Well, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I updated this. I have a lot of pics to show. Thanks to everyone telling me to stay home, I've been doing a lot of work in the Hobby Room. So, you've been warned, this is gonna be a long and tedious one! I hope I don't bore you too badly....
Here's the results of all my latest work, starting with my aircraft...
On my Gotha Go-244, I shot a light blue underneath the plane, hitting all underside and vertical surfaces possible:
It looks more stark than it is, but I am still hoping it'll tone down a bit later on.
After that dried, I masked off the underside as much as possible to prepare for upper surface painting:
That was harder than expected. I hope to get some paint shot this coming week.
Next, I masked off the German helicopter with Silly Putty and shot the second color:
Later, when that was dry; more masking and then the third color. I didn't have a medium green so I improvised:
Once all that was dry, off came the Silly Putty and here she is in all her three-tone glory:
You can see how well the Micro Crystal Clear worked for holding windows in. Yeah. I got them fixed later; this time with Gator Grip glue.
After that, I pulled out my Israeli F-16 I Sufa and started the decals on it. I got most of the walk lines and other detail stencils on the top and bottom:
I then let that sit and dry. I plan on clearcoating that again and then applying the remaining decals.
Moving on, I decided to answer the siren song of the C-54 that had been singing to me to start. Thanks to another friend working on this, that singing became louder so down it came. Naturally, I started with the pilots' seats:
Yeah, they are that small, and four pieces each...
Next was the cockpit that they sit in. This was fairly easy:
Later I dry fit the seats in place to see if they would hamper my attempts to paint this later. They would so they didn't get glued in here:
Next I assembled all the secondary cabin nooks behind the cockpit and added them to the floor of the rear cabin:
Yeah, after careful review, I won't be painting any of that given that none of it will be seen through the windows. I won't be assembling all the troop seats in the main cabin either as this will be all closed up. Still, I had to dry-fit the assembled cockpit to the rear cabin assembly:
That's all I got done on that. The next model I pulled out was an even bigger plane, the A-400 Grizzly used in Europe. Mine has the option to make it a German bird so that is what I'll make it. After all, my Germans are my largest force right now!
I started once again with the cockpit as before:
This model also has a full interior enclosed in an interior shell just like the C-54 does. Here's one half of it here:
As this bird will be all closed up as well, I won't be painting that interior. Next I assembled the tail, only dry-fitting the horizontal surfaces. You can see how big that is too:
I then assembled all these greeblies which go on the underside of the wing:
And here is the wing I'll be adding those to. Check out the wingspan:
I already added those fences to the underside of the wing; they'll be seen in the next update.
Moving on, I then started my monster of a kit, the An-124; first assembling the cockpit:
Fortunately, that is all the interior this model has. However, I do have to assemble all the wheels. Here is the first ones after assembly:
Now, each of those outer circles are the wheel halves. The inner, smaller circles are the hubs that go inside those circles. You can see the lower wheel halves with the hubs installed. Here are all the wheel halves on that sprue already done:
That's four wheels. Sixteen more to go....
I decided that was enough so I moved on to assemble the main landing gear wells:
That was harder than expected, but they are done. That's as far as I got on that plane. In fact, that was enough on all planes for now, so I started on my armor.
On the bench I had about ten small scale armor models that were within spitting distance of being done. Time to bring them over the finish line.
My first one was my US M-1117 Guardian. I had a base coat on it so I decided to brush paint the second of three camo colors:
Later, I did the second color and a number of details:
After all that was dry, and before I added the wheels; I shot some dirt weathering on the underside and in the wheel wells:
After that, I added the wheels, decals, detail parts and finished the weathering. This little car is done now.
Next, I worked on the three half-ton trucks for my JGSDF. I started out by painting all the wheels on the sprues:
After that, I added the windows and other detail parts to these trucks, thereby showing the variants that are available:
From back to front these are a light scout, liaison and cargo trucks.
When I dirtied up the M-1117, I also dirtied up these underneath and in the wheel wells:
Even though it’s not that visible here, I also dirtied up the cargo bed of the one truck:
Next I worked on the two Light Armored Vehicles, completing the camouflage pattern and removing the Silly Putty, and then adding the detail parts to them:
I then painted the wheels and tires like I did with the half ton trucks:
Later I dirtied up the bottom and wheel wells of these two:
After that came the clear coat and decals on these:
Afterward came dull coat, weathering and details to finish these off.
Next are the two Type 87 anti-aircraft vehicles. I also shot the second camouflage color and then removed the Silly Putty:
Later I painted the guns and radar on these:
When that dried, I shot the clear coat on these for decals:
And finally decals:
Afterward was the dull coat, detail painting and weathering to finish these off.
Finally, I shot the final color on the camouflage pattern for the Two Type 99 Self Propelled Guns. After Silly Putty was removed they looked thusly:
Afterward, I glossed them like the others:
And then the decals went on:
Once they were dry, I dull coated them, added details and then weathered these two to finish them off.
So, I was able to get these last ten vehicles finished on Saturday afternoon. Later on I’ll try to get those finished pic posted. Until then, enjoy the tour; if it isn’t too boring. At least I gave you all something to do while staying at home to avoid the beer virus! LOL!
Thanks again for looking in, comments are welcome.
