MRMRL

Nearly there, I will finish this one over the weekend I think. Got all the decals on the bombs... Which was mostly a waste of time as you can't see much of them once they go in the bay. I nearly messed this up by pushing one of the bays off the bottom of the fuselage, bit of superglue and a mild panic later its all attached again. I'm going to leave one out so I can see what my efforts were. Maybe I'll pick up a bomb trolley for it at some future date. I've also got all the remaining bay doors and antenna etc attached now, as well as the remaining glass for the machine gun positions And two nicely painted propellors Lastly for today, I couldn't handle only barely being able to make out my panel line wash on the top, so I acquired a light grey wash and used that instead. A bit less realistic I think, but I like the effect and the lines standing out a bit more. Just got to finish that off, do some fuel stains from the exhausts and then take some better photos and it'll be done. Thanks for looking.

I've only just caught up with this double Mossie thread, they're looking good, sorry for missing all the earlier posts.

I'll keep quiet about the list not being complete yet, there's a few more undocumented specimens in the man cave 😉

That's a lot of entries, must have been quite the group build. I bet it was carnage to keep up with.

Nice, that's going to look superb. Your postal delivery looks about as good as mine, it's good that Toby had them packaged well.

Wow, I don't envy you those hours, even at my nowhere near retirement yet age. The B-25 is looking good so far, although I have to admit to enjoying the workbench photos almost as much, albeit with more than a little envy as my workbench is the end of the dining table and I need to put it all away after I'm done in the evening.

The bits you've done so far look great, I really like those side panels. Looking forward to seeing this one continue coming together

This is coming together nicely, it's a very interesting aircraft. Are you still going with the pre-war yellow box art scheme?

Looks like you are getting a good model out of what sounds like a pig of a kit. The interior looks great for 1/72, you've got a lot of detail in there. Hope you manage to wrestle the rest into shape.

Hi James, the three main camo paints are all Mr Hobby, as is the interior grey, the interior green is Tamiya and everything else a mixture of the two. It's very appreciated. I missed that post from Enzo. How many more need to get added to be the largest, not that I'm competitive 😉

Thanks James, and thank you for all the encouragement, I barely have time to keep up with the gallery, nevermind however many builds that are on the go by now.

I'd say that seems similar to Vanguard, which is probably fair. I think a relatively experienced modeller will make either into a good end product. All of which means I have my eye on their HMS Illustrious 😉. When the pennies stack correctly of course.

It looks pretty good in the very nondescript box. At first glance I'd say the small parts and turrets look excellent, maybe even comparable to the micro master parts I acquired a while ago. The hull and main superstructure parts are a bit harder to judge, the white plastic/resin or whatever it is makes the detail difficult to make out, but I think it'll look decent when painted. The wooden deck wasn't expected so a nice bonus making it a "complete" kit. I don't especially like the hull being in two halves at the middle of the ship, I bet that's going to be tricky to hide, but for a new outfit, I'd say at first viewing it's decent value for money. It's a bit cheaper than a late very fire kit, albeit that's the top of the range. Interestingly I'm building USS Alabama at the moment, and those early trumpeter kits aren't far from the price if you add detail as well and it's hard to get them built to the same quality as a newer kit. I won't comment on historical accuracy, that's never been my forte.

Thanks Stew, and that makes a lot more sense, as well as being an interesting insight into German views of the former PM at the time.

And we progress onwards. First off, all the mundane decals have been completed Then the big decals on the bottom And the rest of the top and side decals - I love the tail art, it's a bit quirky. I'm not sure who the man is supposed to represent. First I thought he was a German "unloading" on the UK, then I saw that the bombs were penetrating his umbrella, so is he shielding the UK/Navy? Conjecture is welcome, the truth too if anyone knows it With most the decals complete, I've moved on to panel line washing, first up the bottom, really happy with this Then the top, less happy because I'm not sure I can tell the difference that my efforts have made. I'm tempted to pick up a light panel line wash when I'm next in my local hobby shop and sample that somewhere discreet to see if I prefer it (I've completed the near side in the photo by the way). That's all for this weekend. Nearly there, I'm itching to put a big x next to it on the spreadsheet and put up a gallery so I can start the next one now. Just keep telling myself to hold on and finish it first or I won't finish it at all

On subject though, I've just received this in the post. HMS Vanguard is one off my most wanted list, so I found it hard to resist even though I was wary of the format.

Hi @Chewbacca, that is next level stuff there, serious research needed to even approximate all those internals, nevermind produce like them like that. Whoever built that was pretty hardcore. I'm happy if I get OOB looking decent.

Thanks Cliff, it's on then. I need something small I can do alongside the WW2 twins, 1/32 doesn't leave much space on the bench. Might contribute something bigger if time and builds go well 😉

Hi all, cutting it tight for the timeline, but does an OOB e-type count, I know they were built from 1961, but I'm not expert enough to know if the Revell boxing is an early enough model for this group. Matt

Some really good progress in the last few days, going to avoid the mistake of not posting before the weekend. First off, got the final camo colour airbrushed on, pretty happy with that look. And with the masking tape removed and engine details painted And the rear wheel bits and bobs added on, you can see I've started painting the twins at the same time Before moving on to the main undercarriage, which is a little fiddly Got a coat of varnish on last night while the other half was at a work overnighter And made a start on the decals during my lunch break today Looking promising for a finish sometime next week I hope.

That's really nice, all the added detail like the stowage and wiring really takes it up a level

I've just received a Fujimi 1/24 Lotus Esprit S1 in the post, and gone to the LMS to get appropriate paints for both that and the Mini Cooper I'm building alongside my Twins GB He-111 because I can't just build one thing at a time.

Hi All Here's my first completion of 2024, Tamiya's 1/12 Suzuki GSX1100S Katana. I'm not sure how old this kit is, but it was great fun to build. My two year old took an interest in this one as well, which he's not done before and insisted on "helping". There's a couple of paint flaws off the back of that help, but fortunately I managed to mostly limit the assistance to helping me cut bits off the sprues. Hope you enjoy.

Right, been a little while since my last update, until the weekend, progress had been too slow to feel like I needed one. However, with the weekend added as well, I probably should have posted on Friday to keep it smaller. Nevermind, bumper update coming... The main reason for the slow progress - canopy masking, I've done it manually, which is slow and makes me start wondering why I don't pay for the pre-cut ones instead. This is just the interior sides masked. While I was getting through that, to keep me from getting too bored, I finished painting the lower gun positions wooden part And then, after taking about 2 hours to do the tape, 10 minutes of painting to get to here Now, the main instrument panel on this plane is a little more visible than most (or at least the back is), so I wanted to make it a bit more interesting than just having the bumps on it and all painted in the same colour. So I looked at some He-111 cockpit photos and decided to add a little wiring to the panel to make it a bit more interesting. Only because I had some thin styene "wires" in the toolbox. I might not have bothered otherwise. I needed to leave them to dry before trying to convince them to go where I want them to, maybe I'll invest in some thin wire to use in future builds. So in the meantime I got on with painting the remaining interior details and starting to fix the clear parts onto the front of the nose. For those who made Star Wars connections earlier in the build, this reminds me of the canopy in the Emperors throne room in Return of the Jedi. Ok, so these are a little messy, but not bad for a first go with a less than optimal material. Overall it does what I wanted though, adds a bit more interest to the panel More masking tape and the nose is finally put together Which now only means one thing - I can start painting And I can build the propellers while the first coat of paint dries And finally on Sunday, I got the first green coat applied. Apparently this is the lighter of the two, looks different to the built version on the box, but I did research the RLM colours, so I'm just going to go with it.

I think I agree with most of the sentiments here. I also have a pretty extensive stash (not into the never finish it scale, but maybe a decade or so worth at my current build rate). Ships are my favourite, but I do build anything and I usually think of it in terms of a cost per hour of entertainment. I get more value the more expensive the kit gets, especially for the ships. I'm building trumpeter's USS Alabama at the moment which cost me £140 including the detail kit and deck many years ago and it's easily going to take 100-200 hours at least to build it. Some of the more sophisticated newer kits and intense detail kits are going to take double that time to build, so even £200-£300 seems reasonable for that in a value sense. Doesn't mean I don't have to save for it or make hard decisions now things cost more and I have a 2 year old and mortgage sucking away more money than 3-5 years ago when I built up most of my stash. I'll always choose a newer kit over an old one where there's a choice for the better molds and detail available and don't mind paying more for that privilege. I went to the local IPMS show last year and a trader caught me looking at a 1980s Revell 1/72 b-1b and tried to sell me on it for £100, which I very quickly turned my nose up at, I built the same kit as a kid out of my pocket money. I guess I'm saying it comes down to our own perception of value in the end like everything else. Matt