Bengalensis

Are you missing the whole clear sprue, or only the windscreen and headligths? I may have some Fujimi 356 parts lying around from donor kits.

That paint work is just stunning, what an excellent job, very impressive. With the figure being i vinyl, what paints are you using that will adhere and dry well?

What a lovely rescue! It looks really proud now. Good colour choise as well.

I'm deeply impressed with the attention to detail, and so very small. This will look absolutely fantastic when washing and weathering starts to hit the painted surface. Absolutely fantastic. And some good solid metal in some more etreme form will always help this kind of work immensely

Thanks for all the praise. I was so happy how she turned out when finished, I didn't really dared to hope for that result. Oh no, on the contrary, actually... I would find it more strange if you were not...

Here you have some interior ads, not sure if any are of use for 1978 though: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kingswayjohn/6576562507/sizes/o/in/pool-1893666@N22/ There may be other ads to find in that Flickr group as well.

It is very time consuming indeed to create the art work. If I would go through the trouble trying to sell all the decals I created in my build, I wouldn't dare counting what the price would be if one would try to see it in a sort of professional way. I take my hat off to those who can work through it and offer stuff like this on the market.

There is a Flickr group for Routemaster pictures: http://www.flickr.com/groups/routemaster/pool/page1/ The downside is that there are loads of photo´s to wade through and many are modern, but there is a lot of older stuff there and many of them are also dated. I had good use of it when I did my own adverts. Also Google image search was useful.

Very nice build, especially the painting and the way you correct minor problems in the process. Interesting project to follow.

There is actually an extra window on the sprues of exactly the type you need to replace the RML emergency exit, due to the fact that two of the clear sprues are identical. Thank you Revell. Old style Indicators and the rear lights are in the kit. I have seen a few different ways to cut the RML down to the RM. I detailed the process I did in a build thread I did about a year ago, should still be found "in the works" forum. But I'm not sure of the model in this thread, very nicely done BTW, was cut.

I finished this 1/7 scale 25 cm high resin kit of Ignis yesterday. There were many parts to clean up and a bit of work to get some of them to fit as intended, but I'm very happy with the end result. She is usually seen wearing this outfit in white, but I wanted to try and give her a bit more serious look. She is the first figure I build in this size that I had to paint the eyes on, something I have feared a bit, but I think I came through and made her justice. Hope you like her.

Here we have Senna in his kart. I finished this a few weeks ago. It's Fujimi's recent 1/20 kit which is quite a nice kit in most aspects, although the helmet parts is totally crap. I used a head/helmet from Tamiya's RE30b and added some extra detailing. Most work went into tweaking the figure in a few places and making him sit in a way to get some life into the thing, which it really deserves.

MIRAGEF1, you mentioned a broadside photo. You mean something like this?

Studio 27 are rereleasing their # 55 decal sheet in December, that's one solution.

This is looking so good, wonderful work. I'm drawing loads of inspiration from this build to my upcoming 1/72 adventure. Not that I expect to reach anywhere near this paint and weathering quality... Please keep the thread going, looking forward to every update.

I used Aber S06 brass mesh and was very pleased with the result. Bought mine from www.jadarhobby.pl but I suppose you can find it in many places. Before deciding on that I tried A+Club PE-002 stainless mesh which is a tiny bit smaller in spacing with ever so sligtly thicker mesh wires. If you have built a very good and detailed radiator inside I would use Aber which I found best looking and best maching in spacing. Both can be seen in my build thread. However, I have my left over ready cut A+Club mesh laying here, it's all yours if you want to use it.

Thanks for all the praise, I'm overwhelmed by all positive comments. It was a build I wanted to do for a long time. I don't have a good broadside photo right now, but I will try to get one.

I can not miss out on a Le Mans group build, 24h Le Mans is after all the greatest race. Actually more or less the only motor sport event I really care for these days. Please count me in. I have a pretty good stash to dig from, but if Profile 24 delivers in time, it will most likely be this years Nissan DeltaWing. It was absolutely awesome to watch in the race with its strange shape. Just a pity it didn't last to the end being pushed off as it was at the restart after that safety car period.

Lovely work! I hope Janet like her. I know they are not that easy to do, as I have recently taken up painting anime/manga figures myself, but I'm enjoying it.

Very nice models, especially the Spitfire and the paint finish. I also like the photos with the low camera angle, as you approach a real aircraft, well done.

Got questions about the canopy, which is my own vac form. I did the mould for the front and middle section first, covering the fuselage in thin plastic film and then in several steps building up a reasonable shape from 2-part filler. When it looked like a rough base it was easy to pull off and then it was just to sand fill sand fill sand until the finish and shape looked right. Then primer and polishing to get a fine surface. After that I realised I couldn't use the "thick" styrene kit part for the rear section as I first planned as it would look too different, so I filled it solid from the back and sanded it smooth, then primed and polished it to use that as vac form mould too. I didn't do any frame work on the moulds, which may seem odd, but I often find it to be over sized and vague in detail, and to me the canopy of the Speed Spitfire also looked quite smooth. So I decided to do the two moulds completely smooth. They can be seen in one of the build pictures. I pulled the vac forms and after they were cut to size and the fit was right I masked and scriped the line between the front and middle section. Then I masked and painted the frame work, starting with a coat of interior green and then a few coats of the blue. The little paint thickness and masking edge gave me a thin frame work that came out better than I had expected.

Exactly my thoughts as well. Imagine her as the high point of todays air shows, doing a few full speed passes on low altitude... I can hardly think of something more beautiful than that.

Thanks for all the praise, I'm overwhelmed. The paint finish, well it's not that difficult to do. I find it much more difficult to convincingly achieve all the matt finished aircrafts we see here, with fantastic variations in colour tones, shadows, wheathering etc. After all the filling of panel lines and riveting was sanded and done I sprayed a coat of 2-pack primer surfacer so I could do the final sanding of the smooth panel finish. The blue and silver were then sprayed with automotive touch up spray can colour - but using the airbrush. I add a little retarder to the paint so it won't dry so bloody fast, just reasonably fast. That way I can spray smooth coats "wet on wet" until I have a good coverage and then another coat for safety. The surface is now quite glossy and have very little orange peel if any. There will be the occasional dust speckle and mishap, but that's no problem as we are not finished yet. What I do NOT do next is spray a few good coats of 2-pack automotive clear, which would be super glossy but just unrealistic and plastic toy-like. I do use it - moderately and thin - on some car builds, but not on this one. Instead I use 2000-grit wet paper (Megiuar's paper in my case which is very finely made) and carefully wet sand out mishaps, dust and any orange peel. Then the paint is polished, I often use Megiuar's car products, #2, #3 and #9 in this case. That gives a smooth glossy, but not over-glossy surface that is not thick and toy-like. There are several sets of polishing products that can be found for model car painters that will do the same job and come in more reasonably sized packaging, I just happen to use Megiuar's on my 1:1 cars.

What a project! How far has it come today? Would a full decal sheet from Trumpeter's MkVb make life easier? I have some various small bits left over as well from my Speed Spitfire build if you need something.

Thanks for all nice comments! The upper cowl... oh my... Well, I read "everywhere" that the kit cowl was wrong in shape and that a resin piece was recomended to correct it (manufacturer escapes me know, maybe just as well), however it was oop when I needed it. But after a lot of searching I found one and ordered it. Well, it did seem a bit better in shape for what little difference there was, but I was shocked to see it was that much too short... perfect otherwise. I don't know why I bothered fixing it as I could have used the kit part just as well.