SPA Modeler

BsYamato wrote:Nice updates Duke
Next time try the Italeri/Esci Huey family kits , seems seriously better than the hasegawa

Thanks guys! Silvio, I've already built all of Italeri/ESCI's Huey kits. Yes, they are better with more extensive interior detail. This Hasegawa was a gift from a nephew, and I like it because it has the option for twin M-60's on the side instead of the miniguns that Italeri/ESCI only offered. One day I'm gonna figure out how to mount door guns on one of these and add them to a troop ship.

Thanks Lyle, I like to mix it up a bit when I'm building. It keeps every project fresh and helps me work faster and better on each one.

Thanks Blacksheep. All that work was done over the Friday and Saturday Hobby Days.

Stay tuned for more.

Well, today my condo was being worked on all day so I stayed home to attend to the workers whenever needed. I didn't need to do much for them so I was able to stay out of their way in my Hobby Room. I was able to get quite a bit done while I was in there, but not as much as I had hoped to. Enough banter, here's the latest progress I've made...


To start with, I got the interior of the cab on the JGSDF three-ton truck painted up:



Later I installed all the windows onto the outer cab and let them dry before I masked them up for painting later. Here is the truck all dry-fit together; she's now ready for paint:



I decided to put the benches in the back in the stowed position; my other 3-tonner with the kitchen trailer and water trailer has the benches deployed for all the relief workers that would be inside. This one is going to be a cargo truck.

While I was doing cab interiors, I also painted up the cab interiors on the JGSDF radar and missile trucks, as well as added the clear windows to these as well:



Later on I masked these windows as well.

Gee, while I was painting all these truck interiors, why not get the interior done on the Type 60 "Nippon Ontos"? So, I pulled out additional colors and went to work. The interior overall was white, so that went in first. Then I painted the engine, transmission, and other related parts in Oiled Steel first. The seats were done in olive drab and the other parts done in flat black. I also painted the pedals in steel as well and then dry-brushed white on the face of the radio for the knobs, and added a red knob or two in there too. After the paint had dried, I applied a wash of Oily Black to the engine and transmission parts and the rest of the interior was done with a raw umber wash. Unfortunately that doesn't show up well in these pics. I apologize for this; I tried to adjust the white balance to show this better, but I guess I'm not experienced enough with that. Anyway, here's a couple of pics of the interior:





While that was drying, I also masked off the vision blocks on this as well as the other clear parts that are not supposed to be painted. Now my baby Ontos is ready for paint as well.

After all that, I went ahead and finished up the radar truck to get it ready for paint:



After that, I continued to work on the the missile truck to get it all ready for paint as well. I assembled all the missile arms and two box assemblies that I think are supposed to hold reloads, but I'm not sure:



Then it came time to glue the missile launcher arms to the launcher. However, I didn't want to glue them in some arbitrary position; I figured if I'm making this in firing mode, I should make the arms moveable. So, I cut off the mounting pins, drilled some holes and then glued a brass rod inside one of them:



Next I put the rod through the existing holes in the launcher body and super-glued the other rocker arm in place. I had taped it into place to hold it so I could line them both up perfectly:



Afterward, I added the platforms that the re-load(?) boxes go on and added them to the truck. These actually move up and down: up for travel mode and down for firing mode. I glued mine in the lowered position for firing mode. Here is what the whole thing looked like when I dry-fit this truck together:



I didn't add the boxes to these yet as there were some bad seams on top that I covered with Mr. Surfacer. I'm going to sand them first to make the top smooth before I add them to the truck.

Now I have three trucks and a Type 60 "Nippon Ontos" all ready for paint!

I wasn't ready to pull out the airbrush and fire up the compressor, so I figured it was a good time to pull out Anni and get some more work done on her. The first thing I did was finish up the forward tractor that I'd started at Hobby Day:



Then I went to work on the secondary Tractor and got that completed as well:



I did have a few issues with these as they went together; particularly in lining up suspension and other support parts underneath, but nothing real difficult to fix. Here are both tractors sitting together waiting for the rest of the gun to be built:



After this, I painted the interiors of the cabs on these and then masked off the windows again in preparation for paint. It looks like my airbrush is going to get quite a workout tomorrow!

That is all I got done today. I'm hoping tomorrow will be at least as productive. If not, I'm hoping to at least get some paint shot on all these. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

You are a building machine my friend

Thanks Carlos! I try!

Okay, now for my latest update. I didn't get anything done on Annie so much; I was trying instead to get caught up on other models that I had started before I got her. Here is what I was able to do so far this week...

I started out by filling some gaps and seams and adding the canopy to my little Czech plane:



Then I moved on to my armor. I started by shooting a basecoat over the three trucks and the Type 10 tank:









After they were dry, I painted the canvas roof on each one of the truck cabs:



While they were drying, I painted the chassis of the three trucks. I started with a flat black. When they were dry, I followed that with a dry-brush of steel and then a wash of Oily Black to get this result:



It's tough to see in this pic, but the result is quite impressive in person if I do say so myself.

Now I have at least one truck ready for clearcoat and decals. The other two need to be masked for their camouflage patterns.

Next I shot a basecoat on the Type 60 self-propelled gun carriage:



Later on I pulled out my Silly Putty to do the masking in preparation for the second camo color. Now she's ready for the next coat of paint:



Finally, I pulled out my Type 10 tank and completed the turret with almost all the detail parts. I left off the ones that would constantly break with handling:



Here it is sitting on the painted hull:



I also painted and dry-brushed the tracks for this so I could get them installed:



By then, the turret was dry enough for a shot of basecoat so I shot that too:



Once the tracks were dry, I added them to the main hull of the tank and then installed the outer roadwheels:





Later on I added the sides of the tank to complete the main body of it. Here it is all assembled and ready for masking for the second camo color:



Now all I have to do is mask off the tracks and wheels with some aluminum foil and apply the Silly Putty to this to paint the second color on it.

In between all that, I fiddled around with my Sleepy Hollow figure, sanding and filling and sanding and shaping and sanding and filling and.... you get the idea. Finally I felt that I'd gotten all the gaps and seams properly taken care of so I did some more detail work on this model.

First off I painted the base with a dark brown color; a Burnt Sienna if I recall. I also had to paint the pumpkins in a tan color or the orange I will use will not show up properly on the black primer color I shot earlier:



I had also painted the large tree that goes on the base but I didn't take a pic of it. I also shot a red over the inside of the Horseman's cape as directed in the instructions. I tried to make sure some of the black undercoat could still be made out as shadow:



I may try dry-brushing that with some lighter red later; as well as wash it with a dark brown color.

Speaking of painting red, I shot red on the vest of the Horseman since I couldn't find any acceptable maroon color. Afterward, I washed this with a dark brown wash to see if it darkens down the red while bringing out the shadows. Since I also had the tan out for the pumpkins, I added it to the face of the head as a basecoat. I think it is slowly coming along, but I may still fiddle with the colors some more:





Well, that is about all I did so far. This next week is going to be a long, busy one so I don't know when I'll get back to the bench. Until then, enjoy this tour and remember that comments are always welcome. Also, I just found out that the LEM where I host all these pics will be closing in a year and a half or so. I don't know what I'll do for a photo hosting gallery like that once it's gone. Photobucket can't handle all the pics I can put up; at least not for free. I cannot afford to pay for it. Anyway, I'm going to keep on going for a year until I run out of options and then maybe the Maddog Manufacturing tours will close down too. Anyway, enough of the depressing news. Thanks all for looking in everyone.

Okay, here is a small update from me for today. I'm also experimenting here with a Gallery on another site since the LEM went down again.

I started out with the Type 10 tank with Dozer blade by doing some sanding on the turret and other places. I also masked off the wheels and tracks in preparation for paint. Here it is awaiting touch up of the basecoat before I mask with Silly Putty for the second camo color:



Next I decided to start on the Russian Armored Train I'm doing for two Group Builds. I started out by doing the wheels and axles for the engine and tender. As you can see here, the axles that are provided in the kit are crap as they break when you look at them wrong! So, I got a piece of styrene rod about the same diameter and cut it to size to make my own axles:



Next I had to enlarge the slots where the wheels stick out on the bottom of the engine and tender. You can see the ones I enlarged already compared to the original size:



As I continued to build the wheels and axles for the rest of the tender, I happened to notice something. What's wrong with this picture?



The bottom left wheel was molded without the rim! Oh well, it will barely be seen underneath this train once everything is assembled. You can see that in this next pic where I finally got the engine and tender mostly assembled with the basic assembly:




Moving along, I finished the interior painting on the Atomic Annie tractor cabins:



Next I built all the interior components of the gun carriage:



While that was all drying, I assembled the gun. This was pretty tough despite the longest section being molded with slide molding technique so that it was all one piece. The lower section of the gun was two halves and the gun trunnion was two halves and second section of the gun needed to be glued to the first; leaving a big seam. After awhile, I think I had it filled, sanded and ready to go:



Just to be sure, I put the whole thing together. It looks pretty good:



Meanwhile, I went back to the main gun carriage and added the interior parts to one side of the gun carriage:



After I did that, I realized what a boneheaded idiocy I'd done. Getting paint into certain parts of that will be well nigh
impossible with my airbrush and any other paint applicator! Oh well....

I did figure that it would be cool to see this thing all together, so I dry-fit the other side to the above assembly:



It's only snapped together so I'll be able to paint it up when I need to.

Later, after I finished making sure the gun was fully completed sanding-wise as well as dry, I added it to the mock-up to see how this is gonna look:



She's nowhere near the size of Dora but she's still quite impressive! I'm looking forward to getting more done on this soon.

Until then, comments are welcome, thanks all for looking in!

That is just impressive. I am always in awe of someone that can work in that detail in this scale.

Thanks Lyle! I guess I'm so used to it that I just don't notice it.I appreciate the compliments. Hopefully I'll get more done today.

As promised, here's my latest progress.

I'll start with something simple that I was working on at Hobby Day. I finalized the assembly of Annie so that now she's ready for paint:



And then, since I had also brought Dora to repair and improve for a local contest coming up, I decided to shoot a comparison pic that someone requested once before. Here's Annie sitting next to her 'big sister' Dora:



Quite the difference there...

One fellow IPMS member who was at Hobby Day remarked, "I guess size doesn't matter when you've got a nuclear warhead!"



Staying with Armor, I assembled the two rail cars for the Russian Armored Train I'm doing for the On RR Tracks Campaign on another Forums:





I also attached the engine and tender to each other and then completed all the turrets (sans guns on the smaller ones to keep from breaking off the guns). Here's the whole train all together so far. I didn't have enough rail to pose this whole train so it is sitting on the table:





Moving along, I decided to change things up a bit and start an F-18 for the Modern Aircraft Campaign on another Forums.

Naturally, I started with the cockpit:



It's pretty basic but there will be a lot of decals going in there once I paint it. Next is a shot of the cockpit on the forward fuselage assembly:



After that, I assembled the main fuselage assembly:





Finally, I completed the main wings; drilling out the holes for the ordinance and cementing the parts together. Now all the sub assemblies for this aircraft are done and I can complete the cockpit and start shooting paint on this:




After all that, I needed a break from building so I pulled out my Sleepy Hollow model and did some additional painting. First off, I painted the pumpkins using Testor's Turn Signal Amber over a dark tan. It is still a bit glossy since turn signals tend to be shiny, but a good dullcoat will tone that down. I'm pretty pleased with these:



Next I painted the large tree that goes on the base. It will get a dark wash later... maybe:



Next I painted the severed head; completing the mouth, the hair and giving a grey dry-brush to the face to add a dead pallor to the complexion. I didn't want to overdo it since this is supposed to be a fresh kill. I do still have a few touchups and improvements to do:



Next I did the little Sleepy Hollow sign. I like it so far:



Finally, here's an overall shot of the whole model so you can see most of it all together:




Finally, I was getting upset at Dragon for the poor directions on the Saturn V. They show parts being put on the main body of this rocket; parts that have locating pins. However, there are no corresponding holes for the parts on the body of the rocket. There are places inside the smooth parts of the rocket that can be opened for these things but none on the ribbed portion of the rocket. Furthermore, there are no indications for adding the parts to the other side of this rocket so one has to guess as to placement! So, I figured I would just "wing it"! One thing I did was to drill out the holes that I figured where the right ones. The other thing I did was to place most of the second side parts; particularly the ones that went on the ribbed sections, directly opposite the first parts I added.

Okay, here is Stage One of the Saturn V all built up:



This is Stage Two:



And now the lower part of Stage Three:



The upper part of Stage Three is where the LEM sits.

And of course, the whole rocket assembled so far:



Now this part of the rocket at least is ready for paint. I can't go much further on the rest of it yet until I get the LEM gold-leafed and assembled.

Each stage will remain unglued for ease of transport, to be assembled on site of any contest I take it to.


Okay, that completes my latest progress so far. Hopefully I can get even further later in the week. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome!

Duke - Too bad there isn't one for HO scale train for a track layout. That would be cool!