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I’ll join in with this. The Semovente was a self propelled anti tank gun based on the Fiat Ansaldo M13/40 medium tank chassis. It served in North Africa and during the Italian campaign. The model is an Italeri 2007 rebox of a 1975 ESCI kit. These old ESCI kits are rather nice and the quality well ahead of their time. It’s good that Italeri have rebox Ed many of them as there is a paucity of the tanks in the range from other kit makers. Anyway on to the kit. Two nice and crisp sand colour sprues. Nothing overly complex but clean and crisp. Not bad for nearly 50 year old moulds, though probably only around 30 or so when boxed. Four page instructions, some introductory information, a set of plastic tracks and a nice transfer sheet. With colour call outs for 4 versions, including one used by the Germans.

I got this from Jadlam today, and their packaging explains why the box is slightly crushed. The back of the box shows the colour schemes There are two largeish grey sprues A small clear sprue, a little photoetch fret and a nice looking decal sheet The recommended overall colour is FS 36280 Flat Dark Gray, though I don't know of any model paint that matches this - I'll have to see if anything looks close to the sample in my old FS595A.

Hello everybody, I'd like to enter my build of the immortal Bell helicopter, it will be finished as one of the many examples used by the Italian Air Force Helicopter School at Frosinone. The base kit is quite an hodgepodge because I had a started Italeri Sioux AH.1, where I robbed the engine, part of the tubular structure and both rotors to scratchbuild an AB47J. That is unfortunately a stalled project after the issue of the LF Model kit, but that's another story... Then I remembered I also had somewhere the horrendous Pavla short-run kit, so I thought I could try picking some of its useable parts and make a complete airframe. You can see here below the raw materials: in the last few days I assembled the cabin from the Italeri kit replacing some parts I had robbed for the AB47J and then I tackled the photoetched tailboom 😱 The more I look at it, the more it seems a bad approach to remedy the coarseness of the Italeri kit, but in this case I had no choice. It is hopelessly flat and nearly impossible to assemble straight and true without bending some brace here and there. I hope it will get better once painted. Thanks for looking!

Hi folk's,my build for this GB will be a Greek AF Recce Phantom.Luke has three kits in his stash and offered one as I grabbed a Trumpeter AMX Trainer for a snip in Creative's sale at a mere £12.50 posted however it only has Brazillian markings and there is nothing out there for Italian twin seaters except what's in Kinetics kit if I can get some it may be a second build.Anyway back to the Phantom rather than take a new kit I decided to take the one he started which only has the fuselage joined and a bit of interior paintwork.Being new to this modelling lark I think he was a bit disappointed in the intake fit and the poor fuselage to wing fit on dry runs however I'm well aware of this issue and know how to fix it.These Greek machines were in the familiar SE Asia scheme and weathered heavily so that was the attraction. Post some photo's soon but I really must get the mass of weaponry done for my Warthog build for the Japanese GB not touched it for weeks.,oh and I'll make sure he's shown the fitting fixes as he's planning Iranian and Israeli builds of this kit for future GB's.

Hello Everyone, this is my next offering for your perusal. Originally I wanted to build it in U.S Air Force, Vietnam Era Camouflage but was quite take with this colour scheme. Built out of the box with just the addition of a couple of crew members and painted with a mixture of Tamiya and Revell acrylics. It went together well with very little filler and virtually no problems. I build most of my models in flight and the biggest problem I normally encounter is making the undercarriage doors fit but these dropped in with no gaps at all. A very enjoyable build. Thanks for looking, as always all comments and criticisms are welcome.

With the permission of the Mods ( thanks guys!) I will be finally joining with this part started civil C-130. I had it sitting around in the stash with the modified fuselage assembled and cockpit painted as it was going to be a USAF ANG bird originally. This is the state of it a couple of weeks ago. I have managed to get the fuselage halves joined (sort of and started to fill some windows to convert the C-130 into an L-100 I hope to finish it as this non-descript L-100 operated by QP2 LLC... who may or may not do work for the CIA So I need to sort out the fuselage sponsons and redrill the cabin windows, find the wings and engines and go from there!

Hi all, here's my Israeli A-4E of 110 Squadron - 'Knights of the North'. Built as part of my Israeli Adventure- WIP can be found here: The kit is the Italeri rebox of the old Esci kit, holds up surprisingly well considering its over 40 years old though there's definitely a few troublesome parts to contend with. The cockpit is extremely barebones OOB, with the canopy requiring a lot of sanding to fit on the fuselage (and I'm still not 100% happy). All OOB though decals are from Isradecals A-4 set, they were wonderful to work with. Paint is a mix of Hataka and AK Interactive acrylics. Here's the photos! And here it is with my Esci "A-4N" I built a few months back Plenty more Israeli stuff in the pipeline, the stash is growing concerningly large at this point 😅 Thanks for looking in!

Hello friends, I chose to rehabilitate an old model. It dates from 1992 (end of my student years...). Painted with a brush, of course, but it seems to me that it still holds the comparison. It still needed a refresh on the decals that had to be replaced. Thank you Thierry for sharing a new Carpena decalsheet. A small veil of varnish for this time to freeze and perpetuate the decals. A bit of additional weathering and it's over. On to the pictures. I hope you will like it. Alain.

Hello All, my second submission for this year, The Fighting Falcon. I have to say I don't enjoy modelling in this scale, I find that any mistakes or blemishes are magnetified. If you lose any detail due to sanding it becomes obvious unless you are good at rescribing which I am not very proficient at. Also because of the size of the model I feel weathering becomes a necessity, and I have wrecked so many good paint jobs with poor weathering that I now keep it to a minimum. Anyway here she is, built out of the box except for the addition of a pilot and painted wit a mixture of Tamiya and Revell acrylics. as usual all comments and criticisms are welcome. Thanks for looking.

Hi folks, first things first - happy Easter everyone! 🐰🥚 Today on the menu is Italeri's F-35B Lightning II in its fierce Beast Mode configuration in 1/48th scale, my latest finished kit. Bought it last year after seeing the USAF F-35A demo during an airshow in Belgium. It impressed me so much I just had to have at least one Lightning II in my collection but I like it so much I aim to get the whole range. The kit itself is not bad but IMO a bit overpriced compared to Tamiya's F-35A which only costs around 20€ more than this one and even if I haven't build that one yet, it's safe to say it will be better in a number of ways. The Italeri kit is nicely detailed in many areas (Cockpit, landing gear, weapon bays, some surface details) and is kinda winging it in others (engine nozzle, other surface details) but it goes together very well and features a great many options. Sure, this also comes down to the F-35B variant, which is the one with STOVL capability. I chose to open every hatch, bay and intake possible to make it look like a Transformer. The kit also comes with some extra ordnance and weapon carts you can put next to it. Speaking of ordnance - there is plenty but the options are rather limited. You can either go for a stealth clean look or a full Beast Mode loadout with 6 pylons under the wings packed with 4 bombs (either JDAMs or Paveways) and 2 AIM-9X. The internal weapon bays can be filled with 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM and 2 again either JDAMs or Paveways and an optional underbelly gun pod. I went for the 4 Paveways and 2 Sidewinders under the wings and 2 JDAMs and 2 AMRAAM in the bays and ditched the gun pod. The build was quite easy going despite the rather complex nature of the plane itself. The problem is the masking afterwards. There is a lot of stuff that needs to go into the fuselage before the lower and upper halves go together and unfortunately a lot has to be painted in what I like to call gods cruelest joke - white. The masking and painting were the most time consuming aspects of this build. I used Tamiya's white for the internal bays, Hataka's Have Glass Grey and several Vallejo greys (and brushes this time) for all the surface details, followed by some Tamiya gloss varnish. Washes were done as usual with Vallejo and Ammo washes. The decals were fantastic. Printed by Cartograf on a very thin film and crisp as hell. Even the smaller stencils are still readable. They were easy to work with and a responded very well to decal softener. In the end the whole thing was sealed with gloss varnish. All in all it was a fun kit and I'm quite pleased with the result (although I made a few mistakes while painting which I noticed too late to be corrected) and I learned a few lessons for any future F-35 project and how I'm going to tackle a few things next time to make it even more enjoyable. I also found the box of the PC sim JSF - from 1997. That puts it into perspective how long the Joint Strike Fighter program is going on and me being in my early 30's now, it took almost my entire lifetime from start (around 1993) to introducing the plane into service (2015 to 2019 depending on the variant and their respective users). The time, money, thinking, testing and developing that went into these machines is simply incredible. That's it for now. Wish you a happy Easter weekend and thanks for watching (and reading)

Finished this afternoon after 3 months of gentle work & manipulation. ES3A 1 by phil da greek, on Flickr And because I like the folded wing look I invested in this. ES3A 2 by phil da greek, on Flickr A nice kit to build, as always a few niggles, mainly with the kit’s canopy it was just awful so I got a vac from one off eBay & it was worth the tenner. The wing fold kit contains new wings which are solid resin & heavy, very heavy. So a metal undercarriage was invested in. I wanted a lightly weathered with subtle panel lines which I got although the panel lines have disappeared a little with the photos. The kit decals are beautiful & went down nicely with a drop of Humbrol decal fix. The model is brush painted with Humbrol enamels with Winsor & Newton Galleria acrylic varnishes. I’m pretty happy with the finished aircraft although there are a couple of mistakes & an omission or two. Have a look. ES3A 11 by phil da greek, on Flickr ES3A 9 by phil da greek, on Flickr ES3A 8 by phil da greek, on Flickr ES3A 4 by phil da greek, on Flickr ES3A 12 by phil da greek, on Flickr ES3A 7 by phil da greek, on Flickr

AFAIK, it seems that Trumpeter's 1/72 CH-47A is the only 1/72 Chinook kit to be modeled with the early 'metal' rotor blades. Does anyone know of some aftermarket 'metal' rotor blades that would allow the CH-47D to be backdated with the earlier blades (the kit is tooled with the wider 'composite' blades which were retrofitted to some machines.). I don't think it makes much of a difference, but I'm specifically looking at the Italeri 1/72 CH-47C/D (H.C.1) - kit no. 064, initially released in 1996.. Note, I'm not talking about the wide 'composite' blades the kit comes with, but rather the thinner (earlier) 'metal' ones like in the CH-47A & early D's. I know OzMods did a set in resin, but they're listed as OOP on their site. If only 3D printers were more affordable.... 🙂 Scott

Hi all, As promised, I hope to commence this soon. She was the last Invader in French service and is pictured below while being ferried to Cazaux, France where she was destroyed as a target on the ranges. Her last tour of duty was with the CEAM. What a waste! The base kit will be the Italeri A-26C kit (No. 1259). The modifications for getting her to be an RB-26P will be stratch built. I have the decals drawn and printed now. Credit: "Foreign Invaders" by Dan Hagerdorn, which I own. Back soon! Martin

Although I didn`t register an interest in this group build, i didnt decide to enter until the middle of this week. Hope that`s okay? So here is Italeri`s kit of the classic GMC CCKW-353 6x6 2 and half tonner known as the "Jimmy" or "Deuce and half". A vehicle synonumous with the Allies Forces more than any other with exception of the GPW Jeep? 500'000 were built in long and short wheelbases with hard and soft top cabs, with and without winches and a variety of bodies, general purpose, tippers, fuel and water tankers, wreckers, compressors and Bofors AA guns. Used in every theatre they continued in service with other Armed forces well into the 1970s and were still common in civilian use into the 1980s. I remember a tipper being in a garage in a gite I was staying in the early 2000s,. Everything was bolted together for ease of maintenance, looking at that 60 year old truck, you realised that vehicles like the Jimmy helped the victory of the Allies. A simple good quality product for effective use. Italeri`s kit dates back from the late 1970s and I will doing a bog standard truck without a winch or machinegun ring but with hardtop cab. I plan to do build a truck used on the Red Ball Express, the continuous supply convoy that ran from Normandy the front line 24 hours a day on a dedicated route. Italeri`s kit it well moulded for its age and most of the construction is in the chassis. This afternoon I assembled the 10 road wheels and the spare. Plus removed the "Italeri" and "Made in Italy" marking from under the cab. Reckon Ive had this in the stash for 18 years at least. Some photos. Thanks for looking. Grahame

Here’s what I will be building for the group build: with a few extras: For someone who usually build fighters, this will easily be the biggest model I have ever built. Hopefully I can get it finished before I go away for a month in early June. In any case it will have to wait while I finish off a Mirage in the Dassult/Bloch GB and the Hasegawa Draken that is fighting me mercilessly in the Draken STGB. AW

Hi all, planning on building the Italeri 1/48 RF-4E in an Israeli scheme for this GB. This was the boxing released last year with new decals included. I'll be building this in the grey IAF scheme of The Bats squadron. Honestly depending on how this kit goes together I'm very tempted to get another as it comes with an additional IAF scheme, an IRIAF scheme, a Luftwaffe scheme and a Turkish scheme. Looking forward to this one!

All of these CAD renders have been taken periodically over 2022, each vehicle has been modeled from separate parts items like the engines and gear boxes have been designed as single items, chassis frames, suspension, drive shafts, axles, door and other parts are separate parts (80 parts make up one of the vehicles) all designed for 3D printing. The parts and the vehicles were designed according to workshop manuals and individual component drawings, and a lot of help from owners of the real historic vehicle owners. Some are designed as conversions for the Italeri 109" Kits and before anyone asks Yes Mike @bootneck is aware of these and has helped me with the Series 3 Ambulance conversion. The next stage is to start test prints of the parts and once I'm happy with everything I am planning on making the files available for purchase buy others A full 17 CH 4 cylinder petrol engine Mike was happy when I sent him these images. Yes a full 3.5 Rover V8 engine Yes I have modeled the body door handles on the finished doors. The radio and vampire vehicles are void of any internal parts as I could not able to get anything on the equipment and considering it is still in service quite right too. The series 3 Ambulance body will be a conversion to the Italeri base Kit. I will post updates as I proceed with the test printing. Pete

After the F-35A (thread) & the F-35B (thread), Italeri is to release a new moulds 1/72nd Lockheed-Martin F-35C Lightning II - ref. 1469 Source: https://www.italeri.com/en/article/816 V.P.

Hello all, have a few aircraft in the stash which qualify for this GB but starting small with the Italeri Mirage 2000 Gulf War boxing. Its a fairly simple kit with just two sprues. It comes with three schemes, 2 French and 1 UAE. I'm unsure which one I'll be going for, but I'm planning on doing one of the desert options. Looking forward to it, thanks for looking in!

Well, it's the second of 2023 finished ..... the over-weathered 'Dirty Sherman'! A couple of bits ... Aerials - cut the plastic ones off the base, drilled and fitted a length of silver wire for more realism Tow cable - scratch made from silver wire with the eyes bound to the main cable with separate wire My 'Notes to self' ... 1. Test fit everything, then file, shave, test fit again (and again and again) before shoehorning it in or on! 2. Don't try to be smart and try adding shell damage this soon ... master the basics first! 3. Spend time learning subtle weathering first 4. Go easy on those muddy pigments .... tanks get muddy, but seriously! 🙄 (He writes after ordering another load of mud stuff! 😳) So here it is .... please be gentle! 😬 Sherman front by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Sherman front by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Sherman 1 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr [/url]Sherman side 1 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Sherman side 2 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Sherman rear by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Sherman 1 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Sherman top by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Thank you for looking .. Keith 😁

I've not posted any during build pictures of this, but completed it at last .... and the first of 2023! This is an out of box build, so nothing special and it's one being used to hone my techniques. I have taken some time on the canvas to try to make it realistic looking, it does have some highlights along the edges and where the support hoops would be aswell as some subtle shading. Weathered using mostly splashes. Thoughts? 20230121_140407 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr 20230121_140345 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr 20230121_140418 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr 20230121_140430 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Thanks for looking! Keith 😁

I've not posted any during build pictures of this, but completed it at last .... and the first of 2023! This is an out of box build, so nothing special and it's one being used to hone my techniques. I have taken some time on the canvas to try to make it realistic looking, it does have some highlights along the edges and where the support hoops would be aswell as some subtle shading. Weathered using mostly splashes. Thoughts? 20230121_140407 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr 20230121_140345 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr 20230121_140418 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr 20230121_140430 by Ran Domstuff, on Flickr Thanks for looking! Keith 😁

I'm unsure I should be starting a second build within the GB. Either stupid of fool hardy! Anyway, my Commando Sea King is progressing so well, I thought, why not! So a Whirlwind? One of the original batch delivered to the Fleet Air Arm in March of 1954. These were Sikorsky HO4S-3's being supplied under the MDAP scheme and designated HAS Mk22's The first unit to be supplied was 845 NAS and in those days it was and anti-submarine unit (later becoming a 'Junglie' Commando unit). The aircraft were delivered in overall Gloss Sea Blue, in 1957, this was changed to o/a RAF Blue Grey. I have half a dozen of the Italeri kits in the stash and was responsible for mastering the conversion sets that were available in the then ROTORcraft range. I also researched the various colour schemes on the accompanying decal sheets. The Italeri kit is quite good, with slightly heavy panel lines but the rest is well detailed. The very old Airfix kit is scheduled for re-release. Personally, I'd rather see a re-release f the Italeri kit with RN ad other operators decal options. We're in load shedding ie, no power. I'll come back to this later... So, there I was and then the lights went out!!! A gift from the government. Lets deny the population of continuous power! So, Time for a couple of images... The parts breakdown, sorry, I haven't one of the box art. The decal sheet and conversion kit instructions... I don't think the conversion set and decals are still available. We never put a release date on the instruction sheet. I'll have a look on Scale Mates, see if there is a lead there. I've painted and buttoned up the fuselage, so more pics soon... Colin

I suppose we'll soon see - at the Nuremberg Toy Fair - the Italeri's Preview 2023 folder. So it's time to open a new dedicated thread. After 2022 (link), here are the first aviation reissues for 2023. Source: https://nowosci.plastikowe.pl/aktualnosci/zapowiedzi-italeri-styczen-2023/ Expected aircraft kit releases for January 2023 - 1/48 - ref. 2827 - Northrop F-5E Tiger II - ESCI reissue - 1/72 - ref. 1466 - Junkers Ju 87G-2 - reissue V.P.

Hi fellow modellers Here I present italeri’s 1:48 JAS 39 Gripen (2638) in Czech Air Force Tiger Markings Well I started this kit sometime back in 2019/2020 and very nearly had it finished but had a disaster when I noticed the paint had cracked mainly on both upper wings (1st picture) so it has sat on my shelf of doom ever since. I decided that I wanted to get it rectified and finished so back on the bench it went at the start of the new year and after sanding both upper wings back to plastic then re-spraying and painting up the rest of the parts that wasn’t finished when I started this kit. I certainly can’t say I enjoyed this build but I do like to challenge myself which doesn’t always pay off but hay-ho that’s modelling I suppose. not my best build by a long way the tiger markings on the fuel tanks came from a couple of model alliance decals arctic tigers sheets intended for use on F-18’s so these are not technically correct. aftermarket used . CMK resin Cockpit including FOD guards (4148) Maestro Models conversions resin fuel tanks (K4806) Maestro models photo etched Ladder (MMP4806) Model-CZ decals (MCZA4807) Paints used MR hobby aqueous and Tamiya Acrylics thanks for looking happy modelling