Italeri 1:72 C-47 "Tropical Tilly" from "The Thing", Lone Star Decals

[Caerbannog]

Yes I now - I wanted to reduce my shelf of doom before I through in another kit into a GB. But hey-so what!?

 

So please pardon my mistake self control: Here is "Tropical Tilly" from "The Thing" (Howard Hawks). I still like this movie a lot since I watched it as a young boy with verrrry wide eyes 

I got some decals from Lone Star Models some years ago and had a Italeri C-47 in my stash. The Italan kit comes without skis but Jason from sunny Swansea was so generous to part from his Airfix parts (Thanks Jason!). So this was the starting point:

 

 

 

There are a few still picts which can be found on the web of the "Tropic Tilly":

 

 

My initial idea was to do a simple diorama similar to the picture above but with open cargo doors: Some figures, dogs, a sled with a big chunk of ice to be loaded into the C-47. All ingredience for missing a GB deadline. The good point was that I could not find suitable figures so second idea was almost as fancy as my first: To build this (almost) OOB.

 

As nothing can be seen through the tiny windows once the fuselage halfs are puttogether I avoided any additional detailing inside. Infact I even avoided to paint some areas:

 

 

Ups- spotted some typos in the pics... Sorry.

 

More to follow soon. I need to work on the pics I took (the build is a bit further by now).

 

Thanks for watching,

Rene

 

 

[Caerbannog]

Some more pics of the progress. The fit is actually quite good for a kit of this age. As written above I closed up the fuselage without further detailing inside:

 

 

 

Same super detail work did not take place on other parts:

 

 

In fact I still wonder if I put covers over the engines as visible in one of the real deal pictures in my initial post. But I am not sure yet.

 

So after the lower center section of the wing was fixed in place I added the rest of the wings:

 

There was a gap in the upper port wing and on in the lower starboard wing, which had to be filled. As well as the fuselage seam on top and bottom. Maybe I could have avoided this with a bit more care.

 

 

Thats it for today. And maybe the next couple of days 🙂

 

René

 

 

 

 

 

[Caerbannog]

Getting ahead with this one. OOB can be great fun 😉

 

 

 

Direct from a Halford-like spray can come the first primer coat:

 

 

So now out with the filler...

 

Rene

 

 

 

[Caerbannog]

Started to spray some paint on:

 

 

Going along the easy road I just grabbed two spray cans for the NMF/aluminium. I once had a nice spray for aluminium car rims that could actaully be polished almost like real aluminium. Surely the company closed 😞 But the spray used above is not that bad for a start. I will try some techniques to make it more NMF-like, without the workload needed for an Alclad finish. Let's see...

 

[Caerbannog]

Some more paint added the last couple of days:

 

 

 

 

Some more touch ups and I can start decaling. I am especially thrilled about the yellow fuselage band and if it makes a nice parallel match to the red tail. To be honest I fear it will not and I will have to paint it.

 

Looking at the screen shots above I realized that the Red Gecko decals from Lone Star are not correct regarding the wing decals. There seems to be a USAF and Stars'n'Bars on top and bottom - outlined with silver. So I will have to cut masks for these or find some spares in my decal box which would surprize me.

 

Rene

 

Edit: I watched the parts of the movie showing the Tropical Tilly again and at least the insignias are not outlined in silver. The USAF is not so clearly visible but I assume it unlikely to be outlined if the insignia is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Caerbannog]

A bit slow on updates... Some stills from the movies (real screen shots - taken with the camera )

They show some issues regarding the aftermarket decals, which I will have to deal with.

 

I have some trouble with adding pics here today. New content is alreay uploaded to Flickr and tonght I hope to post more.

 

[Caerbannog]

Keep trying to post pics.

I have to do it in a quite complicated manner but it works... I have to safe the pos, then to edit it and to copy the link once more... Anybody else who knows this problem?

[Caerbannog]

 

 

 

 

[Caerbannog]

still broken links... will try to mend them asap

 

 

 

 

[janneman36]

Looking good allready, you are probably right about that serial as the Airfix kit has a silver outlined serial..

 

cheers, Jan

[CliffB]

I've come to this late, but have really enjoyed catching up.  An interesting choice and nicely executed 

[Caerbannog]

Thanks. A bit late with the update. Actually I tried to post them last night but the servers was already down. So now just quickly theprepared pics without much aditional text:

 

 

 

 

The weathering and tonal variation in the NMF panels were done with Tamiya weathering sets. I put a post-it on the panel line and applied the weathering with the small sponge included in the Tamiya sets. No pics of the procedure - just the result. The post-it was also the reason for the damaged tail number 😞 The decal is ioncorrect anyway so one day in the future I will print a replacement.

 

 

Thanks for looking,

Rene

 

[Caerbannog]

One final post on this:

 

Now it is in the Gallery.

Thanks,

Rene

[CliffB]

Excellent work Rene.  I like it very much indeed!

[moviedrone]

Fantastic build from a fantastic film.

[stevej60]

Look's superb in the gallery Rene,great work all round!