Doc72

Just out of curiosity: I noted that many (not all) military Turbolets have a kind of large black panel on the rear fuselage on the portside: What is this? You can see this on aircraft from various air forces throughout many years, e.g.: Czechoslovakia (on delivery to Libya), 1984 https://www.airhistory.net/photo/450720/OK-NZE Czechoslovakia, 1990 https://www.airhistory.net/photo/402399/1133 Latvia, 1994 https://www.airhistory.net/photo/89785/146 Slovakia, 2012 https://www.airhistory.net/photo/166342/2721 Lithuania, 2017 https://www.airhistory.net/photo/169284/02 Any ideas? Thanks in advance! PS: I am not a Turbolet-fan or -expert in particular, but the L-410 seems to be quiet a successful design that is often overlooked and deserves more attention.

Great looking model!

Well done! I like (among other things) how the decals snuggle down to the recessed panel lines.

Very nice! Fascinating to have pieces of the real plane incorporated in the model and its base. The four models of XH135 will be in 1) silver, 2) green/grey, 3) hemp and 4) grey, I guess?

Very nice. The paint scheme has the right amount of nuances and shades to look convincing.

What a beautie! Good work!

That's a nice looking Gina! BTW: How do you compare the Revell and the Meng kit? Which do you recommend? Some day, I would like do build a Luftwaffe Gina. I wonder if Meng might be the superior kit, but it seems to include only the small drop tanks while the single-seater Ginas of the Luftwaffe mostly carried the larger tanks which Revell provides in its kit.

That's a great looking 109! The camouflage pattern on the side of cowling looks interesting. Did you use masking fluid (Maskol or something like that) to create the effect?

Looks great, well done!

I swear it's totally authentic. I saw it flying over my house the other night trying to abduct me... 🙂

Hello everybody, my first venture into the space and science-fiction genre: an UFO built from scratch. I did not try to recreate something from a specific TV series or movie. The idea was rather to build something just based on my imagination and skills without a kit. Obviously, scratch-building a UFO is much easier than scratch-building a real plane or tank because I can always adjust the desigen to my capabilities. I decided not to use spare parts from kits or plastic waste like soap bottles and so on although that would have been fun, too. The materials used were plastic sheet, profiles and wire. The WIP can be found here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235120880-scratch-built-ufo/ Thanks for looking! Every comment welcome!

Great looking model, good work!

Great looking model!

Now with additional yellow markings, a dark wash and airbrushed post-shading. I will have another look at it with daylight, but I guess the beast is more or less finished. What do you think?

Looks promising!

After some setbacks the UFO is slowly nearing completion. I used masking fluid applied with a sponge for the chipping after a first attempt with chipping fluid that did not worked out. With the heavy dry-brushing it looks a bit like a Wargaming model. I wouldn't do it on a plane or tank, but here it's ok, I guess.

What? No blue?! Seriously, great work on one of the most attractive Mustang paints schemes.And I guess, the debate on whether these Mustang carried blue or just OD is still somewhat open.

Starting to look less dull:

Really impressive work, very nice. The "Wall-E on wheels" is also cute.

Well done! That's not an easy kit.

I finally settled for Tamina "Dark Iron", a dark grey that has some metallic pigment in it, and added a bit of blue and red to create a slightly purple tone. As mentioned above, I tried to find something unusual and extraterrestrial, but in the end the result is clearly early 21st ct. because it reminds me of the USAF's Have Glass-scheme. The base with the Martian landscape has not yet received its final color. The craters came out nicely, I think. I modeled the landscape out of a mixture of wood putty, white glue, pigments, talcum and water with some tiny stones added on top.

... and back to Outer Space or the modelling desk: After some rounds of filling and sanding (and I still find imperfections) the UFO received some pre-shading. As usual, it remains to be seen what, if anything, of it will be perceiveable after adding the main colour. Also the base received my standard fake-cherrywood treatment. The weird circles will hopefully become useful in creating an extraterrestrial landscape with craters.

Yes, that's always funny. Of course, some more ambitious authors like Lovecraft tried to do better by creating aliens that are totally unlike humans or contacts that are completely incomprehensible for humans. "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem where the alien intelligence is an ocean or a planet would also be an example. Another one is "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatsky brothers. In this novel, the humans (and the reader) have basically no idea what visited them and the aliens probably didn't noticed or cared that they have interfered with Earth in some way.

Good point! This is an old problem with Sci-Fi: Everything in novels or movies that is meant to look futuristic or extraterrestrial reflects above all the time and the world of the author. Maybe I should take some inspiration from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space But how does that correspond to the Tamiya XF-range?

It turned out fine in the end, that's the main thing. Like the others I'm also impressed by the Molotov chrome pen.