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EDCS87's 2020 Plastic Harvest


EDCS87

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As the end of the year approaches, I'd like to wish all of you here on BM a wonderful New Year full of health and joy, doubly so considering the state of our world this past year. I know I was blessed and lucky to be able to have a productive year at the work bench, or should I say "home office." I am saving up to purchase a lightbox and a decent camera, so i'll apologize in advance for the poor photography. All of my kits are painted with Tamiya or Vallejo acrylics, and finished with Prismacolor pencils, Tamiya pastels and enamel washes, and cheap artists oils. Without further ado, I present my completed builds for the year, in no particular order:

 

1. MPM Gloster Meteor F.4 (1:72)

A lovely kit with wonderful decals, little to no fit problems and an appealing set of schemes to choose from. This was my first attempt at a freehand camo scheme and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Better than I expected, to be honest. I unfortunately cracked the rear canopy glazing while polishing it, and also made a mess of the wing walkway decals (wrong location). I also neglected to add enough nose weight, so she's a tail-sitter, which I remedied by gluing the nosewheel to this small base with a drop of white PVA glue.

Meteor-1.jpg


Meteor-2.jpg

 

2. Italeri Macchi C.205 Veltro (1:72)

Another gem of a kit, aside from some questionable fit around the nose cowling area, which required filler and shims to fix.  Excellent decals as always with Italeri subjects, and this was my first attempt at mottling with an airbrush, which ended up a bit too subtle but looks nice in real life. I added a lot of detail to the cockpit, but of course it's all but invisible now. Lesson learned, hopefully.

Veltro.jpg


Veltro-2.jpg


Veltro-3.jpg

 

3. Special Hobby Dassault Mirage F.1EQ (1:72)

Very happy with this outstanding kit from Special Hobby. The only trouble was of my own doing: I lost one of the main gear doors and had to draw a new one in CAD and print it on my Anycubic Photon printer, which turned out virtually indistinguishable from the kit part. The joys of technology! :)  The only after market items were CMK's Sycomor chaff pod and Remora jammer. 

Mirage.jpg

 

4. Hasegawa Saab J 35F Draken (1:72)

Classic Hasegawa quality from their heyday in 72nd scale. I had always wanted to build something in this eye-catching Swedish blue/green scheme, and this was also my first attempt at cutting out a kit's flaps and lowering them. I had a surprisingly hard time getting things to look right after making the cuts, but I think the effect is nice. I designed and printed the Hughes Rb 26 missiles (not included in kit) and the small wheels on the bumper gear (kit parts devoured by the Carpet Monster 3000).

Draken.jpg


Draken-2.jpg


Draken-3.jpg

 

5. Hobbyboss SEPECAT Jaguar A (1:72)

The less said about this one, the better. Not a bad kit in any way; it practically falls together out of the box, but the finished paint job doesn't look "right" to me. I built this one while recovering from surgery and that may be while I don't particularly like the end result. Oh well...

Jaguar.jpg

 

Not pictured: 

 

6. Sky-High Beech T-34C Turbo Mentor (1:72) 

Kit was damaged and awaiting repair.

 

 

 

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Your photography isn't that bad at all I'd say 🙂 .... If I may: like you, I've gotten into the photography side of things because I like how it adds to the "finished product". At first I purchased one of those lightboxes that fold into something small, like a pop-up tent. Really handy and it works quite well in terms of lighting (however, you need quite a big box for larger models, I thought mine was pretty big but it was still too small). But I never use it anymore, it annoyed me when I wanted to take a shot from above the model, when the "door" is on the side. You have to switch things around, fiddle with the background again (they have these soft cloth blackground which are a drama so you'll want to use something more sturdy). Sure you could get a box where you can take the top off as well, but then you might as well skip the box which is what I eventually did. Instead I invested in decent lamps with some flexible standards and I like it much better. It's quite a simple setup and with a thick piece of A3 paper (black or white), a couple of lamps, a half decent camera and some mild tweaking afterwards in a simple tool like Faststone you can go a long way. As it happens I took this snap last week, to show my setup to my brother in law who's into photography quite a bit and he approved 😉 

 

20201230085105-f3824520-me.jpg

 

I  just wanted to present you with an "alternative ending", hope you don't mind 🙂 

 

I use this setup for both RFI (with an old Nikon P90) and WIP (with my phone) shots. Works great. For the latter, I don't use the extra light at the front but just fiddle with my phone's light sensitivity slide. 

 

Anyway, good luck with your photo stuff, it's a nice addition to the modelling we do and certainly worth the effort. 

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Thank you very much for sharing your setup, Jeroen! It's so simple but so effective really. I had a look at your builds and your photography is very good. I will give it a shot 😃

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59 minutes ago, EDCS87 said:

Thank you very much for sharing your setup, Jeroen! It's so simple but so effective really. I had a look at your builds and your photography is very good. I will give it a shot 😃

Thanks, simple and effective indeed, flexible in terms of camera angles too. Some extra info on the lamps since they are the most important. The 2 larger ones are 65W lamps, the smaller one is 40W, all with 5500K which is "daylight". Have fun with setting up and experimenting!

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