The Merits of American Style (1/72 Arma Hobby P-51B Mustang)

[HAMP man]

13 hours ago, Procopius said:

I added a wash to conceal some of the rough paintwork, as you can see. I think once closed up, it'll look okay:

I've had a scan of the distructions, and thought that thin strips of tamiya tape covering the low and sticky up bits, then paint on the zinc colour. Need to go back through Lope's Hope III, to check the master!

 

Box On

 

 

Strickers

[Procopius]

23 minutes ago, HAMP man said:

I've had a scan of the distructions, and thought that thin strips of tamiya tape covering the low and sticky up bits, then paint on the zinc colour. Need to go back through Lope's Hope III, to check the master!

 

Ah, so the opposite of what I did? If you followed that policy throughout your life, you could hardly go wrong. 

 

Truth be told, that was what I was initially thinking, but the detail is so fine it would've proved a  challenge for me to mask. It might be worth it, though.

[HAMP man]

5 minutes ago, Procopius said:

If you followed that policy throughout your life, you could hardly go wrong. 

You would think, but going wrong seems to be par for the course at my end. 

 

Box On

 

Strickers

[AdrianMF]

Lovely to see you rise above life’s slings and arrows and return to your true calling*. I hope you enjoy having a daughter as much as I do. You will be wrapped around her little finger in no time.

 

And a splendid kit with which to return. Looking forward to the build.

 

Regards,

Adrian
 

* entertaining us, of course!

[Rob G]

Re masking. GSI Creos Mr Masking Sol Neo is the answer to most of your masking issues. Drip it on, allow it to flow where required. Boom. 

 

Smells good too, unlike the latex-based alternatives, which are full of ammonia, and it won't damage acrylic paint, unlike the latex-based etc... (And you can trim it with a sharp knife - try that with your latex-based etcs ) 

[corsaircorp]

Welcome back Mister P !!

These Arma Ponies look a treat !!

I'm waiting for their 1/48 Hurricanes....

May I take a seat at the bar ?

Sincerely.

CC

[Space Ranger]

Welcome back to the fold. The Space Rangers have been searching for you on the basis of a Missing Terrestrial Person report filed with the United Worlds of the Solar System. But by coming out of hiding yourself, you have saved us reams of paperwork! 😉

 

Nice work on that P-51, by the way.

[Navy Bird]

Welcome back! Now get to work...

 

I have yet to build any of my Arma kits (even though they look absolutely amazing in the box). No, I prefer to build mouldy old kits that take me half a year just to document all the things that are wrong with them. Where did I go wrong? It must have been a gene mutation.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Procopius]

2 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

Welcome back! Now get to work...

 

I have yet to build any of my Arma kits (even though they look absolutely amazing in the box). No, I prefer to build mouldy old kits that take me half a year just to document all the things that are wrong with them. Where did I go wrong? It must have been a gene mutation.   

 

 

I think it's actually noblesse oblige: for a man of your skill, an Arma kit is but an effortless delight, and nobody learns anything from that. Whereas I am a complete idiot, so if people see me get through one without any problems, it means more.

[Troy Smith]

18 hours ago, Procopius said:

Current list of things they refuse to eat:  it's just easier to list what they will eat:

I really wouldn't worry...  if they are not obese or undernourished.... *

My daughter has a very limited range of what she'll eat.  Which means I end up  making a limited range of meals, not that I was some gourmet to start with,  since I long found a ratio between cooking and cleaning up, as in avoid having to use more than two cooking receptacles for any given meal.  

 

Point I'm making, now at 11 and half,  she is now about 5'4", with size 8 feet.     She is now taller than some of her teachers....       Since she seems to have inherited her physique from me,   and I'm 6'1",   

 she's going to be an amazon...   she also happily intimidate boys older than her.... 

Which is greatly reassuring for me.   And before any comments, I have already dealt her 3 elder half sisters adolescent dramas, which was actually even less fun than it sounds. 

 

On 04/04/2022 at 17:03, Procopius said:

Since one of them is a full head taller than the other and pure muscle (I had never seen a six-year-old with an eight-pack of abdominal muscles

* you see what I mean....  if in doubt, get some multi vitamins and minerals.      

 

A girl you say.....

This might amuse, re names, I rekindled my modelling interest before she was born,  while researching the VVS, one name that was considered,  and is now one of her middle names is Lilya, after Lidia 'Lilya' Litvak    

Give you an excuse for Arma Yak-1 as well....   I assume Mrs P would not be amused,  but if you don't tell her the origin

 

She ended up as Thalia,  for a variety of reasons, and a classic Greek name can be subtly useful touch in still class ridden country,  I was rather amused to find out much later it was even used as an allied reporting name for the Japanese built modified Lockheed Electra....

https://airpages.ru/eng/jp/ki56.shtml....   a discussion on this at the Aviation Bookshop when I was trying to find if a model kit was this  turned up another bit of name related trivia, the chemical element Thallium, from Greek θαλλός, thallós, meaning "green shoot" or "twig" .. , as thallium produces a notable green spectral line.

Thalia being derived from θάλλειν thállein which means "to flourish, to be green"......

 

Also good for embarrassing her in public by wittering on this this..   

 

 

On 04/04/2022 at 04:50, Procopius said:

But in happier news, the wonderful people at Arma Hobby sent me two kits for some assistance I provided them -- at this point, since they've seen my builds, I assume it's akin to being kind to a developmentally delayed child out of pity, but I'll take it. 

They sent me Hurricanes after reading my witter on here, probably more so for adding some observations when the posted the CAD shots up for the Mk.I, but it was like "I've finally made it, I'm being sent Hurricane models.. 

    I really respect Arma for having had the sense to use the harvest of data that forums can provide,  as well as being interested in feedback, and incorporating it in their products.  

That Mustang looks good.  

[Space Ranger]

I suggest "Abyssinia" as the name for your daughter. But wait until your wife is knocked out from painkillers and only then tell the hospital staff what name to put on the birth certificate. That'll show 'em both!

[Fritag]

8 hours ago, Procopius said:

Whereas I am a complete idiot, so if people see me get through one without any problems, it means more.

 

Ah - truly British levels of self deprecation there PC.  Masterful irony.  

 

As t'others have said, good to have you back.   Increases the BM average prose quality (BMAPQ) quotient considerably.

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Fritag
typo

[corsaircorp]

Mmmmh, the @Space Ranger beat me on this one....

I was about to place a bet on Victoria, second choice for Elizabeth....

Now, in a matter of pure logic and Bri'ish taste, Boadica is the best choice ever !!

If you choose the 3rd option, please don't offer her any spear or bow....

Sincerely.

CC

[Procopius]

13 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

She ended up as Thalia,  for a variety of reasons, and a classic Greek name can be subtly useful touch in still class ridden country,  I was rather amused to find out much later it was even used as an allied reporting name for the Japanese built modified Lockheed Electra....

 

 

9 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

I suggest "Abyssinia" as the name for your daughter. But wait until your wife is knocked out from painkillers and only then tell the hospital staff what name to put on the birth certificate. That'll show 'em both!

 

3 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

I was about to place a bet on Victoria, second choice for Elizabeth....

 

 

SO: Names. I feel very strongly about names, both because I hated my own one as a boy, and also my general feeling that there is power in a name. I also feel that Mrs P is singularly bad at naming things (she had white and red ringneck doves named White Dove and Red Dove, respectively) and doesn't really deserve a say, especially because she's condemned us to penury by her insistence that she "needed" another baby, in much the same way I needed the Modelcollect 1/72 B-52 Linebacker boxing. The difference is, the kit cost about $200 with aftermarket, whereas the Department of Agriculture estimated (adjusted for inflation since 2015) that it costs $272,049 to raise a child to the age of 18. And we're having three. 

 

So. When we first started out, and were  discussing girl names, I wanted to name them after the Eumenides, "the kindly ones", the three avenging spirits of pre-Athenian law retributory justice. I was particularly fond of Alecto (which can be shortened to Allie), and Megaera (which can become, in a pinch, Meg). I made the mistake of sharing this information with Mrs P and my mother in law while on a lengthy car trip. My mother in law is a perfectly nice woman -- even if she and my mom cordially hate each other and my mom, who once worked for her, quit without notice during my engagement --but a strange tonal quirk means that any question she asks sounds exactly like a very rhetorical accusatory one. Well, let me tell you, if I thought her normal questions sounded accusatory, I hadn't seen anything yet. 

 

Anyway, we had Winston, and I kind of cheated on his name -- we'd narrowed it down to Winston or Oliver, after much negotiation, and agreed we would decide on the name when we saw what he looked like. 

 

No baby on earth looks more like an Oliver than it does Winston Churchill. Not one. 

 

For Grant, things were dicier: I wanted to name him after Theodore Roosevelt, who I greatly admire, but Mrs P taught a three year old named Theodore "who was a real dick" (her words), and objected to being reminded of him. I suggested naming him after my dad (Brian), but I'd joked one too many times about doing that and beating the dickens out of him to work out my childhood issues, and she demurred. Mrs P also has a very weird notion of balance, where if one person gets what they want, the other person has to as well, especially if she's the other person. This works in small things, like ordering dinner, or perhaps buying a candy bar in the checkout line, but it falls apart as "what they want" gets bigger and bigger: the culminating point was when I replaced my elderly PC (which I used and still use every day) with a very nice new one, and she wanted a new laptop that cost just as much. She didn't know or care what features it had, it was just important the price was the same. She then used it for three hours every year to write conference notes for work and used her iPad for everything else just as she had before, until it was replaced this year, after eleven years or thirty-three hours of service. Mercifully the new one was much cheaper. Anyway, she felt if we named one Brian, we would have to name another Tom, after her dad, but that's not actually how having babies works, plus I have an Uncle Tom who merits no honouring whatsoever, as he's a real jerk. So we settled on Grant. Even then, she asked the nurse to fill out the form for her because she was worried I'd do a forlorn hope and name him Theodore on the birth certificate. 

 

So baby #3. When Grant was conceived, we agreed on boy and girl names in advance, and I was informed that what we'd agreed upon five years ago was still in force today, and she becomes highly, highly agitated whenever it's brought up.  Mrs P is often a very pleasant person. I have been through 2.3 of her pregnancies now, and I can say with grim confidence that they don't show her at her best. In the initial negotiations, I opened with a long shot, Czesława, after Czesława Kwoka, since it felt meaningful to me to have her name live again, but Mrs P absolutely declined. Elizabeth and Victoria were both suggested, as was my mom's name (Naomi), etc etc back and forth. Ultimately we settled on Noor Inayat Khan's codename, Madeleine, which is about the best I could do, though I was unable to stop the selection of Kay as the middle name; my mom and her mom share it as one, but my mom absolutely hates it. 

 

So now you know! 

[perdu]

Now we do

 

Madeleine is fair to wonderful and the second name can be anything if you never use it.

 

Just saying...

 

 

 

 

 

Alecto

 

I like her already

 

If only the fates allowed, old man...

[Space Ranger]

Name her Madeleine Abyssinia and call her "Abby" for short!

[dogsbody]

Hang in there, Ed! I managed to live through assisting with the raising of 3 daughters. These girls are all exactly 2 years and 2 months apart.

The first was born on July 23. Two years later, on September 23, the second was birthed. Two years later #3, on November 23. Talk about your family planning!

 

Now think about my life after these girls reached their teenage years. Oh what fun that was! All that crap new music that blared through the house. No classic rock at all!

And the only other male in the house was our small dog and he'd been fixed. I was far outnumbered. Thank goodness for 12-hour day and night shifts! 

 

 

Years from now, you'll look back on these days and smile. Or laugh like a lunatic as they close the door on your padded cage! 

 

 

 

Chris

[lasermonkey]

My mum was called Madeleine, so it’s a thumbs up from me.

 

As for second names, I have one but I never use it. In fact I never let anyone know what it is. If there was an easy way to divest myself of it, I truly would. It’s not even a silly name, I just hate it! I’m not even sure if I know anyone who likes theirs. 

Edited April 7, 2022 by lasermonkey
correction of predictive text

[Troffa]

Great to see you back Mr P, you can't beat a Mustang- didn't the British invent it anyway? 🙂 

 

Good luck with your build and life in general.

 

Regards,

 

Troffa

 

 

[Procopius]

47 minutes ago, Troffa said:

Great to see you back Mr P, you can't beat a Mustang- didn't the British invent it anyway? 🙂 

 

All the best parts. 

 

1 hour ago, lasermonkey said:

As for second names, I have one but I never use it. In fact I never let anyone know what it is. If there was an easy way to divest myself of it, I truly would. It’s not even a silly name, I just hate it! I’m not even sure if I know anyone who’s likes theirs. 

I also hate my middle name! Middle name haters unite.

 

 

[Space Ranger]

37 minutes ago, Procopius said:

All the best parts. 

 

I also hate my middle name! Middle name haters unite.

 

 

My middle name is the one I’m known by. My first name is used only for official purposes. I am frequently confused as to who I am. I blame my parents for this.

[HAMP man]

I was always told 'make it short' saves shortening it. Madelaine will become Mad or Maddy, Samantha will become Sammy or Sam.

 

The Arma kits, require a skill set that demands accuracy in building and painting, which being one of those in the center of the bell curve is where I aspire.

 

As always Box On

 

Strickers

[Johnson]

Why does everyone have daughters? I have 2. Is it something to do with inhaling too much plastic cement?

 

Never was that keen on my middle name, never told anyone at school what it was.

[PattheCat]

It seems you lost none of your skills, whether in modelling or historical storytelling. And your art at prose even feels more colourful.

Happy to see you back here.

[Rob G]

4 hours ago, Johnson said:

Why does everyone have daughters? I have 2. Is it something to do with inhaling too much plastic cement?

 

Never was that keen on my middle name, never told anyone at school what it was.

 

Not everyone has daughters. I don't, for instance. I don't have sons either, but that's by the by. 

 

Also, I hate all 3 of my names, and try to go by 'that bloke there' as much as possible.