Search the Community

Hello all i built this as an attempt to get used to 1/72nd scale i am placing it here as it is about 90% complete. I replaced the barrels with hollow micro brass tubing. Which is itself a test of patience. The Star & Bars are kit decals the serial is kit decal. But the codes are from Woodland Scenics Railroad lettering. I think they work very well. However i've been laughed at by some here at Britmodeller for suggesting these. I'll let you decide whether they look good ? Correct ? Or Bad ? It still needs resin exhausts and some weathering. It is also the first model in a pet project that will eventually incorporate 10 more P-51's, 4 P-47's, and 1 P-38 an airfield diorama with a tower and the associated ground equipment. The full size diorama will be built last. Any how heres the Mustang as it sits today. It represents a D model of the 4th Fighter Group. And i hope you like it. Oh and for those of you curious the invasion stripes were handpainted the Aluminum was Tamiya Rattlecan and the Red & Blue are Vallejo. The Red is standard Vallejo & the Blue MA Mediterranean blue and is Airbrushed. The color was pretty close to the colors i could find online. I hope every one likes this. The eagle eyed among you may spot my glaring goof up on this plane.

Well here we go... My first serious foray in to the dark world of WWII German AFV modelling. So to start my 'new direction' I though I'd go with something that everyone has seen before just to try my hand, see where it goes. This is the Academy Tiger IE 'Early Production' kit just falls together no issues whatsoever (yet - not tried to put the running gear on of course), I won't bore you with the build as for me, this is about the 'colouring in'. I started with an overall black shadow coat as usual. Next I undercoated with a very light misted Tamiya flat brown coat followed by 'Deck Tan' for the highlights and just a spot or three of white for the high, highlights. That done I left it for a day to dry thoroughly. For the basic 'Dunkelgelb' I mixed Tamiya XF4 'Yellow Green' and XF60 'Dark Yellow' in roughly 30/70 proportions and thinned it with around 30% Iso - unfortunately when I shot the first coat it spattered intermitently so I added more Iso to my mix and got a much smoother flow. As it's very mild here in NZ just now, the model dried really fast on a sunny window-ledge and was ready for camo in an hour. I had a picture in my head of how I wanted the stripes and 'meandering lines' to look, so took a deep breath thinned some 'Field Grey' and shot it freehand using my trusty Iwata BR with the difuser tip removed to get a very fine line. There are some touch-ups and errors but not too many - for some odd reason I simply cannot get the camo on the barrel to work, but I'll keep plugging-away at it. Once I'm happy with the camouflage I'll shoot a couple of coats of 'Klear' to seal it all in then get the (few) decals on. Please feel free to make any comment, criticism or ask a question. More soon. Ian.

Just finished, Academy M18 Hellcat... Bought as soon as it came out in 1997, started almost as soon as I got it home, finished this morning !! Used about 30% of the Verlinden kit-specific detail set including some 'old skool' etched brass (yes BRASS), resin stowage etc, other stowage from various Tamiya and Academy sets, .50cal is from the old Tamiya US Weapons set. Most of the decals are from the spares box. Really enjoying my AFV modelling at the moment, so much so that I'm even going to try something that isn't Olive Drab in the very near future !! - As ever thanks for taking the time to look and/or comment please feel free to make any comments, criticisms or ask any questions. Stay tuned. Ian.

Hi All, Here is my Academy Merkeva 4 LIC. I added the Legend turret basket but largely used the Academy ball and chain set as I have sausage fingers. The kit is well detailed and goes together well apart from the tracks the individual links of which just don't want to sit together. I got the concrete blocks and wire from FOG models which I'm really pleased with. PLO posters I just printed from the net. I used the AK Sinai Gray which went on like a dream. My whip antenna could have been better I think Couldn't resist a photo with the much more beautiful Nagmachon. Comments welcome as usual.

This thread will document my attempt at the Academy F-15I. I'm not an eagle expert, so I can't speak to the kit's accuracy, but it looks nice and fun. Its been sitting in my stash for a few years, and this seems like a great opportunity to get it built.

To save me from completely losing the will to live from tackling attempting to turn Hobby Boss' Mi-8 actually into an Mi-8 I have decided to pick up what should (hopefully!) be a nice simple build of one of my favourite aircraft of all time, the Mig-21. I have decided to build an old Academy 1/48 Mig-21PF that I have had for a while as it is a fairly simple kit and (to me at least) looks like the plane its supposed to. The one part of the kit which definitely does need improving on is the cockpit as the kit one if rather basic to say the least, and to that end I have bought a resin replacement by Pavla which should hopefully fit better than their Mi-8 bits, I have given it a test fit and all seems well. Anyway here's the usual box and contents shots. The kit instructions and decals. I am not sure at the moment exactly which scheme to do it in but I will most likely not be using the kit decals, I have a few sets for the Mig-21.... Would you believe there isn't a PF on any of them! Obviously I need more decals! Some of the decals can be used on PF's as the national markings are the same. As I said I have a Pavla cockpit, and here are the various bits. Much more detailed than the kit offering but the instructions on what to remove from the kit are non-existent so I will have to give it my best guess, oh dear! I say I don't know exactly which scheme to do but I am leaning towards an Egyptian one such as either of the schemes below. Probably the bottom one. I know one of the kit options is Egyptian and in a very similar scheme but the national markings look too big to my eye, I'm sure I have some more suitable Egyptian markings somewhere in the stash. Thats it for now, thanks for looking in, and wish me luck! Craig.

This is my first thread for Britmodeller and I’d like to share a project I carried out last year. As I said in my presentation post,I spend much time in the UK and when I’m in Cambridge or Bury St.Edmunds for work, in the night I like going for some spotting to RAF Lakenheat and Mildenhall. The Eagles of the C version are my favourites and I really lik the two shades of grey camouflage. It was a very welcomed surprise to see on Hannants’ site the new release by Caracal Models. It took not that long to purchase them, together with the Academy F15 1/48 Model. There are several models, including adedicated box for yhe MISP IIversion, but the price was completely different, there were none avaliable and I like a bit of scratch building, so I opted for the basic version. After having seen so many landings ,I decided I would have represented my Eagle in this configuration, with the nose wheel still lifted and the airbrake open. Eduard set for the F15 C exterior will help! To do something different,…I started from the eshausts!I think the kit parts with the help of the PE parts will be quite accurate, once painted! On the main frame, I started by cutting a few thinds off: the hook frame, not present on the MISP II version… …and the ailerons and flaps from the wings, as I wante d to reposition them in the landing configuration. This kit gives the opportunity to build a C exemple (single seater) or D (double seater) and, as well as two different front sections for the fuselage, two sets of intakes are supplied, as they are positioned at a different angle , depending if the engines ON or OFF. I chosed the lower ones, as my aircraft was to be represented while landing. Next I checked the fitting of the different components of the fuselage and found out the junction between the front halves and the back section didn’t pair very well and there werent any good location pins, so I added some strips of sprue to halp a bit. I’ve used the kit cockpit, as I think it’s a nice representation of the real one , if the canopy is closed. It fitted well and could be inserted to the front section from the back .Once it was completed I would have added it and glued the front to the back of the fuselage. Once happy with the dry fit test, I added a few spacers over the nosewheel bay to get the cockpit into the right place.and started adding a bit of detail to the front panel. Added the PE parts to the nose wheel bay…a really useless job, as I later realized all door are normally closed when the landing gears are out!!! I decided to use the seat from an old Italeri F16,which had impressed me for the detail. I needed a pilot and I found it in an old Hasegawa set.Attaboy!!! It fitted well to the seat… They fitted well to the cockpit… …and the cockpit fitted well to the fuselage! The canopy and windscreen didn’t fit so well, but what I wanted to check at this sage was the final shape of the bird.I don’t go crazy if the dimensions aren’t exactly correct, but I want the shape to be right and give theright idea of theaircraft. So this is what my Eagle was going to look like! I then added two strips of plasticard at the sides, where the canopy frame was going to fit and a plate of the right size to produce a good and strong fitting, once glued together. This is what the cockpit assembly in place looked like. It was finally time for some colour!!!The front panel was painted black with a drop of white, washed with black and drybrushed with grey.Same treatment to the seat. A drop of Clearfix was given to the HUD lens. Some more colour and the seat was ready for …the guy!!! The cockpit was painted light grey, masked with Tamiya tape and sprayed black on the panels. Once fully painted, it looked like this. …and this is how it looked once glued to the front fuselage. I glued the canopy frame too... …and then the time came for our guy! His helmet’s was old type and was filed down, to remove the visor’s cover. At this point I needed an oxygen hose for his mask and wires of different sizes resulted very hepful! With the hose in place and free to breathe, our guy felt much better! He started loosing his greyish shade to recover some colour…finally a happy man!!! He sat on his seat… …and jumped into the cockpit, ready to take off… Wait a minute!Don’t you think it’s a bit early??? After some masking of the cockpit area, the canopy frame inside was sprayed black and then I tried to create some shade in a flat area by spraying a lighter colour , then washed. This was the final look with our guy in place. That’s all for now. See you soon for an update!

Hi guys! This time I would like to show you my last model. It´s the simple Academy F4U-1D Corsair in 1/72. It has some Eduard PE and some improvements, like a longer tail gear and navigation lights. Decals are custom made and the bands are painted to represent an aircraft of the USS Intrepid. I hope you like it! Every critics and comments are welcomed! Best regards from Uruguay, Ignacio

I think this is the first new ship kit from Academy in quite a while. Interesting that they are going with 1/700 instead of 1/350: https://www.cybermodeler.com/news/academy.shtml

Academy is to release a - new tool or (most probably) Italeri kit rebox ? - 1/48th Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet - ref. 12316 This ref. number was not announced in the catalogue 2017: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235014703-academy-catalogue-2017-programme-newsletter-1q-2017/ Source: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5169820785 V.P.

Hello Modellers, because my wife told me that she's fed up with my airplanes all aorund at home I had to take my latest on to my office at work.... Thank God I have some space and maybe in the near future i will bring also another one. This dauntless is almost OOB with just some details added in the cockpit. Painting has been done with airbrush and Tamiya acrylics. Matt finishing is also a Tamiya but spray can. Any comment and criticism is welcome . Enjoy pictures even if quality is not really the best (I took them with mobile phone...). Cheers Andy

We've got four excellent New Plastic Model Kits From Academy Models to show you, including a 1/72 SR-71 Blackbird with GTD-21 Drone, a Russian T-34/76 Factory No.183 in 1/32 and two Modeller's Edition ship kits: The USS Missouri BB-63 & USS Enterprise CV-6 both in 1/700 Scale. See more details below.

Got this one finished and in the photo booth. It really is a great kit with no major problems, may possibly add a mine detection device when it goes on a diorama eventually. Also might be worth saying that the doors and the rear boot section are only tacked in with a bit of pva in case I have to open them later which is why you might spot a bit of a gap. Kit manufacturer: academy Scale: 1/35 Type: M1151 Humvee Extras used: DEF models resin sagged wheels Paints and colours used: MRP 080 and various tamiya. Weathered with mig pigments and ak washes

Well, here goes! In at the deep end for my first WIP. All my previous builds have been projects that have several WIP's against them, but this is not seen so often. Continuing the theme of jets I worked on in the RAF, this will be a Hunter T7 to go with the Buccaneer in 237 OCU markings. I'm using the Academy Hunter F6 kit with the Heritage T7 conversion along with a few AM extra's On top of the conversion work, I'll also be trying to correct some of the Academy kits errors. Don't expect work to progress at a blistering rate, it took 6 months to build the Phantom!!! All the bits. The Heritage conversion set. The main fuselage components marked ready for cutting. Just off for a stiff drink before I get the razor saw out! Rob.

I've been searching lately for a resin exhaust set for the Academy F-15C MSIP boxing but I'm unable to find any. I know that Eduard did some for their Fighting Eagles edition but there's nothing on their website about them anymore. So I was wondering if anyone has tried to fit the Aires set thats meant for the Hasegawa kits to an Academy version? Are they a good fit? Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks. EDIT: I was wondering if I could be really cheeky and ask a huge favour? Does anyone on here have the Aires F-15 exhausts within easy reach? If so, would it be possible to get a couple of measurements? Specifically the burner can diameter that sits inside the airframe and the outer diameter of the can where it buts up to the fuselage. Any help would be much appreciated.

After the two-seats F/A-18F Super Bug - ref.12535 - (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234994146-172-boeing-fa-18f-super-hornet-by-academy-released/), Academy is to release in 2017 a 1/72nd USN Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet "VFA-143 "Pukin Dogs" kit - ref.12547. Source: https://www.facebook.com/academymodeleurope/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1575659209129938 V.P.

Hello, just few weeks ago i finished Su-27 from Academy. I used HDL Decals, Eduard Pe set, Correct Nose from QB and Pavla K-36M Zvezda, also i added a wires on landing gears and wheelbays. Just like always my Su-27 has got few mistakes (i broken canopy, the color and paint scheme are incorrect. Another mistake is incorrect Nose paint scheme (it should be straight, and i made paint it curve). I hope you will enjoy.

Hi all, I recently completed this a few weeks ago and I decided to upload it here. The build wasn't that enjoyable and I'm not to pleased how it turned out to be honest . The decals are just a bunch of markings I had spare so it is in no way historically accurate

Well you just can't have enough doras ! This is an older project but i finally managed to take some photos . Very nice and simple model . I added the rivets to make it more interesting . Hope you like it ! ( until the next dora ! ) IMG_20170304_181530 by Dionyssis Vacalas, on Flickr IMG_20170304_181541 by Dionyssis Vacalas, on Flickr IMG_20170304_181609 by Dionyssis Vacalas, on Flickr IMG_20170304_181557 by Dionyssis Vacalas, on Flickr IMG_20170304_181619 by Dionyssis Vacalas, on Flickr

Hi all, me again! Well, the postman dropped this wonderful kit off last week: The tooling looks excellent: (and so does this chap): Anyway, my aim is simple*- convert this Phantom F4J into an RAF grey/green FGR.2 F-4J(UK) *Simple, meaning a process that requires a metric crap-tonne of work.... - The main points to be aware of are threefold: 1. Decals 2. Shape of the tail 3. Shape of the engine exhasuts As of a few moments ago, I ordered a set of decals from Hannants to partly solve problem 1 (stencils will need to be scraped together from the spare decals box) And as for the other 2 issues, I can solve the shape of the tail by using scrap plasticard to replicate the rectangular shaped fairing at the top of the FGR.2's tail and for 3.... well I'm not sure about that. I could try and see if I have any spare nozzles or cylindrical shaped objects from other kits lying around or I could find a 1:48 bomb of the right diameter and cut that into sections to be shaped into the nozzles? I was tempted to go for the aftermarket resin nozzles that are available but at £10 for a comparatively small item is a bit much. So, that's it for now. Kind regards, Sam EDIT: Changed from F-4J to FGR2 to --> F-4J to F-4J(UK)

Long time no see Britmodeller, but I have not been resting on my laurels. Here's the Academy 1/72 Hornet from the 1986 Libya strike. At least I hope it is. Markings come from one of the Aeromaster Stinging Hornets set and has aircraft 203 from VFA-132 Privateers. I'm not sure if this particular aircraft flew in the strike (I know 200 did) but I will assume that it did. The aircraft is armed with a pair of AGM-88 HARM missiles as in real life, with accompanying AIM-9s and AIM-7s. The aircraft is painted using Gunze colors in the original Hornet colors of Light Ghost Gray (FS 36375) over Light Gray (FS 36495). I'm still not quite convinced about the accuracy of Gunze's LGG. I feel it has a purplish tint that shouldn't be there. Metal surfaces were painted with Citadel metallics (old formula). I used white missile markings as I have seen some pictures where they were still carried around this time. The HARM markings were taken from a Revell F/A-18F decal sheet and the HARMs themselves from a Revell F-16C kit. A Windsor & Newton pigment marker was used for the red edges of the bay doors. I love the Academy legacy Hornet. It has some fit issues (dry fitting strongly recommended) and the nose is a complicated 4-piece setup but it looks gorgeous once built. There was no aftermarket used as none was needed although the cockpit, while detailed, might not be enough for purists. A bit of filling and sanding was needed to remove some of the bumps that are not appropriate for a mid-1980s Hornet. Thanks for looking!

Hi folks, After a looong period of starting plenty of kits and finishing none, I decidced I'd do something quick to get the modelling mojo back. I chose Academy F-4J, with decals from SWS. So here goes my F-4J(UK) Phantom, with Mr Paint paints (yeah, I know) for the FS36440 and FS36270 greys and Tamiya XF-25 for the very peculiar blue-grey found on these Phantoms. Cheers, Sébastien

Hey guys, here's my try at Academy Fortress. Almost OOB, with exception of QB gun barrels and scratchbuilt landing lights. Markings are from Revell, since i always wanted to do "Shamrock", with it's replacement tail, it makes otherwise dull overall Olive Drab looks interesting. I preshaded the model with Gunze Tire black, and then gradually painted OD in about a dozen thin layers. I used Gunze OD and faded OD, and repainting of markings is done with MM OD. Wash is Tamiya, weathering done with Tamiya Smoke + Tamiya D set. Sligh chipping is done using artist silver pencil. Comments are welcome, thanks for looking!

HI again fellow modellers, Some of you out there must have had the experience of building a model that at some point during the build you think 'this is the best model I've ever done; my magnum opus !' This was such a build, everything was going swimmingly, I'd got the 'patchy' Hornet scheme off to a tee and it went together well(my first Academy build) until decal time This was the Blue Angels version of the kit but I fancied a proper 'warbird' so bought some aftermarket decals(Techmod) from Hannants. They were pants. Kept breaking and the ones that didn't seem to have a really visible carrier film. I compounded this by doing my usual overweathering. To add insult to injury when I'd virtually finished I noticed various decals had 'disappeared', despite being matt coated, including the all-important 'Dirty Dan' title which was the major point of the excercise Then I forgot to do the false canopy until after decaling and the masking ripped off the national insignia(to spares box for a hi-viz insignia which I attempted to tone down with some dilute grey paint(partial success)). Anyway enough of my rant............here it is, warts and all !! PS: I know Marine Hornets rarely carried GBU's during Gulf I as they had no self-lasing capability, However this has a spot tracker/strike cam so it could drop these if buddy or ground lased..............that's my excuse anyway

Howdy Folks It has been a very long time since I finished anything at all so I was very glad to finally get this one to the cabinet of glory. Very typical 1/72 Academy. Quite nice detail, good price but geez I had to wrestle with the decals! Paints were Testors Model Master. I chose to do a reverse wash on the wings and fuselage with sort of a greyish artist watercolour thinned with water and with a drop of detergent added. Some weathering and chipping with a silver pencil. Exhaust stains etc were my dry artist pastels scraped and dusted on. Some oily stains around the top filler forward of the canopy were just some thin artist watercolour Aerial is ezy-line. Seat belts are little fabric ones from Kami Zukuri (5 bucks for 6 sets) touched up with a silver pen for the buckles Here's the pics.....hope you like her. Thanks heaps for looking Cheers Bruce