of Aleksey walking around the aircraft, pointing out certain features... And ending on his smiling face. Right, with that little (possibly fictional) backstory over, here is the sum effort of three and a half months of work: My Hobbyboss 1/32 Il-2 (1942) done in the colours of aircraft no.30 of PShAP 18, Sevastopol, U.S.S.R as shown by this reconstructed three-view from Sovietwarplanes pages by Massimo Tessitori: https://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/il-2/il2-camo/il2-1942/il-2model1942.htm This is the aircraft that is shown in the background of the film that Aleksey Antonovich Gubriy, Hero of the Soviet Union, appears in sometime during 1942. I happened upon the scheme whilst browsing the website (https://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/index.html) for information regarding Soviet Camouflage, and this stuck out to me as 1. It had an interesting backstory, which I have *ahem* amplified, and 2. It sat right in between being too generic and far, FAR too difficult for me to handle. The kit itself, while nicely detailed, has a rather jarring accuracy flaw in that it depicts the aircraft as being all-metal, something that can only be applied to the earliest production aircraft, the vast majority having a wooden rear fuselage and most sporting wooden wings, such as the example shown above. Take away this discrepancy, and the kit is wonderful; excellent fit, vast payload options and an engine more detailed than some in 1/24 scale. This was in some ways a testbed for me, as this is the first model I have used AK products on, their WWII Soviet Aircraft paint-set and their 'masking putty'. The paint was good, bar a few bottles that had gotten damaged and had coagulated a bit, and the putty worked well, though misunderstanding the limit of it's coverage meant that the paint did build up near the edges. This model also suffers from a continuous issue I have had with Tamiya Flat Clear, where it gains a 'frosty' appearance upon being applied. I made my best effort at polishing it down to an acceptable level, however I am still at a loss on how to cure the issue. Apart from that, the focal point of the model was the opportunity to use clear pieces for the cowling to display the engine, and while it took extra effort to mask and to fit, I am more than pleased with the result. Now, with the unnecessarily long foreword out of the way, enjoy the images of the finished product! As a final word of note, I apologise to all those who were following or were interested in the in-progress thread I had for the build of this kit - during the early part of this year I found myself suddenly over-encumbered with work and unable to take and prepare photographs for posting, and the events of Cyclone Gabrielle did little to ease that. In fact, I completed this kit back in March, but the ensuing chaos has meant I have only found time now to post it here. Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

This will be the first of a two part* build of high altitude reconnaissance/research planes. The U-2 must be one of the more famous reconnaissance aircraft in aviation history. This being the C version which was flown by amongst others Francis Gary Powers when shot down near Sverdlovsk in what was then the USSR/SSSR in 1960. I haven't been able to work out the difference of the C and F versions (F being shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The model is made by HobbyBoss slightly upgraded from the 2021 new tool release of the 1/72 U-2A (according to Scalemates: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/hobbyboss-87271-u-2c-dragon-lady--1443513 ), the most obvious variation being the under wing pods for fuel. Searching on the forum, I couldn't obviously spot another build/completed thread. If i've missed one please let me know - I'm looking for ideas! After the delivery man had dropped it off. Opening the box, the 4 grey plastic sprues look clean (the three translucent sprues yet to be opened). Maybe even too clean. There is no detail on the instrument panels, and only the vertical instrument panel (part 7 on the upper sprue below, decal no28) has decals as far as I can tell from the guide, so the side panels of the cockpit (sprue beneath part 7 between part 8 and the wing) have no plastic or decal detail...For a 2020's new model (according to scalemates) I'm quite shocked. A similar story with the 4 part seat. The kit is not inexpensive c.40USD/30GBP. To counter the lack of detail, I've bought Eduards PE kit and masks - at least little sanding will be needed! Note the decals spelt HobbyBoos which amused me if nothing else - they aren't yet open. The paint scheme - one double sided A4 sheet - shows 3 US versions (2 airforce and 1 CIA) and no paint scheme but what appears to be Taiwanese decals albeit cut into 4? *Part two hopefully happening before the turn of the century but no promises can be made. But it does sort of depend on my ability to complete the numerous deck guns of a Japanese battleship, also under construction. But an aircraft seemed a nice distraction, and potentially a way to try a few technical skills out without it messing up a 1/350 battleship if it goes wrong.

Well seeing as I'm hosting I think its about time I actually commit to build something for it! After a great deal of thought (right up to the last minute) I have decided to build a HobbyBoss 1/35 Leopard 1A5 but with a slight twist as the options in the kit didn't really inspire me a great deal. I have a Revell Leopard 1A1 in the stash too which has markings for a very nice looking Norwegian one in a 4 colour splinter camo scheme which looks very nice indeed and when looking at pictures of them I found some even better ones with winter camo applied over the splinter. So why not build that one? Well I have a good reason to build the HB kit as it was a gift, so after more digging I found pictures of suitable 1A5No's (33 ex Bundeswher tanks complete with applique armour unlike most Norwegian 1A1's that were updated to 1A5 standard) so that is what tipped the scales, HobbyBoss it will be! So onto the kit itself, starting with the obligatory box top picture; The box is packed with plasticy goodness; Including a very nicely moulded turret; As you can see though it is moulded with the attachment points for the extra applique armour as fitted to German 1A5's but not all foreign operators which is why I am building as one of the Ex German examples supplied to Norway. And lots of individual links! they're moulded in one piece though (unlike the nightmare that @PlaStix is having to deal with on his HobbyBoss build), whether they fit together though remains to be seen! There's also an etched fret and wire for the tow cables; And finally a picture nabbed from t'internet to show the kind of result I am hoping to obtain; Really looking forward to getting started on this! Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received. Craig. 🇺🇦

HobbyBoss is to release a 1/48th Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-35 " Fulcrum-F" kit - ref. 81787 Source: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/8407857663 V.P.