Vox Repeater

One of the things that I have learned is that a thick application sculptamold will take a long, long time to dry. It took the best part of five days to dry to a point of being able to start painting. Either this or I added too much water. It has now dried and I have sorted out the minor error in the back right hand corner where if you look at the the photo above of the bare foam, there was a gap that for some reason I didn't even notice until after I had slapped the sculptamold on. This has now been remedied. I have slapped a first coat of paint on D7BBB36D-3981-4AE2-9EBF-197DFEBE9209 by nomisd2002, on Flickr and with the cross in its eventual location 47C5B404-D8EB-4855-A398-5265AA2D3289 by nomisd2002, on Flickr @Badder Thanks for the suggestion on angling. I am sort of going to try that but we will see how it ends up! I am actually pleased at having hashed the road in with paint that its not actually straight across the board but more at about 7 degrees - I am sure that by judicious use of the ground cover I bring it round to 10 degrees! As far as the water feature - in my head it was a drain (or fosse as they are called in France) but it is looking more like a stream - here is a close up of the right hand side of it 90CBA48A-2C15-4078-87AB-74C101C255AE by nomisd2002, on Flickr I am hoping that frame itself is going to act as the dam. However having looked at that photo in nasty high zoom, I can see that its going need to make sure its sealed properly as I can see there are holes in the base. I think the frame is going to contain the resin at the ends, the only problem I can envisage is a seeping through the joints which I will make an attempt to mask. Thats its for a couple of weeks now. I too hope that this year will be better than last year. The next couple of weeks certainly are not going to be - I hate funerals and I hate getting up and giving speeches in front of rooms full of people, combining the two is going to be fun....

Never mind anything else, the half an oil drum on a trolley as a sump is work of art in itself.

The wasp stripes on the D455 road roller are superb, the fading of them is perfect.

Whilst I am happily working away on my grand project, it has occured to me that its very proscriptive from a scenic point of view. I have also found that I like building figures. So I thought that I would try and do something a bit creative over christmas. When I got the dio base from Dio Dump, I also got their road side cross, known in France as a calvarie (hence the title of this). They are everywhere in France (certainly the bit I live in) so when I saw it, I had to buy it. I wanted to use the project to test out some popular building techniques and do some things that I have never tried before, like putting a water feature in. So after a couple of online shopping trips and real life trips I ended up with a a picture frame, a sheet of insulation foam, a hot wire cutter, a bag of sculptamold, a static grass applicator and grass, a bottle of Vallejo still water, a tub of mod podge and a box of 1:35 Tamiya British Infantry on patrol. 7B90E825-2285-4A63-B684-361809E50086 by nomisd2002, on Flickr The laying out of the land - fields at the back with a bank down to road, a road and a stream. The cross will go in the gap in the bank 01D01AD7-4374-4E66-BD2F-81B8E6C9A6CB by nomisd2002, on Flickr 07EED3F7-C5FE-4389-A2ED-DE31B07B6FC8 by nomisd2002, on Flickr The sculptamold applied. The cross is destined for the square impression in the gap in the bank. F60B62E6-F449-4264-92CC-1EB3BF222B48 by nomisd2002, on Flickr 6EFC6495-84B9-49CC-9B9E-F066A1D9CA78 by nomisd2002, on Flickr I have of course made the simple error of orientating the road directly across the scene rather than at an angle. Oh well, such is life.

Very nice. I have considered building this as the basis as a model railway. Are you doing the whole mill and subsidiary buildings and facilities?

Well that has been a throughly rubbish couple of weeks. There I was happily painting figures when the phone went to give me the completely out of the blue news that my dad had just dropped dead. So that has put a spanner in the works for giving the proverbial about picking up a paint brush or scalpel. However as the days have passed, I have mused and considered on things and put things into some perspective. One of the things that it has made me realise is get on with it and don't worry too much about the minutiae. Yes the edges of the buildings are a bit rubbish and not up to prize winning standard. But do you know what, its doesn't really matter that much. Surely at the end of the day its more about enjoying yourself and doing the best that you can. So with that, I picked up the paint brush again last night and gave the whole base and buildings a quick slap of Vallejo Ghost Grey undercoat (still too scared of the air brush to use it in anger) 886068D6-3CEE-4C20-9B3D-C9934457A97F by nomisd2002, on Flickr 9C6DEC47-69E2-4272-A488-3D79341D3296 by nomisd2002, on Flickr 83802264-AD2C-4A50-A073-C381CEEA792E by nomisd2002, on Flickr Given that a week ago I was looking at it thinking "why am I bothering, this isn't working" and thinking about just jacking it all in, this has restored my faith in it. What has particularly done this is this 6C2534EF-9582-4D84-9715-731C1C8BA2D3 by nomisd2002, on Flickr This is the hole from that is in the posting from 28 Nov which looks almost like it was never there, which I am pretty pleased with. I ended up getting some heavier duty filler in the end and therein lies a tale but I shall save that for later!

To get all the greenery does mean a lot of rain though! But you are right, it is beautiful and we are lucky to live here. Its role in WW2 is something that I think is overlooked and forgotten. Having read a lot about it, I have a bit of inspiration for coming projects.

Thanks. No, about 40 minutes south west of St Brieuc.

un grand bonjour d'un anglais en bretagne, 22 (qui essaie très fort d'écrire son français mais vérifie dans Google Translate 😉 - I do write it in French to see if it translates in English as what I was wanting!)

Well all the structures are now together Base 1 by nomisd2002, on Flickr Base 4 by nomisd2002, on Flickr Overall its not as bad as it could have been. It would seem that the corners where three pieces come together are my blind spot because I got this on the second building Base 3 by nomisd2002, on Flickr I think that I will deal with this with a wall plate for the roof, I mean there must be a roof there must there not? And despite what I said above, I think that I am going to have invest in some milliput. The holes and gaps in the joins are going to need something a bit more substantial than the plastic filler than I have.

Do you know what - this would have been a lot quicker and a lot tidier! I am finding the Mini Art kit something of a curates egg. It has a lot of very good points but, but. I think their main negative point for me is the edges and the joins. I think that you technique would go a long way to negating the problems with these as it would give you a nice clean edge to start with. I think there is also an inherent problem with the edges and joining them together in that they are too "thick". Overall they are nice buildings though. However the more I go through this build, the more I think I know where I want to go with my next project. I have decided that what I really want to try is actually building a structure with yer actual bricks, stone blocks and slates of the cast your own from a mould variety. I have already started scheming and planning this....

I have finally got round to starting to paint these and I don't know what I worried about! Figures 2 by nomisd2002, on Flickr Figures 3 by nomisd2002, on Flickr Figures 4 by nomisd2002, on Flickr As a first pass I am extremely happy with what I have done. Having never done it before and seeing what experts can produce, I had always thought that painting figures was going to be impossibly fiddly and frustrating. It is anything but. I was only going to start by painting the skin on each figure, which I did. But I then looked at it and thought "Okay, that looks good, lets carry on". Obviously it is the first pass and there is a lot of touching up to do and some details (like belts) need finishing off but I walked away from that thinking I should have started this figure painting lark years ago!

I have finally got round to start painting. I am still not confident in my airbrushing yet so have decided to brush paint. I am persevering with practicing with the air brush on things that haven't cost me money to buy and can therefore be messed up. As you can see I have painted everything that is still on the sprues except the the lights (for reasons I will come to) 79262820-D531-41F7-8895-8A27902D5465 by nomisd2002, on Flickr I was going to go with white with red on the wheel arches and under the doors. I am not sure now. I am now in a quandary as to go white/red, white/blue, blue/white, blue/red or red/blue (the main colour being the first). I have put some red and blue testers on. I am putting the kit aside for a couple of days to address other things that I am working on for diorama, so will mull it over. Suggestions welcome. 6CC37F2A-BA09-4E66-B798-680D1AAAC887 by nomisd2002, on Flickr Overall I am happy with my effort at brush painting. I certainly wasn't after the first coat but it got better. I was expecting to look at the photos and be horrified but its not as bad as I thought I was going to be. I am particularly happy with the seats, which were done with a mix of Vallejo Chocolate, Smoke and Japanese Infantry Uniform - it looks like leather! The metal is Revell Aluminium. DE231C39-C05E-441F-8106-3F12109A1440 by nomisd2002, on Flickr

Badder Thanks for those tips - I will try they stump suggestion. I have done a quick scrub of a small section of the cobbles and it has done the job Yeah, me too 😉 VR

I have acquired some DioDump French wall advertisement decals for a building idea that I have ruminating in my head. The thing is you never see one of these adverts in pristine condition. They are almost always weathered, faded, bits missing - take your pick from this selection. I have done the obvious googling on the topic of how to do this with a model one and there is a lot of advice. It would seem that something that is suggested is lightly sanding the transfers before putting them on, others suggest blending it it with an airbrush. I was wondering of anyone has done this and has any tips and suggestions on how to do it successfully? TIA