SPA Modeler

Thanks Portman! The Hampden is a rough kit. It definitely shows it's age, but still fits together fairly well given the circumstances. I was able to fit the main canopy over the cockpit and it fit well, but the seams along the fuselage did need a bit of filling and sanding as you can see from these and previous pics. The landing gear is a bit fiddly and delicate. So far it's moving along pretty well.

Thanks for the compliment on the T-90. The colors are reversed, but I kinda like it this way better.I did the weathering on that and the T-64 yesterday; now all it needs is the tracks and final pieces. Along with the final pieces going on the T-64, I'll be able to declare both of these tanks done.

I also shot a second grey over the Areo bus and started the green on the Vomag. I hope to have pics up fairly soon.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Okay, I'm still a bit sick, and was bored out of my skull most of the past week. Whenever I felt up to it, I went in and did a little bit here and there in my Hobby Room to slowly move things along. Today I managed to get a bit more done than expected so maybe I'm recovering a little. So, here's my latest progress on a few models, some of which was done before I got sick.


Let's start with my aircraft....


This is the B-377 all primed up. I also sanded this a bit with some 8000-grit sanding pads but there's still a few rough spots on the wings I need to re-spray and sand again:



Moving on, I also added the AA missile rails to my Crusader and masked the canopy off for painting:



Later on I shot some flat white on the bottom of this:



I know it's a bit hard to see the difference here, but it will show more when I mask this off and shoot the upper grey color.

Moving right along; I had already shot the white on select parts of the Fokker DVII so I masked them off and shot the red on the front of this plane:



Later on, after the red had sufficiently dried, I masked off the red and shot the blue over this:



This plane is almost ready for decals now, just like the SE-5A. It won't be long now.




That's all I have so far to show on my aircraft. Now for some of the work on my armor and vehicles.


I'll start with the Ludwig Areo bus. I had already shot some dark grey over it as a basecoat. Now I shot some lighter grey over select areas to modulate the color. This bus is almost done:



Next up, I decided to get the lower hull and running gear of my T-90 MS done. I had already added the wheels to the suspension arms and painted and weathered them. Now I added the tracks. I chose to use some of the link and length tracks given to me by my friend Dave O'Barr. Because the top run would be hidden by skirts, I only did the lower part of the tracks:





Here's a shot of the lower hull and upper hull together to see how it looks:



Then I looked at the instructions and realized that I hadn't added the rear fuel tanks, so I got them installed straightaway:




I also completed adding the fiddly bits on the turret that I knew would fall off if I'd installed them earlier. All that's left here is touch up painting and additional weathering:



The next pics you see of this tank will be in the completed Armor Forums with the T-64BV tank. Shouldn't be long now.

Finally, since my Ludwig Areo bus is so close to being done, I was determined to get the Vomag bus closer to being done as well. Here are the results....

I started out shooting the white on the top and the stripe on the sides of the bus:



After the white was dry, I applied the first masking to this, making sure to cover the white stripe on the sides:



Once that was on, I shot the first part of the green color that I wanted on this bus:



After some more drying time, I pulled the lower masking off and added masking to the upper part; again covering the white stripe:



Finally, I shot the final set of green on the lower part of the bus:






After allowing some time to dry, I pulled all the masking off to see how this looks. Despite a couple areas needing some slight touch-up; I was quite pleased with the final result. It was actually better than I expected:





Now all that's needed is to paint the fenders black; gloss the whole thing, apply decals and complete it. I'm really getting pretty excited about this bus!


Okay, getting all this done, edited and uploaded; along with typing out this post has drained me quite a bit. Time to pop some more meds and hit the bed again. Here's hoping I recover a little more again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

My friend, you get more accomplished when you're sick and bored than I have when I'm healthy and wanting to build... Go figure... And I agree about the bus. That should be driving you to finish up ASAP...

Looking forward to seeing those kits finished!

Thanks guys! Carlos, sometimes it was quite a fight to keep going, but my frustration at this stagnation was stronger than my desire to quit. I just wanted to feel like I accomplished something! I really do want to see these buses done. Once they are; I'll have one more to do and then I'll have completed Roden's entire line of 1/72 scale buses.

Thanks Blacksheep, I am so looking forward to seeing more of these done.

Duke Maddog wrote:Thanks guys! Carlos, sometimes it was quite a fight to keep going, but my frustration at this stagnation was stronger than my desire to quit. I just wanted to feel like I accomplished something! I really do want to see these buses done. Once they are; I'll have one more to do and then I'll have completed Roden's entire line of 1/72 scale buses.

Thanks Blacksheep, I am so looking forward to seeing more of these done.

Yeah I know what you mean. I am not gonna have my Panzer IV done for the AMPS GB (just like last year's still incomplete HMMWV) and I have yet to finish one build this year! I am so close on a few and hope to have one wrapped up shortly. It's just not happening for me lately.

Stikpusher wrote:

Duke Maddog wrote:Thanks guys! Carlos, sometimes it was quite a fight to keep going, but my frustration at this stagnation was stronger than my desire to quit. I just wanted to feel like I accomplished something! I really do want to see these buses done. Once they are; I'll have one more to do and then I'll have completed Roden's entire line of 1/72 scale buses.

Thanks Blacksheep, I am so looking forward to seeing more of these done.

Yeah I know what you mean. I am not gonna have my Panzer IV done for the AMPS GB (just like last year's still incomplete HMMWV) and I have yet to finish one build this year! I am so close on a few and hope to have one wrapped up shortly. It's just not happening for me lately.

I do hope you can finish something Carlos. There's nothing like the feeling of accomplishment. Keep plugging regardless, your work is worth the wait.

Thanks Mark. I am still plugging away.

This week on my bench I have a moderate update, mostly on my armor that I'm trying to complete so I can achieve my goal. In between, I did work on a few aircraft to keep things fresh. This will be a picture intensive post so buckle up and hang on tight.



I'll start with my aircraft...

The first one I did was the Crusader, masking it off to prepare it for painting the grey:



Next I decided to add the decals to my two WWI fighters. First off, I completed the decals on the SE-5A:





After that, I added half the decals to the Fokker D-VII:



This is why I only did half the decals. This aircraft gets a multi-colored pattern on the bottom. Well, here is the decals for that multi-color pattern:



That's right! I get to color them in myself!! YAAAYYYYYY!

Okay, enough fun with wingies for now. Let's move on to my extensive parade of progress pics for my armor.




Let's start with the three German vehicles I started; one of which is being built for the APC campaign over on the Modeler's Alliance. I went ahead and painted on the second of the camouflage colors for this beastie:





Later on I added the third color:





Moving on, I also added the second and third colors to my Tpz Fuchs. After all, I had the paints out:










I started to do the same with my Boxer command vehicle, but realized there were a few parts missing that I forgot to add in my haste to keep up with the APC version of this vehicle. So, I glued them in place:





Later on, I airbrushed the base color on these new parts:





Now I can move forward on this camouflage pattern.




After this, I worked on my two buses. The Vomag simply got a coat of gloss clear over it so there wasn't any reason to shoot pics of that. However, my Ludwig bus got it's wheels on now:



I also gave a black wash to the front grill that was screaming for it. It looks a little more stark in real life; I'm very pleased with the results:



I plan on leaving this a semi-gloss color since this was used to ferry around officers so they most likely would have left it looking semi-glossy.

This bus is almost done now. I'm going to try and finish this and the Vomag at about the same time. You should be seeing both of them soon in a finished Forums before too long.


Now it was time to start on some new JGSDF equipment that I've been wanting to add to my collection for some time. I started with the new prototype LAV that the Japanese are developing. I assembled the suspension, then the main hull and before I knew it; I had gotten this far:



The I started on the turret. That was completed very quickly as well:



This little beastie is looking pretty good:



Later on, I realized that I hadn't added the nose and rear panel to the main hull, mostly because I needed to add the clear lights to them. I added them in, masked them off on the outside; then I painted the rear of both of them with Chrome Silver:



After they were dry, these two parts went on the main hull:





This is looking even better now:



I did notice all the seams on the edges of the hull and on parts of the turret and they were bothering me. I pulled out my Perfect Plastic Putty that I finally got some weeks ago and added it to all the seams to fill everything in:



This is now ready for paint.



The last thing I did was to start on my JGSDF Patriot PAC-3 launcher. Naturally, I started out with the suspension and chassis of the tractor part:



After that, I moved on to the cab, adding the windows to the outer part of the cab:



Moving on, I started the interior, adding the seats, dashboard and steering wheel. These guys sure enjoy a comfortable ride:



Just to see how it looked, I dry-fit the cab portions together:



Once I clean those windows back up the interior will be very visible!

Then I dry-fit this to the chassis:



It does look like it's sitting high, but there are some other fender parts to assemble and add to this.


I set all that aside to dry and went to work on the trailer portion. Here's the basic trailer assembled here:





That's as far as I got for now. I'm hoping this next week I'll be able to declare a few of these done. I might know by Thursday. Meanwhile, stay tuned. Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

Nice work Mark! I really like the Bipes! Especially that little Fokker