Procopius

This hasn't happened in a while, but I was so excited today after looking through everyone's Telford posts (it sounds melodramatic, but I spent most of covid deathly worried for all of you -- I'm not a young man anymore myself, and our hobby skews older, so both you and I live within one of the many zones of vulnerability -- and that 2019 was the last time I would see any of you alive) that I crept into the grotto and did some more work. I used a bit of sponge to add some dots of Tamiya LP-11 silver, then over that, some more dots of Colourcoats zinc chromate yellow, to try and artlessly simulate chipping down to and through the factory primer coat. I was less happy with it when I saw it in person, but the addition of a thin sliver of natural light penetrating through the basement window, occluded as it is by leaves I never rake up, seems to have enabled my cell phone camera to finally get a good handle on the colours, and I think the specks look OK now. If anyone knows of some doubtless overpriced-but-designed-for-it sponge for weathering models, please let me know!

I've always wanted to have the chance to run something into the ground.

And of course, after searching fruitlessly for good reference photos, I found this great one of P-40 weathering:

As always, superlative modelling on your part, Johnny, but also thank you for the photos of all the Britmodellers. It's been three years since I've seen any of them, and I was surprised at how emotional* it made me feel. Well, I am only an American, after all. * But not tired! Not during working hours.

Class! Glamour! ...Telford? As you're 3D-printing this stuff, I don't suppose you're selling or thinking of selling the STLs anywhere? As always, your modelling is...well, not an inspiration, in the same way that a baby-oiled bodybuilder is not an inspiration to someone with my physique, but certainly an achievement close to the pinnacle of human endeavour in the field.

Quite curious myself.

Here goes nothing. I broke down and watched some youtube tutorials on this, something I absolutely hate doing -- all information should be imparted by clearly written instructions, possibly also diagrams -- and the technique that I found that worked best was to take a broad flat brush with no thinner on it and just slowly blend the oils into the wing. I suffer from overexuberance -- something almost nobody who knows me would believe, as I generally have the diffident air of a man recently stunned with a brick. But what this means for the model is that I did a whole lot of this backwards, like attempting some panel line stuff after this, or having already applied pigment weathering, which was all swept away, super genius that I am. This meant there was a lot of duplicative effort as I had to go back over parts. My goal was to replicate the sort of sun-beaten look the upper surfaces of aircraft in the desert, and you may either praise me or loudly suck upon your teeth as you see fit. I have no pride and no dignity, hit me with your best shot. In other news, introduced Winston to a piece of classic cinema yesterday: He found the talky bits with Kenneth More and Dana Wynter pretty thin gruel, but perked up for the Swordfish, which he was quite taken by, and was appropriately pleased when HM battleships King George V and Rodney turned up to fall on Bismarck like ten tons of bricks.

I built one once, long ago, so have some vague memories of the awful wing to fuselage join. Hopefully I've gotten slightly better since then...

Sold some Forge World stuff, and moments later, came across a 1/72 Airfix TSR.2 for $40, so the choice was obvious. Also the Daco EE/BAC Lightning book. I have Lightnings on the brain of late, despite not having fond memories of building either the Sword or Airfix single-seaters.

Yeah, that seems like an awful lot of math for someone who's notoriously bad at careful measuring. Happily, Master makes the L-shaped pitot style used on exported aircraft, since if there's something a proper modeller would do out of hand, the odds are someone in eastern Europe is selling it to lazy, imprecise people like me, so one should be in my hands later this coming week.

Possibly a live grenade.

So, test mule! On the left side (the starboard wing, puzzle that one out in your minds), we have red, yellow, and blue "Oilbrushers", a product I've never gotten the hang of, blended together. On the right side/port wing, we have yellow, ochre, and a sort of pale blue-grey oils blended with a brush and light use of thinners. Verdicts from the judges? Anyway, the landing gear is on and weathered. "Why didn't you clean up the seam, Edward?" Well, life is difficult, and I feel I achieved quite a bit today merely by dint of getting the groceries, thank you very much. And actually, not to toot my own horn -- you'll go blind -- I was quite pleased with how the tires turned out. I also added the white patch the decal guide shows but in no way explains. I expect now that this is done, someone will turn up with a contradicting piece of photo evidence, but we come to this arena uncalled etc. At this point, the aircraft is pretty much done. I don't know if WDAF Kittyhawks carried bombs or drop tanks or nothing in Summer 1942, or which of the several drop tanks they'd use if they did. Any assistance is appreciated. That aside, all I have to do is the pitot, and for that... I have some pretty graphic, not to say explicit, suggestions as to what our pals at Special Hobby can do with an instruction like this.

Ced was there?!?

This year I am acutely missing the Telford show and the UK as a whole.

Yes, but unfortunately they're only selling them with the kit, and that only at Telford, for now.

This morning before work I nipped out to the Fort Sheridan cemetery to make my small contribution to the day.

Ronin Graphics of Australia has come out with RAF decals for the BPK 1/72 P-8 Poseidon, and I (and my wallet, somewhat more apprehensively) have been waiting for this moment.

Yes...I tested it on a Hurricane I'd built earlier, for this exact reason!

Hi Andres. The RAF did not use FS numbers, which in any case were not created until 1956, so any FS number assigned would be a modern approximation of what Dark Green was -- and the RAF's Dark Green apparently changed over time, since the 1964 BS381C colour index's dark green may have differed from the wartime one: @Greenshirt did a nice comparison of dark green acrylic model paints with a Ministry of Aircraft Production colour chip in British Aviation Colours of World War Two on his website here: https://greenshirt-modeler.blogspot.com/2013/05/raf-dark-green-good-hobby-paint-match.html I think in general, the RAF Dark Green from @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies superb range of Colourcoats enamels is considered to have the best fidelity to the RAF wartime colour, but he knows far more than I do and may be along shortly.

Also, having looked into oil dot weathering more, I think my issue is I'm being far, far too parsimonious with my dots of oils.

::bites stem off pipe::

I have a second pair, but even so, I had very strict operating limitations imposed on them, which Grant in particular did not care for. It started out a little pebbly, truth be told, but I spent the better part of a protracted bureaucratic battle in Sandbaggers (IE most of an episode) gently and slowly polishing it with 8000-grit micromesh, and for once it seems to have worked for me. That's very kind. The line between enough and overdoing it has always been almost imperceptible for me, in this as in all things. Ah Perdu, I have such fond memories of the dinner everyone had together, and getting to meet so many great people from Britmodeller there. As I told Troffa a day or two ago, this really is one of my favourite places on the internet, and almost all of my happiest memories involve a concentration of forum denizens of this site. So my biggest fear is rejection. Shortly before I ran away from home, my parents called my other three siblings downstairs to excoriate me in front of them in pretty explicit and harsh terms before having me exorcised (as one does). Every child, I think, fears that their parents will stop loving them, and for me, in that awful moment, it happened. It doesn't feel great! I mention this, because, I think, whenever introducing your children to something you love, when introducing anyone to something you love, you give them a chance to hurt you -- the Hedgehog's Dilemma: you must have warmth, but to do so you risk being pricked -- and I had already known this long before my contretemps with Procopius pere et mere, because as a fourteen year old in a college class with those giant, worldly-wise eighteen year olds*, you suss out pretty quickly how small and vulnerable you are on every single level that can be imagined. And that's the true terror of being a parent, maybe only for me: you're creating someone who is in a position to know who you truly are, and to hate you for it. Mrs P may someday decide she despises me and leave me, but in my heart of hearts I have never believed any adult could truly love and care for me, and I know I can take it. But someday Winston may despise his name and namesake and excoriate me for choosing to give it to him, which is of course his right, because his namesake existed and therefore it's only our choice to despise him, and not merely mandatory. Grant could walk down to the basement one fine day when he's sixteen and smash every kit in there with a hammer, and that's not even the worst or cruelest thing a sixteen year old boy is capable of, and I would have to count myself lucky. Everything I am, and everything I believe in, is laid bare to them, and they can ridicule me for it and there's nothing I can do. Winston's was too young when it happened to be able to remember when he concussed himself and we thought he was dying of a skull fracture, and there was no time to wait for a lead smock for me, so I held him down as he screamed and screamed and above me that big CT detector array made a sound like the end of the world. And maybe he'd be right to not care, even if he did know, because being a parent is every day, forever. You don't get to win at being a parent so hard one day you can just stop then and relax. It's never over. You can be rejected at any time. Walter Hill, famous for directing 48 Hours, which has not aged well, and Streets of Fire, which managed the double feat of launching and torpedoing the career of Michael Pare, said about directing that ""You are very privileged...There is a great quote I'll get wrong of Samuel Johnson, the English poet and essayist, that: 'We come to the arena uncalled, to seek our fortune and hazard disgrace. That's the game, those are the rules.'** So I say to you...if you wanna feel sorry, feel sorry for the people in Syria, but don't feel sorry for [me]." So too of parenting, I suppose. I chose this***. * I now know, based on lengthy exposure to them then and since, that they were and largely remain, quite stupid, even by my very generous standards. Shimer was not a very good school. ** The actual Samuel Johnson quote, from his Life of Pope, by the way, is "An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace." But I think Hill's version might actually have bettered the good doctor. *** Indirectly, but if you'd seen Mrs P at 28, you could understand why I wasn't thinking super clearly.

My condolences. A few years ago, before her obvious talent was recognized and she went off to write for the wildly-successful email newsletter Morning Brew, my deputy social media manager said to me "Everyone here is an Idea Man. I too have ideas. But I will never have time to bring them into this world, because I'm busy making everyone else's happen." I think about that a lot. I -- although I did my best to not burden Matty with this -- am more of an Idea Man myself, in that I'm pretty good at standing at Point A and envisioning a really cool Point B, but not so great at getting down the long line betwixt them. Anyway, today at work was a very long day of struggling midway along the path between them. Some big changes and improvements are within reach, but not yet within my grasp, and honestly, the unglamorous work to get there is really boring and it's hard for me, a grown man who should function a lot better, to stay focused or interested in the slightest. Anyway. The boys wanted to model outside when they got home, so that they could use the "toxic glue" -- even small children know TET is the finest chemical going. Grant had meekly suggested maybe he could build a Spitfire, but amazingly, I'm fresh out of Airfix Spitfire Is, and all I had that I was willing to offer up was the mostly-done Meng F-102 Cookie sent to me. I felt like since it had been given to me in a generous gesture by the Senator himself, I should honour the spirit in which it was offered by coming out of my selfish, hateful self and offering it up. But it hurt a little when he told me he just wanted to put the decals on and not paint it -- after I'd gotten the nice New Wave mask set, too! -- and he asked me to add all the subassemblies I'd carefully set aside to paint. I know the simple joy of a child is supposed to be worth a lot, but on the whole, I'd rather have the kit back. I'm sure my dad did lots of things like this for me as a kid, but all I can remember is him screaming "why can't you be normal?"* at me, so I know it's just so much wasted effort. Winston delegated putting the lifeboats on the Hood to me, but I note he installed the pom-poms and what I believe to be the directors for the secondary armament. I got out R A Burt's British Battleships afterwards and he built a rather impressive lego replica of Hood referring to the plans in the book. I eventually, far too late, made it down to the grotto and built the spinner. I then attempted what is known in the biz as "light weathering", using oils and pigments, which I still struggle with. It's late, so more tomorrow. * A very fair question, to be honest.

I've read enough about British defence procurement to know it's a never-ending quest to discover the bare minimum, pledge to achieve it in a herculean national effort, and then quietly get about halfway there before giving up and revising downwards. As my own life is planned roughly the same way, I feel a certain kinship with postwar UK governments.