doozer1974

Great job, lots of lovely details in there.

A superb collection there Russ, each one a gem!

Thanks chaps, much appreciated. Cheers Russ, I didn't know that about the windows. Unfortunately i was so cheesed off with this one that I binned the rest of the canopy as soon as I'd called it done! Good to know for a future build though, still love the shape of the Lightning and would happily give the Academy kit a go. Hi Valkyrie The hairspray technique is one method of enabling a chipped paint finish, where you have a base layer of paint, a layer of hairspray on top, and then a top coat on top of that. With acrylics, letting water soak into into the top coat reactivates the hairspray, making the top coat of paint loose, which you can then remove in part to expose the base layer of paint (the yellow green primer in the case of the Corsair I did). I found this youtube video a really helpful example of how to go about it, it covers other chipping methods, and the bit on the hairspray tecnhique kicks in about 1.10 into the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0f1MVUb5TA. Hope that's helpful. Cheers Adam

Now there's a colour scheme that really stands out - superb stuff!

Superb result, amazing that such a quality finish can be achieved in just a week!

Hello all Seems ages since I posted anything here, and finally got around to taking some pictures of recent builds with the decent light flooding into my kitchen courtesy of the UK weather just lately. So, here are a few pics of each build I've finished in the last 8 months or so. Most are out of the box, usually assisted with aftermarket canopy masks, occasionally supplemented with a bit of resin. Paints used are usually a mix of Tamiya and Mr Hobby Aqeuous acrylics, which i get along best with. Thanks for looking Adam 1. Heinkel HE 162 Salamander - Revell - 1/32 A nice kit, very cheap for the scale I thought (less than a tenner). Quite a rickety and fragile undercarriage, but otherwise a pleasureable build. 2. Chance Vought F4U-1/2 Bird Cage Corsair - Tamiya - 1/48 Nothing but good things to say about this kit. The wing fold option from the box works a treat, no need for expensive aftermarket stuff. This was the first time I’d tried the hairspray technique, as I wanted to show a weathered top coat wearing away to show the primer underneath. Could have done with an extra layer of protective varnish over the primer, but pretty happy for a first go. 3. Red Arrows Hawk – Airfix – 1/48 Airfix’s 50th anniversary offering. Decent kit, although I thought the cockpit details were a bit sparse, so I added a couple of Pavla seats and some instrument decals. I did a bit of surgery to the wings to display the flaps down, which made the decaling of the underside a bit more tricky, but overall happy with the result. 4. Sukhoi Su-27SM Flanker – Revell – 1/72 Another fine offering from Revell imo. Went with the box art version, but toned down the vividness of the blue. Having now seen some photos of the real aircraft, mine definitely isn’t blue enough… 5. Dam Busters Lancaster – Revell 1/72 I might start to sound like a sales rep for Revell, but this kit was another joy to build, once I’d rescued it from the hopeless side opening collapsing box. I’m a big fan of the colours of the Mr Hobby Aqueous acrylics range, although I’m not a stickler for accuracy, their dark green / dark earth just looks right to me. 6. Lockheed P-38 Lightning – Italeri – 1/48 Having been spoiled with building lots of nice kits of late, this one was a complete change of tone, and is one of the worst kits I’ve battled with. To some extent I agree with the view that there are no bad kits, just bad modellers, and if ever there was a set of sprues that highlighted my limitations as a modeler, then it was this one. Just about every joint needed tedious amounts of filling and sanding, some of the decals seemed as thick as cardboard, and I gave up trying to achieve anything with the clear parts that made up the central part of the canopy. Quite like the PRU blue shade though, so not totally dissatisfied… If you made it this far, thanks again…

Great little collection - a top class first RFI.

Great looking Stuka, looks like Airfix have come up trumps with this kit, if not with their stock of replacement parts...

What a lovely build and dio - the roughed up grass looks really effective. Been looking at one of those Meng kits, but the price tag has put me off - altough seeing your result suggests their kits are worth that bit extra!

That's gorgeous - top job!

Lovely work on display here, sublime weathering of the winter paint scheme!

That's a very nice job on the mottling, and a great looking Gustav.

Lovely build, much to admire in those photos.

That's a fab dio, and the figures all look really impressive.

A gorgeous Dora, most impressive!

Great splinter camo scheme - love it!

Much to admire there - a lovely build of a great Tamiya kit.

That's a great grimy, beaten up look you've achieved there, good job!

Very nice - the ejector seat detail looks really good in particular.

Great job as always Russ, your photos really do justice to the finished model.

Lovely job - some great little details inside those open hatches, and like others have said, the camo colours look superb.

Really nicely done with the faded and chipped paint job - a lovely job.

Lovely work - very nice job on the paint chipping especially.

That's a beautiful Veltro. Some trench-like panel lines on that kit, but it still looks a cracker in that large scale.

Yet another great looking build Reini, hats off to your dad again!