ToE1984

Nice to see this one made it. Now I have to make up my mind what do build for this one. I was hoping for "The Weather" GB to go through as well to continue building Hurricanes of 318 sqn. But is a Hurricane in MTO camouflage (Dark Earth, Mid Stone, Azure Blue) unusual enough? I guess not, right? Second idea would be to go for a Bundeswehr AFV in UNOSOM markings, like an all-white Fuchs or MAN truck. I could also go for a Bf-109 in RAF markings, maybe connecting to the 318 sqn theme again, building the G-14 they got hold of in Italy in 1945. Any thoughts? Cheers Thomas

My first bunfight and what an experience! Great results, too. A lot of interesting proposals made it and plenty of opportunities to join in. Thank you for your proposals and for facilitating this democratic process! My first thoughts are: - Bf 109 STGB --> First opportunity to connect to my island, going for Ubben's "Witch of Wangerooge". - Canberra STGB --> Too heavy and too jetty. - Not Your Usual Colour scheme --> Plenty of options. AFV or an airplane, hard to choose. - Nineties --> Probably going for a Corrado - Spitfire --> Probably a Mk. Va, going for Gladych's next plane with 303 sqn after building his Caudron this year in the Heller GB this year. - Less Than A Tenner --> Mustang III by Revell, straightforward out of the box. - Stick and String --> We will see, I may be already quite busy to try something new. - Rescue and Recovery --> Revell AB-212 in Bundesministerium des Inneren orange delivery. Really looking forward to this one. - Cool Cats --> Jaguar E-Type. Revell kit is available and USCP wheels are on their way. - P-40 --> Maybe another RAAF Kittycat? - Maritime Patrol --> Straightforward option would be to pick a Wellington, but with Bomber Command running in parallel I may struggle with two heavies on the bench. So maybe something smaller, a torpedo-equipped Vildebeest? - Bomber Command --> Second opportunity to connect to my island. Lancaster B.X, never landed there, but delivered significant payload. - Paint it Black --> Countach 25th anniversary, all black of course. - F-14 --> with all those fantastic GB themes I am not going to try jets this year, despite the announced Tamiya kit, but I will still stop by and check your projects! - Anything But Injection --> many opportunities, maybe a Centurion Mk. 5/2? - Les Francais d'outre mer --> Probably going for an MS.406 stationed in Tunisia - Hawker Hunter --> Probably not for me and probably struggling to complete all my other projects around that time of the year. - Two-Seaters --> I think I may be ready for that Tamiya Mercedes 300 SL kit, finally. Alternatively, another Nissan? These ideas my still change 20 times, but I have a baseline established. Looking forward! Cheers Thomas

14th of July, could there be a better starting date for this GB? Perfect!

The islanders still need a few votes. Also, vote Muscle!

Alright, the touch-up is done and I did some highlighting with the base colours with 10-20% white added and I can say I am quite satisfied with the result, showing some nicely faded colours now. Next step is undercarriage, airscrew and small parts installation, followed by gloss coat, decal application and weathering. I realize that my short vacation next week will make the deadline quite challenging but I think I'm going to get there just in time. Cheers Thomas

@vppelt68/ @Giorgio N : I was thinking the same. I had ideas for the island of Wangerooge that could be connected to Bomber Command, Bf 109 and Ground Forces, so let's see which ones make it across the line.

And calling them done. I wish I had some more time in the end to close that horrible gap at the fenders on the Italeri kit and to add some unit-specific features on those two, but maybe I will come to that late. Thanks for all your support and following this build! Some more photos are in the gallery. Cheers Thomas

And another one. Here the Italeri 1/72 Mk. III in markings of the North Irish Horse. The kit is mostly OOB with some parts donated from the Dragon kit. Colour is AK 3rd gen SCC2. Link to the build thread (dual build with Dragon) HERE. Cheers Thomas

Next one. This is the Dragon 1/72 Mk. III in markings of the Kingforce in North Africa. I upgraded the kit with Master a gun barrel, Bregun PE and OKB Grigorov tracks. The clock was ticking too fast in the end to add the Kingforce dust "apron", maybe I will add this later. Colours are AK 3rd gen light stone as base colour and a mix of Revell Aqua black/leather brown/red for the darker scheme. Link to the build thread (dual build with Italeri) HERE. Cheers Thomas

Thanks a lot again for the extension. Just in time, I finished this Hasegawa 1/72 Mk. I in markings of 9 RTR. The kit was upgraded with OKB Grigorov tracks and a Master gun barrel, Colour is AK 3rd gen Khaki Green No3. Link to the build thread HERE. Cheers Thomas

The clock is ticking for those two builds now. First, I had some extra work to do. When I spray painted the SCC2 I was surprised how green it looked. Now I have slightly impaired red/green vision so I don't always trust my eyes when it comes to differentiating green and brown, but when I wanted to do some touch up on the Italeri Mk. III (North Irish Horse) using SCC2, the difference clearly showed. As the decals were already applied, I had to brush-paint the whole tank to correct my mistake. The result shows a clear difference from the Hasegawa Mk. I in Khaki Green and from my point of view the brown looks really good. As a next step, tracks were applied: kit tracks for the Italeri model, OKB Grigorov for the Dragon model. The Italeri kit tracks do not look too bad, but OKB Grigorov is on another level with their detail, although you have to be careful not to warp them when warming them up and fitting them around the running gear. The Dragon kit was touched up using a brush. I feel touching up with such light and pale colours (Light Stone) is always a bit more difficult than with darker shade. In case of the light colour (AK Light Stone) the brush-applied colour appears much warmer than the spray-painted base coat and transitions have to be hidden in the final model. Afterwards, some gloss coat was applied using the airbrush. The decals for Lt. Appleby's tank in the Kingforce come from the Italeri , this was followed by another thin round of gloss coat. Tonight is reserved for detail painting, touch up and weathering, tomorrow I will apply some flat coat before hopefully taking pictures of those further two Mk. IIIs for the gallery. Cheers Thomas

Getting there step by step. I had another coat of khaki green and applied some gloss coat. The markings are now on, the T30974 markings come from the kit. The yellow markings are hand painted with a felt tip pen and need some more touch up to look decent. The tracks went on fine, bending them with a hair dryer works much better than expected, but I had to cut off the teeth of the sprocket wheels to make them fit. I applied another coat of gloss varnish, tonight I go for detail painting, touch up and weathering, tomorrow I will apply some flat coat and hopefully that's it! Cheers Thomas

Great efforts on the tracks, they look certainly like an improvement!

or we build them all ?!?!?!

In 1/72? How about Special Hobby? I have one that looks quite decent...