SoftScience

Wow! Those look amazing. I've been feeling a bit uninspired by my own 1/72 efforts lately. This reminds me of what is possible.

Hey Virginia! Your neighbor from MD here. Also primarily a 1/72 aircraft modeler. You're in good company. At least one or two other Virginians on here as well.

Did you find it similarly difficult ti get excited about? I seem to have this issue with most of my AFV Club kits. They build into nice models but feel drudgerous for some reason.

An fm-2? Fantastic news.

No not this guy. After 16 years of on again, off again (mostly off again) work. I finally finished AFV Club's Stuart. The model is not overly complicated and builds into a nice little kit. There are no real problems to report, which were not of my own making (lost parts, rolled off the desktop and shattered, etc.). I painted this with Tamiya base coats and Vallejo for all of the details. Weathering is pretty simple - mostly a vandyke brown oil pinwash, and lots of drybrushing with acrylics. A bit of pencil led hear and there, and just a touch of raw sienna pigments on the lower half to accent the drybrushing where needed. Markings are for the 1st Spahi regiment of the Free French Army in 1944. I still don't quite have the hang for painting fabric, but I guess I'm getting better each time I try. But for the first time, I'm very pleased with the metallic effects on the guns A few pictures of the M3A3 with its M3A1 stablemate. The latter is from the Tamiya kit I finished around 2019 I think. I think I'll build my Academy Stuart next.

Thank you all, for the kind comments.

fantastic idea for simulating the wood grain and bum marks. The engine looks brilliant, and the open hood will really bring things to life. I'm excited to see this, as I didn't know UM made any 1/48 vehicles.

freaking amazing!

I'd like to share my take on the recentish Academy Models 1:48 F4F-4 Wildcat. I built it as William N. Leonard's White-13, that he flew off USS Yorktown during the Battle of Midway. The model is built entirely from the box. Academy's kit is very nice in terms of detail, and you get plenty of options, and the kit comes with PE harnesses, paint masks for the clear parts, and really good quality decals for 5 aircraft (all Midway). I decided to take advantage of the folded wings option, even though they block a lot of the view. But I already have an unfolded wildcat in my collection. Paint was a home brew of Tamiya XF-19 and XF-2 for the underside, and a mix of XF-18, X-14, XF-2, and a few drops of XF-5 for the uppers. I applied a darker and lighter shade of each color, but the effects became muted by the Vallejo satin coat applied at the end. My blue is bluer and more intense than the actual color would have been, but I wanted my plane to have that warm south-Pacific tone. Colors look different under different lighting conditions. And here is the kit with it's Tamiya stablemate built back in 2019. My god, how the time flies. Even with wings folded, these mid-scale planes just chew up way too much display space. Back to 1:72 for the next build.

When gluing rhe fuselage halves together have the canopy at ready to check fit. When I was building this kit, some 15 years ago now, I ended up with the canopy that fit in thr front but then stuck out a bit to one side in the back. If I adjusted the back, then the front would get thrown off. Not sure what caused the issue, but be mindful early on.

Fantastic painting and the figures are beautiful.

man, Japanese anime is weird. Cool model, though.

I dont know that it is too dark, but it might be a touch too warm. But it is hard to tell without the other colors applied. They can change the value of adjacent colors. For example the green is making your sand appear darker, much more so than in the previous photos. Though some of that could be from your somewhat dim lighting. Try doing a swatch with all your tones together and check under natural light. If you want to "cool down" your green, you can add a few drops of a light gray to the color.

It looks nice, but i would add a few lightened coats of the PRU to give it a bit more saturation. The shade looks very cold for the tropics. Mind, this is coming from an entirely artsy feel sort of place, and maybe not what your own paint aesthetic is all about.

Holly crap, John! This is mind blowing! And inspiring!