sardaukar

Very nicely done and a great subject too.

2? more like 4, I'll get round to it, one day. I have an interior T-54 too.

I have this kit in the stash and as a mainly 1/72 guy the amount of plastic scares me . Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

Got my first haul from hobby easy today. That website is dangerous, cheap s-models kit? yes I'll have 6. Plus other stuff hard to get in the UK. This lot could keep me going for at least the next 12 months.

Well there is the law and then what actually happens. I used to quite regularly buy individual kits from China prior to this and rightly or wrongly never had to pay any import charges. Not so attractive now with 20% added on. I get the whole level playing field with UK retailers however I'm generally buying stuff it is otherwise impossible to get in the UK, like FlyHawk or S-Model kits. Ebay now doing blanket collection is fine however I'd hate to think that with some creative accounting practice that 20% ends up going straight to Ebay's profit.

I only really started modelling at the end of 2020 and 1/72 armour at that. I have noticed on ebay that the opportunities of getting a bargain have diminished over that time frame, I blame this largely on postage costs. For almost any kit you are talking small parcel so that is 4 or 5 pound and that doesn't often work. For larger more expensive kits you have more scope to actually get a bargain. Last year at Telford I picked up a couple of OOP short run kits for about £8 each which I knew went for 3 to 4 times more than that on ebay, I was quite surprised and said so to the vendor, he replied that he didnt sell on ebay because he wanted to make some money. This is interesting because it proves the reality that ebay exists to make ebay money, not the vendor and not to save you the customer money. It also means there are good local options out there, if you are lucky enough to live near one. Yes the internet is great but like anything else during early phases it was cheap but now it is established that isn't always the case, your pretty much have no choice with most local model shops out of the way and internet retailers can charge more even if they claim they are cheap. Modelling aside but amazon is no longer my go to for the cheapest household stuff that it used to be. I think the solution is to try and plan purchases ahead and do it in bulk, that means kits and paints etc there are plenty of retailers that have a free postage threshold, I wont name any names but there are a few. Also take advantage of any seasonal sales. As an aside apparently Brexit caused ebay to start enforcing 20% VAT charges on all foreign imports including China although I dont believe China was ever a part of the EU. I dont want to get into politics and it is against the rules. However ebay really? You are just enforcing 20% extra on all foreign purchases and ebay are you really feeding that all back to HMRC? Having said all the above I dont know any hobby that has an online presence where you wont find complaints over pricing. The games workshop warhammer/40k scene has regular discussions over price but then GW own the IP and can charge pretty much what ever they want and as a result the community can be quite toxic at times. I like scale modelling because in the majority of cases no one owns the IP to history in comparison and its generally a nicer more mature bunch of folks. I imagine volume of kits sold are down on what it was back in the 60s, 70s etc and that means higher prices to recoup costs these days. Good luck on getting kids these day away from a PS5. I'm well into my 40s now and been a video gamer all my life. Video games give the possibly of being that pilot or that tank crewman in your favourite vehicle that building a model wont give you short of joining the armed forces. Companies are aware now that their customers have wallets of all sizes and so they produce a range to target people at different price points, basic vs limited editions etc. They are also going after the established in work hobbyist that has a decent disposable income and who will pay pretty much whatever for their fix of plastic crack. Anyway it is what it is and I hope everyone has the means to get some benefit out of this great hobby.

Erm, my build doesnt seem to have a voting option.

Very nice.

Yep that is it, it takes a lot more than a gentle pull, my finger is a bit too big to get a good group on it. could probably add a handle to it using the key ring to make it easier. I keep forgetting to let the air out after, not sure what that will do to the longterm life of the compressor.

Thanks, the group builds keep things interesting and also provide the motivation to actually finish models. Otherwise Id probably have called a lot less done.

My fengda compressor has a release valve, it's that red thing with a key ring on it, just pull on it and it will release all air in the tank. It can be a bit tricky to pull. Getting a quick release connector for the brush will just make your life a lot easier and they only cost a few quid from Amazon or eBay.

I started building 1/72nd scale armour in late 2020, I am another lockdown convert to scale modelling. Ive built and painted 40k stuff in the past going through several life phases. Also in my yoof I built a number of scale model kits none of which I ever remember painting, all those models came to a nasty end, think turps or darts. I didnt finish anything until the start of 2021 and here they are, all in 1/72. A zevezda Tiger my first 'finished' model, yes I was a Wehraboo and I really needed a Tiger in Panzer Grey. An S-model Crusader, sparked an interest in British ww2 armour as I realised I knew more about German tanks than British ones. A wee friends Crusader, yes I will buy resin models to fill gaps in the plastic line up. For the ANZAC group build an Italeri Carro Armato M13-40 in Australian service. A Dragon Churchill mk IV NA, this sparked a Churchill building spree, there are 3 others on the shelf of doom waiting to be finished. A Dragon Panzer III for the PzIII group build, went a bit nuts on weathering for this one. A Hasegawa Chaffee, this was a quick build which I fired out in less than a week, built and painted. An UM BT-2 for the less than a tenner group build, Im starting to like the group builds as I will build something I never really planned to. A Revell T-72M1 as an Iraqi tank again for the less than a tenner group build, my first 'modern armour' An Ammo T-54B as an NVA tank, now that's NVA as in North Vietnamese Army and not as I've learned an East German tank, this has also sparked a bit of an obsession with the T-54/55 series for me. A 3D printed (Battlefield3D) Matilda 1, again this is to fill another gap in the line up of British plastic armour kits. Im quite pleased with the above but there is twice the number above on the shelf of doom to shame me, for my own personal KUTA build. One last one, this was started in 2021 and finished last weekend for the Nordic Group Build so technically 2022.

Great job and an interesting subject.

Another nice job, I hate stringing 2 or 3 numbers together when they are separate decals. one always floats off or I forget to trim the transparent parts and the decals shove each other about when they get too close to each other. i don't think I'd even attempt to piece together a name from individual letters. Good job.

Excellent model and great inspiration, great effects.