Tim R-T-C

Wheels, mulled wine and Tamiya kits come with unexpected bonus parts...

Okay a little bit of context. My local IPMS club (Keighley, West Yorkshire) have an annual group build contest where you all get one kit and can build it any way you want. Last year was the T62, but as a new modeller I didn't want to brave this big kit so put it aside. This year was the more simple Beetle kit. So to try and be creative I decided to blend these to make the sort of display vehicle you might see crushing cars at a fairground event. No idea if it will work and I've never built a 1/35 vehicle before, so lets see what happens over the next 24 hours...

Official timestamp courtesy of my central heating. Wheely breakfast courtesy of Mrs R-T-C

So I ran mine past my quality inspector and got this look.... This one may get a bit silly - going live at 1000!

So the Panther is complete, now to see if I can complete the diorama base in time 😁⌚

An ecclectic mix of 1/24 diorama pieces and 1/72 Spanish Civil War models for some 2021 projects. 😁

Thanks, I was trying to get the pavement suitably grimy but still looks a little clean - I'll add some gum spots to the next one.

Moving along

My wife put in a last minute Amazon order for today, somehow while checking out, these got added to my basket...

Very unusual setting, I love it.

I don't believe so, Armory is pretty much a one-man band from the Ukraine, does some interesting models complete with etch and decal sheets, but seems to be a recurring issue with poor quality injection parts - possibly limitations of whoever he uses to generate these - there is a thread on the Emil here: http://www.kampfgruppe144.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=6949 I think Minicraft do sometimes re-release old Crown product too and occasionally their own moldings from the long distant part when a seat in a cockpit in 144th was considered super-detailed! Definitely a case of checking Scalemates whenever one of their products pops up.

So I enjoyed my purely scratchbuilt effort - https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235084578-new-york-alleyway-128/ - and decided to up my game to include figures and one of the Doozy Resin pieces that I found on eModels. These are 24th scale 60s-contemporary pieces made in Japan and distributed by AK Interactive. I stumbled upon them and haven't seem them mentioned elsewhere so thought I would give them a try before asking eSanta for a bundle! The base is foamboard as is the backing, covered with model railway textured styrene, inside a picture frame. The newspaper machine is the Doozy resin kit. The sprue setup was rather odd with some very large parts to cut and sand from the top of the box part, making it quite a job to sand it smooth. Decals were nice, with even tiny text on the front represented, although they are quite thick and the decal film didn't disappear fully even under two layers of flat coat. I will certainly be getting more though as they offer far more detail than anything but the most experienced scratchbuilder - just a pity much of the range doesn't seem to be readily available in the UK. As well as the graffiti, all based on real tags, I tried a little street-art as well, with for no reason, Moomins and Simons Cat making an appearance. The figure is from Tamiya's Campus Friends II pack, which is designed for adding around car models but has some nice naturalistic poses (compared to the similarly themed Master Box figures who are all very posed) and the Japanese appearance of the figure won't look out of place in a New York Street scene. He is meant to be carrying a guitar case, but I made up a paper shopping bag instead. Aside from the shop sign - which came from my favourite local takeaway menu! - all the other printed material is from ETA Diorama graphics in Greece. Most of the bits are actually 35th scale, but don't look too out of place when kept away from the figure - pity there are not more 35th scale modern figures that would work on a scene like this. The food packaging is nicely done, you cut out and fold the pieces just like the real thing - unfortunately I did find by the time I had made a dozen folds on each piece that the printed type had started to wear off which led to a few being discarded.

Every one is stunning and they all feel really realistic with the addition of figures and vehicles too, especially the smaller details that you might not notice, but add up to create a feeling of realism. I do try a similar approach with my 144th builds and I'll be adding these to my inspiration folder! Just curious about the above build, what's the setting and story behind it?

Excellent work

Just seen this, its a stunner, both the model, the scene and the photography. Tremendously evocative.

Thanks for the nice comments 😀 So on with part 2. I started off by completing a project I had started back at Easter, but for some reason had stalled on. Called, appropriately enough, Pasen op het strand / Easter at the Beach, it is a 1/87 Dutch beach scene using the incredible Preiser figures - these are super-detailed injection figures, even including individual finger detail, while many figures at this scale just have blobs for hands. Although usually only available pre-painted at high cost, they do a few packs of unpainted figures, which I used here, along with a Faller ice-cream parlour. While playing with different scenes, I made an urban counter-terrorism scene using some Revell figures in 1/72 inside a coffee tin lid, it allowed me to play with some graffiti techniques I had always wanted to try. Back to the planes next and my first visit to French Indochina this year - with another Group Build inspired project. I wanted to make a couple of the extremely battered AU-1 Corsairs used in the final days of the conflict, including minor mods for type, scratched paint and the hurriedly overpainted USMC markings showing through too (all the decals were cobbled from other sets as oddly no-one makes this interesting scheme for Corsairs). The base was hand-prodded and I regretted starting it about 10% of the way in, but the end result was reasonably convincing, I think! Made a little friend for my Chinese Nationalist P47D too. And another diversion into the different was this naval scene in 1/2400. I picked up a couple of these GHQ wargame pieces after seeing an impressive aircraft carrier build on this forum, so thought it would make an interesting representation of an English Channel escort duty. I added some decals from the stash and made a watery base with help from AK Water Effects gel. Then a quick side project, a Revell ECR Tornado, converted into a GR.1 to fit some 617 Squadron decals gifted by Hero Models Italy in an order Then began my largest project to date, something I had been planning most of the year and waiting for the appropriate GB to start. A tribute to the Few and the forgotten many who served with them. An airfield full of Hurricanes, featuring armourers, repair crew, station officers, WAAF officers and even the chefs who worked to keep the aircraft and aircrew flying. The excellent Sweet kits made the starting point, I opened the wing up on one for rearming - never tried it before, but seemed like a good idea and I think it worked. Various figures from Arrowhead and some model railway sets, along with Metcalfe cardboard buildings and tiny etched parts from Brengun. You might have noticed sneaking onto the cutting mat too was the Czech L159 "Spitfire" - a later war scheme, but a tribute to a pilot who did briefly fly in the Battle of Britain. This had loads of filler required, but was fun to paint and all freehand, no masking used at all. I also added a Typhoon to my Battle of Britain Tribute Tribute collection Then I got a little political and wanted to make something to pay tribute to the soldiers fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, a fascinating country that we visited back in 2018. So I turned an SDV 1/87 into a more modern T72 with scratchbuilt reactive armour Back to planes again and during the year I had been slowly building up a collection of types I could fit Uruguayan decals too, for no particular reason. The end result was this scene A return to Indochina for a 1951 scene, this time part of the Vietnam GB and while researching the Corsairs I learnt that the Air Force's famous Normandie-Niemen Batallion had served for some years out there, changing in '51 from the King Cobra, to the Hellcat - perfect for a scene contrasting a very tired P63 with a shiny new F6F5. To add to the Far Eastern feel, some AK Puddle fluid made for rainy scenes, along with some laser-cut paper ferns. For the MTO GB I decided to try a pair of the Sweet model MC.200s in my stash. These are very interesting as they include decals for the intricate Italian smoke ring schemes - but as it turned out, these were probably harder to use than just painting as they were weirdly shaped and wouldn't fit flush on any surface, meaning a lot of softener and fixer was required to fit them onto the plane. The planes, being early Sweet moldings, also lacked cockpit which in an open-cockpit type like this, was very obvious, so some scratch building was in order, my first attempt at a cockpit. Then, again deviating into something different, I decided to try an urban scene. Having seen a number of these on Instagram, I had a shot at a New York alleyway in, what ended up being about 1/28 scale. The scenery was scratchbuilt from foamcore, styrene sheet and brick texture sheet, with a Tamiya oil drum and some ETA Graphics sheets used for the posters and some of the trash. Most of the graffiti was from New York photos and the SMESH tag apparently so realistic that its creator found my pictures on Instagram. Having enjoyed this so much, I picked up the Tamiya 1/24 scale Campus Friends figure set and some Doozy Roadside resin pieces to use in another scene, upping the street-art as well On that note my 2020 oeuvre is complete - unless I can get my 144th Panther diorama complete in time! Despite everything, it was a superb year for modelling, trying all sorts of new ideas and techniques and hopefully developing in quality too. Some great support from the community has really helped with lovely comments on all my builds. As per the title though, my stash has increased exponentially too. I've not got a shot of the whole lot, but someone certainly disproves! Thanks for reading and bring on 2021, hopefully with the return of some shows so I can show off all these builds!

The only Mk1 available in 144th is the antique Microwings Revell kit with very basic details and decals (see https://erix7.home.xs4all.nl/models/spitmk1.html for mods required to make it accurate-ish) and only available from secondary sellers at present for prices generally far in excess of its actual value. The only good quality Spitfires readily available in the UK market are the Eduard IXc/e or Mark 1 XIV and XVIII which are obviously only suitable for late and post-war markings. The only Bf109E in scale is the poorly molded Armory release which is not widely available in the UK or US. The early types are available from AMG direct from the Ukraine and the F from Sweet models (excellent but only eBay or import), only the G is readily available in the UK in the Mark 1 release, but again not suitable for BoB. The only planes on the homepage list that would be duplicates of accessible and good quality kits are the Ju87, of which Eduard have superb D and G models (although they do require the use of etch which would deter some modellers, especially wargamers and don't have any specific BoB schemes, plus they are not currently in production so only available while stocks last) and the He111 of which Roden recently released an H-6, although again in a later war scheme. Personally I think making a whole collection is the best approach, even if there is some light duplication, particularly if these kits are long out of production or only available by import. No point trying to appeal to collectors or wargamers if the most popular topics are missing from the set.

Paint time

Somewhere in the Lybian Desert, 1942 Mc.200s of the Regia Aeronautica Italiana on a rough dry riverbed airstrip while the airfield commander asks the crew of a (borrowed) Flak 38 why they have positioned themselves so close to the planes (and the mess tent). 1/144 Sweet aircraft kits with Arrowhead Minatures whitemetal AB41 and AAA plus figures. Thanks for looking, see the fun with decals on the build thread:

And now complete with caption.

All three tanks taking some Primer (and a resin Magister that was sat around, making it like a scene from a very innacurate war movie) Picked out some figures and stowage too.

Hope its not too late to join the party 😉 So I'm going to be building a fictional scene from the later stages of 1944 in the Ardennes. Two M4A3 Shermans on reconnaissance patrol about to run into a Panther crew hiding behind a ruined tavern. The starting point: The tanks are whitemetal 12mm/144th scale kits from Arrowhead Miniatures. I started with the Shermans and pretty quickly they looked like the American workhorses. In a nice touch of authenticity, the Panther had far more complexity and has taken much longer to build...! Its actually a much newer moulding complete with hatches, partial interior and alternative exhaust arrangements so will be ideal for the scene as it will be laid out.

Well, like most people I suspect, family commitments on those days are now gone, so I'm in. Got my local club Group Build due for the 4th Jan so might try a shot at that. Its the Revell 1/32 VW Beetle open to all adaptations.... 🤔