thorfinn

Thanks for your kind words! Actually, other than adding a bit of sprue for railings and elastic thread for rigging...and thinning a few gun barrels...the boat itself is strictly OOB. With the general clunkiness of the molding, it seemed silly to add a lot unless I wanted to 'fix' a lot first -- which wasn't in the cards for this project. As to weathering, I sort of let myself go...since a lot of these craft looked even harder-used than this!😄 Cheers

Minicraft's 1/144 He111-H6, with a minor conversion to the V-1 flying bomb-carrying H-22 configuration. The open dorsal gun position was filled and replaced with a fettled MG131 turret. The V-1 itself is a white-metal part from TINSOLDIERS.COM. Markings are for a machine from III./KG3, operating from the Netherlands in 1944. The low-contrast color scheme reflects the tactic for which the Gruppe had been carefully trained: launching their V-1s against Allied targets by night, from over the North Sea.

Thi kit has been around forever under various labels, most recently this Minicraft boxing. Quite a good basic shape...with something just a little off...still it's too iconic to pass up. Markings are for the 8th Air Force's 'Voodoo Vixen' of the 359th BS, 303rd BG, 41st Combat Wing.

Another iconic and very 'typical' Lindberg kit: a really interesting subject...in a neat large (albeit-off-scale) size...frustratingly rendered in the company's all-too-typical clunky and thickly-molded, bathtub-toy style. Still, it's a fun build, and a great 'canvas' for one of those unusual Pacific-campaign camouflage schemes. Passing all the other accuracy issues in the kit...and they are legion...this 'landing craft' model comes with only one thing to land (and a seemingly strange choice at that): a single Korean-War-era M46 Patton tank. Wanting to go WW2 'retro'...with the kit being an odd 1/125 scale, it's difficult to find matching accessories. So I settled for some 'close enough' 1/144 diecasts...Sherman tanks and a few M18 Hellcat tank-destroyers...to provide that period atmosphere. The ten-year-old that still lurks deep within me thinks it looks cool. Hope you enjoy it.

Funny you should mention that.😄 I love to pick out little details from photos to add a little interest to my models. Looking at a photo of that area of the greenhouse, I kept trying to puzzle out why there were 'grab handles' in that particular location. After about twenty minutes...and seeing another photo with the m.g. swung a little farther aft...it suddenly hit (with the usual dull thud) what I was actually looking at! Cheers...and thanks for noticing! 👍

Thanks all. I, too, was quite delighted to see the transparencies still crystal-clear after all these years. As long as Monogram...then Revell...had this kit in production, the molds must have been cared for quite tenderly.😁

A 1969 Monogram classic, as reissued by Revell in 2011: the 1/72 scale Dornier Do17Z, affectionately known to Luftwaffe pilots as the Fliegender Bleistift ('Flying Pencil'). Designed (under the restrictions on German aviation imposed by the Versailles Treaty) as a high-speed mail plane, its production was officially greenlighted by the new (Nazi) German Aviation Ministry in 1933 as a "freight aircraft with special equipment"...in other words, a bomber. First blooded in the Spanish Civil War...where its speed and nearly fighter-like handling endeared it to German pilots...the type formed the backbone of the Luftwaffe's bomber force through 1940, when it began to be supplanted by the more-capable Ju88. Kit-supplied decals mark a machine of the staff flight of 2./KG 3 "Blitz" in January 1941, operating from the Dutch airfield at Deurne. Only a few months later most of the Kampfgeschwader would be transferred east to support Operation Barbarossa, and remain there until the unit was dissolved in 1944. The unit's 3rd Gruppe would be an exception: the last unit in the Luftwaffe to operate the Do17, it would then transition to the He111...its new a/c to be used as delivery platforms to launch V-1 flying bombs against the United Kingdom during Spring and Summer, 1944. Enjoy!

I've always loved that kit, and yours is a cracker! Well done.

Great build! Love those tidy little Heller kits! It's funny...even the sort of bow-legged stork-like inter-war designs -- when done by the French -- seem to have a certain trim elegance to them. (Whereas if a company like Blackburn in the UK, or Brewster in the US, built to the same spec, they end up looking like doghouses with wings.) Cheers

Such a different look from the earlier shiny white-winged RCAF 104s! But a beauty nonetheless. Thanks for posting it so we could all enjoy it.

I can never see a Stuka without thinking 'vulture!' Anyhow, you've captured that sinister long-winged shape just beautifully! Really nice work.

That's a jaw-dropper, for sure! Well done

Not a word I use often...but somehow 'spiffy' just popped into my head the instant I saw your build. Really a little jewel! 👍🍺 Cheers

Superb work on the vehicle...and those Poilus really look like they mean business! Great project!

Love them all...but especially that super-tasty chopped and channeled '28 Ford! Great stuff!

Superbly impressive, Dave. All the little extra additions and great paintwork really sell the illusion. Great fun to examine closely!

What he said. Freakin' gorgeous! This is one of the most effective all-over weathering jobs I've seen...much the more, considering it's on NMF. Truly stellar work.

You can tell it's a left-handed kajiger, 'cause the whatsit is in metric. 🤔

As a great admirer of the nation and her people, it's always great to see anything Finnish being modeled...and this is a hum-dinger! Beautiful work and a lovely Finnish...er, finish. Cheers

Warm welcome aboard from, as it were, an 'ex-colonial'...you'll have a marvelous time here, it's almost like being down at the virtual version of the 'local'...(almost always) minus the innebriated remarks. Cheers

One of my favorites -- ever -- was a great late-'70s British spy series called The Sandbaggers. It was one of the first to show the gritty and bare-knuckles side of that dirty business...complete with sometimes-duplicitous (and often harried) political masters, budget restraints, and the day-to-day reality of hard choices...instead of the gizmos-and-glamor take of James Bond, Man From U.N.C.L.E., etc. As grim as all that sounds...and it frequently is...the excellent writing is intelligent and witty, with frequent doses of black humor. Superb cast headed by Roy Marsden and Ray Lonnen. Not to be missed!

It's funny...my first thought was '1950's comic-book Batmobile.' Superb project, artistically achieved!

Very fine work, indeed! Just a punter's suggestion, particularly for armor models -- more 'ground level' shots, to get the full effect. Cheers

That is just (you should pardon the expression) effing gorgeous. Really beautiful work!

She's shaping up beautifully.