Kallisti

I'd like to but the 3D printed figures I've seen so far are a) poor quality IMO b) expensive c) scheduled to arrive in mid-October I'm sure I've seen somewhere some 'flats' for the crew, including seated passengers but can't for the life of me find it again!

That looks like a lovely build of a very difficult kit! I'm in a 2001 groove at the moment having built the Moebius Space Clipper and now working on the Aries 1B kit. I ought to tackle the Moon Bus next Well IV went back in time to take Sinclair back to become Valen... oh hang on, thats Babylon 5

Having just built the Moebius Space Clipper from 2001, it was perfect timing for the postman to deliver this wonderful kit just as the paint was drying: It looks like a superb kit and from my experience of building it so far, it is! Its not an easy thing to build, there are some quire complex assembly steps and of course it cries out for lighting so I have been building a lighting solution! First off there are the engines and landing leg assembly - the landing legs can be displayed deployed or folded and the mechanism is a thing of beauty! The engine detail is excellent In theory the engines can be lit, but I don't want to do that as a) it won't be seen and b) its not screen accurate. I was able to find a superb set of videos of the Aries sequence from the movie and the engine bells are matt black and not illuminated Next, the legs are assembled and the lower hull added The the covers go over the leg openings and the legs got folded for this pose I love the folding mechanism, its really effective! Added some primer and realised the joins between the hull panels are a bit poor so been doing some filling and sanding there, not helped by having added the leg covers Speaking of filler, the passenger compartment floor comes as two cenmi-circular pieces but the joint needs work! Second round of filling and sanding after primer and also adding the lower internal hull ring The passenger compartment ceiling does not need quite the same about of work to hide the joint. Next to it are the two 'Zero-G toilet compartments and the central lift. I'll be building a lighting box on the back side of the ceiling to illuminate the inner and outer ring. In the movie, the middle ring of lights seem to be off So thinking about the lighting, the first thing to consider is where does the power come from? You usually either have 2 choices - from a base or hide the batteries inside the model. I've chosen the latter option as there seems to be a lot of empty space inside the upper hull hemisphere. First task then is to create an access panel I've added a non-screeen accurate 'vane' that can be used as a handle... With small magnets to hold it in place Inside the upper hull the main feature is a cockpit box that seemed the obvious place to attach the batter to so a support was scratch built and with the battery inserted... So now we have power lets start adding lighitng. The cockpit is the first place to focus, In the movie the cockpit is illuminated in red The kit parts have recessed areas for the lights and these protrude on the backside of the kit part which means you can sand that down to get a paper-thin plastic film over the light which is perfect to diffuse the light from an LED mounted behind it. You can see the light panels as the darker areas here where I've built up a lightbox over them to hold the LEDs and contain the light I've used gaffer tape to wrap the box to make sure it is opaque to the light from inside The outside of the roof part is painted black to mask the lights and a test was made: The outside of the cockpit box is a bit of a mess now Thats as far as I've got so far. Last night I assembled all the seats for the passenger compartment and they got primed this morning. They all need painted a mustard yellow colour, I'll probably use Tamiya XF-60

This version of TB2 is reasonably accurate shapewise, significantly better than the ones you get in the Imai boxing and far superior to the "Super Big TB2" from Aoshima. The nice thing abotu this kit is the cockpit internals which are ALMOST visible through the windows! Its a very old kit so the fit and joint issues are nothing unexpected. Good job so far!

Thats what she said...

This just arrived today, am I excited or am I excited????? I think I need to build this NOW!!!!!

There are a variety of lineages here, and I don't 100% trust the Scalemates chronology. Some of these kits are relatively new tools, eg TB1, TB3, TB4 and the Mole, while some are old reboxings. Some of the old kits are quite ropey but the new ones are very good - I've built most of them as Aoshima boxings over the years. The Mole is my favourite, its a beautiful kit that can be motorized - I did a version with it burrowing through rock strata - check my profile for links. Its wonderful to see these kits reboxed for the UK market, I am seeing so many new TB models at shows now, having been one of the few people displaying these models for many years

The Alain Rivard's models are superb, I bought one of the 1:48 kits from him a while back and built it last year and you can see it here:

Just discovered this thread, lovely stuff, I'm a sucker for a good bit of what-iffery, especially around my favourite Anderson show UFO My only complaint about it is its too dark and you can't see all the lovely details you added!! Looking forward to what's next!

The main areas are airbrushed but I do hand paint small details as the airbrush is in the shed and in winter months I can't be bottomed going out there in the cold for small bits of painting

The Hawker Tempest II build has now been posted here:

Further update for the Hawker Tempest II for 1946-47: 280 Sqn ASR: Avro Anson here RFI here 81 Sqn: Spitfire Vc (Trop) here Spitfire IX here RFI here 5 Sqn: Hurricane IIc here Hurricane IIc Diorama 'Clang!' here Hurricane IId here RFI here Thunderbolt I here Thunderbolt II here Plus as associated builds for 5 Sqn outside of the period my Father was attached to them: 1942-43 Curtis Mohawk IV here 1946-47 Hawker Tempest II here 1950s Gloster Meteor NF 11 here 1960s Gloster Javelin here 1970s EE Lightning F6 here 1980s Tornado F.3 here

A new entry to the long-running project I've been doing on and off over the last 10 years, namely Aircraft my Father Fixed. I started this project with this topic back in 2012: Aircraft my Father fixed! This is part of the side-project to build aircraft from the history of 5 Sqn outside of my Father being part of the squadron. In this instance it is the next step of the history of 5 Sqn after my Father was demobbed at the end of 1945. After the war against Japan, the squadron returned to India from Burma with the Thunderbolts they had been flying. In Early 1946 these were replaces with Hawker Tempest II which they flew until the squadron was disbanded in August 1947. This build ended up being the first one I've completed in quite some time, having had a bit of a mojo failure in the latter third of 2021. It the releativly new Eduard kit Its a perfectly decent kit, goes together without any fuss, so it was an enjoyable build even though my lack of mojo was fighting me all the way However I DID complete it and it also spurred me on to complete the AIrfix Sea Fury I started building at the start of last year that suffered from the mojo loss. I had to assemble the decals from the spares box as the kit didn't provide for any 5 Sqn aircraft but consulting various refrences including John Rawling's Fighter Squadrons of The RAF provided the appropriate detail. So here is the completed build Here you can see the underwing serial decals which needed careful cutting to fit on the undercarriage doors properly. The kit decals are already cut to do this, but to get this right I blue-tacced the doors closed when painting and decaling and then used a sharp scalpel-blade to cut them once settled down. You can see the hawker Sea Fury build here:

So eight months later, I finally summon up the oomph to complete this build! Yayy me It must be said that in the meantime I've started about 5 or 6 builds that have gone nowhere until I finally finished one the last couple of weeks and since that was the Eduard Tempest II (will be posted later) it spurred me to get out the Sea Fury as it was the next step in the evolution of the Hawker single-seater fighter. Anyway, here are the completed photos: Probably not my best but its a completed model which has been sparse for me since last August so I'm calling that a win