Back in the Saddle

That is excellent!👍

Thank you! That's a great choice of colour scheme! Funny you should say that! I'm 'just' looking at the decals at the moment and there are a few issues... Comparing the decals with the actual aircraft, the 'Speedmarque' needs some tweaking - it is too small and doesn't look right, with a darker shade of red added and no white highlight. I've made a few tweaks and here's a picture to show the problem and my solution: I've corrected the size and aspect ratio of the Speedmarque, fixed the colours and superimposed the door outline. I still need to add the 'exit' sign, which is currently missing. The 'British Airways' titles need looking at too, as they are also slightly incorrect in terms of size. It should be a simple adjustment though.👍 The painting has stalled but I'm hoping to get the white finished this week (I know, I've said that before!)😃.

Good luck!

Busy! Hope you enjoy the A380, maybe see you at work one day!

Just a placeholder for now - photos appearing soon! I’m deliberately keeping this build simple, with the hope of finishing it in time!😁

Cheers Glen. Are you on the 380 now…? Just noticed your avatar has changed!😁

Looks great!👍

Very nice! I’ve got a few of these in the stash, just need more spare time…😁

That is excellent and even more impressive considering it was painted with home made masks. Top job!👍

Cheers Mike! 😁 Thanks Olly, I’ve had a bit of practice now at making custom decals - still learning though! Thank you!👍 Thanks but no, I’ll stick with flying Boeings! 😁 Thanks Mark! 👍

Very nice! I particularly like the 737, despite flying the BA 787 - I think it’s all the extra LACI details on the Max that swayed me; they elevate the build to a whole new level. The 787 is obviously a far better looking machine…😁

Despite my suggestion for applying the livery to the rotor mast, I have to say it looks great with the Negus colours on the fins!👍

Wow! I might have to get one of these, that looks perfect.👍

Excellent! Fingers crossed for a 1/48 version…🤞

Stunning!

Having given this one a bit more thought, I decided plaster would not be the best material. Too brittle and weak - it has to be resin! With this in mind I purchased a silicon mold making kit. Providing it works (🤞), I think I will have a few more uses for this product! Here's the kit: The tailplane sections are already glued together and I need to completely submerge these until just the locating tabs are above the mixture: I also mentioned the unused 'Utopia' livery I intend to use, designed by Timothy Noad. It is titled 'Heraldry' which is rather apt, as this is just one aspect of the work he does - more details on his website www.timothynoad.com. The design depicts the four flowers of the United Kingdom - an English rose, a Welsh daffodil, an Irish shamrock and a Scottish thistle. Here's a section of his design: As ever, much Photoshopping will be required to transform this into something usable but I think it will be worth it to finally see a model with this livery.

I've returned to this model again and noticed some of my resin windows had holes in them...😬 This was a result of trapped bubbles in the resin whilst it cured, which were then exposed when I sanded the resin back to make it flush with the fuselage sides. A quick resin top up will hopefully 'cure' this (apologies for the appalling pun but I couldn't resist it!). Once set, these will be sanded and polished. I can then apply the window masks and start priming - I'm so pleased the weather is warming up again and I can progress a few builds. Here's the current state of play with this one:

Cheers Alex, glad you like it! I’ve just taken delivery of another of these kits, so will now have seven Utopia A380’s, not the six originally planned! 😁 Thank you. It looked a bit lighter before the gloss coat was applied. At that stage I decided to live with - I think it works… Thanks John. I agree, they would have looked impressive! Will do! 👍

Thank you! The base was from a pack of six wooden coasters. I think it works well.👍 The undercarriage didn’t break, it just wasn’t up to the job… Mojo restored! 😁 Wise words…👍 Thank you and I’ll accept your tailwheel excuse! Not sure about the elevators though…! 😂 Thank you. I had planned a bit of weathering and a few more details, but lost the will. Next time!

Thank you!

Thanks for the encouragement Mike and apologies for my delay in replying - I never received a notification about your response... It's finished now and I've belated posted an RFI: An enjoyable, yet frustrating build - I would not recommend this kit. I'm a reasonably competent builder, but this one was hard work. Thanks for the comments along the way and to @Marklo and @CliffB for hosting. Sorry it took so long...!🙂

Another belated RFI, for a model started last year in the 'Air and de Havilland' GB and finished earlier this year... This one fought me all the way, with the undercarriage causing the bulk of the issues - the construction was too weak and spindly. Eventually I gave up and decided to build the model with the gear retracted. Unfortunately by this stage I had glued the tail wheel in the extended position and also drooped the elevators... The build thread is here if you want to read about the issues encountered. Please be gentle with your criticism, it's not my best build... Mistakes aplenty and a lack of mojo towards the end.

Cheers John! A belated RFI is now available: Time to crack open the third kit and have a go at Avignon again for @Skodadriver!

The backstory, which is a shameless copy and paste from a previous RFI...! As you may know, I quite like the 'Utopia' or 'World Image' liveries introduced by British Airways from 1997. However, these liveries were not universally popular and were quietly dropped in 2001, with all aircraft receiving the current 'Chatham' tail fin design from that year onwards. The A380 entered service over a decade later in 2013. I couldn't help wondering what this aircraft would have looked like with that massive tail covered in one of the ‘Utopia' designs. This build is just one result of my pondering and represents "Hong Kong", with a design called 'Rendezvous'. This design was usually applied with a white background, but one aircraft (G-BMRG) had a creamy colour instead. I intended to replicate this colour, but went a bit too yellow. However, I think it still works... The build thread for this particular model is on a longish thread but the relevant part can be seen here if you want to watch it come together, complete with the production of the custom decals I used on this model. As ever, comments and criticisms are welcomed! The design is deliberately NOT symmetrical, with the left side looking like this: Thanks for looking and I hope you like the outcome of this particular flight of fancy!

I will! 👍 For some reason I'm not getting notifications when new posts are added to this thread, hence the late reply... Some warmer weather has meant that painting can begin - just the undersides for now: Hopefully the topsides will get done later this week, along with the exhausts. Then it's just decals, details and undercarriage - finishing line in sight!