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Dear fellow Britmodellers, this is my 1/72 Hasegawa Ju-88 D1 in markings of the Romanian Air Force in 1944/45. Painted with Mr.Hobby acrylics, pictures by Wolfgang Rabel. This aircraft belonged to Escadrilla 2 Recunoastere and was based at Miskolc airfield in Hungary, and later at Tri Dubny Slovakia, in the winter of 1944/45. All markings are from the DK decal sheet "Romanian Roundels over Czechoslovakia 1944-1945 (72088)". It apparently changed management when Romania switched sides, because the German crosses, swastikas and squadron codes were hastily painted over. Several aftermarket parts had accumulated in the kit box, including two Eduard sets (interior and exterior), Eduard masks and True Details wheels. Only the canopy paint masks are absolutely necessary - the Eduard interior etched parts can hardly be seen, from the exterior set I only used antennas, landing gear doors and a few other small things, the rest seemed superfluous to me. The Hasegawa kit wheels are pretty good, the True Details resin wheels are a little better and flattened nicely. During painting I noticed that the contrast between Mr.Hobby's RLM70/71 is a bit too strong. I added a small drop of black to the lighter color (RLM71 Dark Green) to soften the contrast. I weathered with artist oils from Winsor & Newton. The nose glazing doesn't fit very well and left a (invisible) gap through which a little spray mist crept in at the edge! Overpainted squadron codes and national insignia .... Now here's the underside ... Thank you for your interest, best greetings from Austria! Roman

I've built a couple of Airfix 1/72 models of this notoriously asymmetric aircraft over the years, and @Ozzy's recent rapid build of the Airfix kit reminded me that I had the Hobby Boss 1/48 version in my stash. The kit provides decals and paint schemes for V10, lettered NC+RA, and the wrecked GK+GH I mentioned on Ozzy's RFI. I'm building NC+RA, using the photoetch detail set from Eduard. The first problem with the kit is that the propeller rotates in the wrong direction--a ridiculous error in an aircraft that is asymmetrical in order to counter torque. So I have the True Details propeller to correct that. True Details, assembled, on the left. Then there's the problem of painting the frames on that huge glasshouse. I'm using Montex's interior mask set, though I've never had an entirely satisfactory experience with Montex masks---they seem to be too stiff, and the adhesive is intolerant of repositioning, at least in my hands. And I've made a start to the cockpit detailing from Eduard. (I found the Eduard bomb sight impossible to position in the middle of a pane in the manner depicted in my references, so it's had a bit of surgery.) Lots of bits to paint individually, I think. The kit paint instructions call for dark grey, which I imagine is RLM66, but I'm leaning towards RLM02, for an aircraft that was flying by mid-1941--the grainy, contrasty B&W interior photos I've seen are no help. The kit also wants me to paint it with an RLM 65/02/71 camouflage pattern, but the photos I've seen seem too low-contrast for that--again, I'm leaning towards 65/70/71.

This is the Hobby Boss kit of Richard Vogt's gloriously asymmetrical design for Blohm & Voss. About 20 Bv141Bs were built, intended for short-range reconnaissance and ground support roles. The production details are murky and many airframes are unaccounted for. Competition for the BMW 801A engine meant that production was halted in 1942. The kit contains decals for two 141Bs - call-sign NC+RA, which was photographed while undergoing testing but seems never to have flown operationally; and GK+GH, a later airframe photographed by the US Army in a wrecked condition at the end of the war. I've built the former, which was numbered Bv 141 V10 or Bv 141B 02. I used the kit decals, but ignored the painting instructions, which called for a dark grey interior and RLM65/02/71 exterior. I went with RLM02 interior, which seemed more likely for the date of manufacture, and RLM 65/70/71 camouflage, which fits better with the low-contrast appearance of photographs. (Reference images from Richard A. Franks's Bv 141 Technical Guide.) The kit goes together well and was a pleasant build, the main error being that the propeller is the wrong way round - a particularly glaring error for an aircraft which was designed to be asymmetrical in part to counter the engine torque. Fortunately, True Details make a replacement propeller. I also used the (very nice) Eduard PE detail set, and paint masks from Montex (for the interior) and Eduard (exterior). Paints are Colourcoats from Sovereign Hobbies, weathering a mix of TrueColor Liquid Pigment and Tamiya powders, and Plastikote sealer from a rattle can. These aircraft seemed to get pretty grubby/faded: I was a little more understated with my own attempt at weathering, trying to reproduce this sort of appearance: I did some minor scratch building as detailed in the WiP thread: Here's the result:

Dear fellow Britmodellers, here's my 1/72 Dragon Heinkel He-219 A2 in markings of NJG 3 in 1945. Painted with Mr.Hobby acrylics, photos by Wolfgang Rabel. The Dragon model was released in the early 1990s, but is still the best injection-moulded kit in 72 scale. It's age shows with plenty of ill-fitting parts, such as the canopy, wing-to-fuselage joint and panel lines which line up on the belly, but not on the spine. I added Eduard photo-etch for the interior and resin wheels from True Details. The kit's decals were unusable and had to be replaced with AIMS "Heinkel He-219 A" (72DO23). Upper surface camo was free-handed using my Harder & Steenbeck Evolution with 0.15mm needle. The radar antennas are included as photo-etch parts, their attachment requires a steady hand and lots of patience. There's mounting holes for the antenna arms on the nose, which theoretically set the correct angle. In practice this did not work, as I had filled the entire nose with lead shots to prevent a tail-sitter, and the plugs wouldn't go into position because of the inside ballast. All antennas had to be manually adjusted. The spinner spirals are decals, borrowed from an Eduard (Fw-190) kit: The Balkenkreuze on the lower surface were sprayed using a self-cut mask. This way I tried to avoid the dreaded "silvering" of carrier film that sometimes occurs on dark surfaces. Thank you for your interest in this topic! Best greetings from Vienna, Roman

My dad acquired a liking for 110s at the moment. So after starting the Iraqi one he will soon start a Yugoslav one. This aircraft changed ownership after it´s crew made a navigation mistake and landed in Yugoslavia instead of Bulgaria, a week before the German invasion in Yugoslavia. The crew was detained and the 110 received VVKJ markings and camo. Gonna use the good old Fujimi kit DSC_0006 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr using LF Models decals for the markings DSC_0007 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr and pimping it with a True Details cockpit DSC_0008 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr

Hi all, In a fit of madness I decided to build four 1/48 Phantoms at the same time. Here's the first: Hasegawa's 1/48 F-4E from a 2001 boxing in the kit decals. Paint is Mr Color and applied freehand. The seats and pylons are True Details resin. The engine exhausts are from an Academy F-4. A full description is written up here: https://jonbryon.com/hasegawa-1-48-mcdonnell-douglas-f-4e-phantom-ii/ Comments welcome and thanks for looking. Jon

Hi Guys, it´s time for a new project. I will build the famous P-51D in 1/48 and will use the old Hasegawa kit. Also the Aires wheel bay and the True details cockpit. I will not use the Kit decals..... but have not yet decided which decals I will use.... Maybe a blue nose? The True Details sidewalls fit perfect and are a 100% better than the Kit parts First steps of painting the interior. As always I use Revell Aqua Color. The Interior green is a mix of light green, sand and brown. The very nice detailed True Detail Seat, gun sight and instrument panel It was a bad decision to add the Aires wheel well into this kit. A lot of work will be needed to fix this.... Cheers Pete

Hello, here's my 1/72 Hasegawa Junkers Ju-88 G6 "Nachtjäger" of 6./NJG2, Fritzlar 1945. I used Eduard photo-etch, True Details resin wheels, Schatton antennas and markings from Authentic Decals. Painted with acrylics from the Gunze/Mr.Hobby range. The Hasegawa kit has some fit issues, which is strange for a modern HQ tooling. The fuselage halves need some filling and blending, the nose cap is over-sized, the wing tips and the belly insert with the guns don't fit very well either. The antennas are metal pieces from Schatton (http://www.modellbau-schatton.privat.t-online.de/). They are much finer than the kit's plastic parts. Since the antlers are a major focus point on this model I think they are well worth the investment! The colour scheme is mostly guesswork, as I've found only one conclusive period photograph online; this shows only a part of the fuselage section broken up at Fritzlar airport, Germany, May 1945. The markings come from Authentic decals, they aren't the best I've ever worked with. They break easily, have a yellow-ish carrier film and are slightly misprinted with 'shadow lines'. Luckily, this doesn't show after a couple of gloss and matt cotes. The camoflage was painted using Uhu Tac sausages: Exhaust fumes painted with Gunze/Mr.Hobby "Smoke" with drops of Black and Dark Brown added: Delicate work on the undercarriage, adding brake lines and scissor links: "Schräge Musik" ("Jazz Music") guns on the fuselage spine: All photographs by Wolfgang Rabel, IGM Cars & Bikes. Thanks for your interest. Greetings from Vienna!

Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat BuNo 5093, Lt. Cdr. John S. Thatch, Officer Commanding VF-3, USS Yorktown, Midway, 1942-06-04 Kit: 1/72 Hasegawa F4F-4 Wildcat Afermarket parts: True Details #72455 resin cockpit and wheel well detail set Squadron #9105 vacu canopy Decals: Aeromaster #72-093C F4F-4 Wildcat Aces Pt.1 The following improvements made to this kit were: Inner surfaces of wing halves and rear fuselage halves (rudder) were thinned down to obtain sharp trailing edges. Some panel lines were filled and some added according to reference photos. In addition, the overlapping panels (for example, on the rudder) were represented using thin metal foil. The cockpit was replaced by the True Details resin parts. The canopy was replaced by the Squadron vacu formed item. Since the Squadron canopy is designed to fit the Academy kit, some adjustment work was required for mounting it on the model. The canopy replacement forced widening the fairing above the control panel in the cockpit, which have originally had rather wide margins for placing the thicker kit canopy. This fairing was also thinned down for correct scale representation. The most serious flaw with this kit is just an empty space where the landing gear bay should be. This problem is partially solved by inserting the True Details tub, however some extra work was still required. For instance, the recesses to accommodate the main wheel are just repeated in full size on the resin tub and, since it is designed to fit the kit fuselage having rather thick plastic, these recesses turned out to be much deeper than they should be. Some filling and re-scribing was required to fix this problem. Some additional detail was also added to the rear bulkhead and to the engine compartment interior partially visible in front of the wheel bay. In addition, the fuselage walls around the front of the wheel bay were partially thinned down for the correct skin representation. The air intakes in the forward engine cowling ring were deepened and thinned down to scale. Some detail was added to the rather basic kit parts for the reasonable representation of the Wildcat’s complicated landing gear. The aileron, elevator and rudder hinges molded as solid pieces were improved by cutting out their inner areas. The missing central elements were also added to the fairings covering the hinges of the landing flaps. Too shallow kit exhaust stacks were replaced by scratch built parts and the fuselage panel around them was also somewhat refined by making extra steps, holes etc. A new rounded propeller hub and the visible part of the arrester hook were made from scratch. A larger pneumatic tail wheel provided with the kit was replaced by the solid smaller one which is correct for this particular a/c. The replacement wheel was the part left unused after building the F2A-2 kit as a Dutch Brewster Model 339C. Some further minor improvements made on the model can clearly be seen on the photos.

The lovely Accurate Minatures kit, and i am building it as the cover version 'Dirty Dora', a very weather beaten and worn Mitchell I have a couple of extras for it - Quickboost engines And Truedetails wheels Work starts with the Cockpit ( just for a change ), Sprayed dark green , with the back of the bulkhead interior green, and the bomb aimer's access tunnel aluminium Then painted and weathered down the instrument panel. Painted the instruments from the back, then the front black, leaving the instruments, then some of MIG's Clear in the dials. Used the provided decals for the belts, mainly as once it's closed up it will be almost impossible to see. Picked out some of the switches and throttle levers with artist's gouache paints. Next the bomb bay and navigator's position - assembled and glued in position, using the fuselage side to help align everything. Painted with Interior Green and then picked out the details, and an oil wash Finally for today, sprayed the inside of the bomb bay Alclad aluminium Peter

Parachutes True Details 1:32 True Details are renowned for their aftermarket sets for aircraft. Recently they have been releasing diorama pieces and these two sets come from that range. Each set comes packaged in a small blown poly box and protected by a foam insert. Each parachute is really well moulded, with all the straps, handles and clips well represented. Set one shows the parachute lying flat with the chute bag upright whilst set two has the parachute with the chute bag facing downwards ready to be put on. Apart from effective painting and shading the hardest part of using these sets will be removing them from the excess resin sheet, as there are areas that will need precision cutting with a nice new blade. Conclusion These are great little additions to the modeller's armoury. I’d imagine they’d be suitable for all aircraft in the USAAF inventory during WWII and will look good either lain on the wing or tailplane or with set two you could leave it on the seat in the cockpit. With careful painting these will look really good in any diorama. Recommended. Review sample courtesy of