Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV

[Papa Rat]

Made a bunch of progress on the IMS Vaiola. It’s my first 1/100 MH build and it’s way larger than those 1/144 kits I’m used to. I have three more 1/100’s in my stash and trying to decide which one to tackle once I finish this one up. 🤔

 

Edited Monday at 10:20 AM by Papa Rat

[Big s]

23 minutes ago, Papa Rat said:

Made a bunch of progress on the IMS Vaiola. It’s my first 1/100 MH build and it’s way larger than those 1/144 kits I’m used to. I have three more 1/100’s in my stash and trying to decide which one to tackle once I finish this one up. 🤔

 

Looks really great.

[Papa Rat]

4 hours ago, Big s said:

Looks really great.

Thanks

[Chas]

Getting closer to completing one leg.

Thicker, rounder, more shapely thigh:

Whole leg:

Still a little bit of putty and sanding to do, but getting closer.

Edited Monday at 10:01 PM by Chas
darned predictive text algorithm!

[HWR MKII]

 

finally got around to finishing this.

[Big s]

9 hours ago, HWR MKII said:

 

finally got around to finishing this.

Really nice markings

[derex3592]

Early Sunday morning l finished up the hardest PE for the Texas. The rear observation tower and radar screen. I'm glad I saved this until last because I had been dreading it. All the techniques I had taught myself and utilized up to this point came in handy to get this part finished up with only minimal stress... LOL 😂. So at this point I still have a lot of little diddly PE to finish up but it's all rinse and repeat stuff I've done before so it's just a question of making time to sit down and do it.. (42 - 50cal guns / quad 50s /baskets and such, and the two aircraft cranes) Other than that, it's down to dropping down a million little plastic parts on the deck and before you know it..... It's gonna be time to start painting this bad boy! 

[Papa Rat]

@derex3592 all your hard work is paying off. It’s looking great! 👍 

[Thom]

Slow and steady builds a lovely boat!

[pengbuzz]

Nice boot.

[Big s]

11 hours ago, Papa Rat said:

@derex3592 all your hard work is paying off. It’s looking great! 👍 

Lots of crazy little things going on. I’d be afraid to even touch it

[pengbuzz]

UPDATE:

Checking in- had to rush my wife to the hospital last Thursday via 911/ ambulance; she has AFib (Atrial Fibrillation) and COVID; the latter is especially dangerous, as Chemo patients are very susceptible to infections due to the number they do on the immune system. Currently, she's in ICU while they try to knock down the COVID and address the AFib; to that end, I needed to isolate from her to protect her from anything else (have seen her a couple of times in full gown, gloves and gear). It's delayed her next Chemo treatment, as they cannot give it to her while she has an active infection. So basically, just sitting at home with nothing to do aside from call her when she's up to talking on the phone. Not expecting her out before Christmas... and the house feels utterly empty.

Nothing for models; no materials or kits available to me (no good hobby places nearby within walking distance). Priorities are food, medicine and transportation (buses to/ from medical center). 

Thinking about masking taping the cat, but painting the critter would be hard as they probably won't like the tape.

(I find this puzzling).

Stay tuned...

 

[Thom]

My thoughts and best wishes going to you and the Mrs, @pengbuzz. Not much I can do but offer my support from a distance. And send a little something to hopefully give you something to occupy your time while she recovers and hopefully comes home very soon.

Thom

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

My thoughts and best wishes going to you and the Mrs, @pengbuzz. Not much I can do but offer my support from a distance. And send a little something to hopefully give you something to occupy your time while she recovers and hopefully comes home very soon.

Thom

You've already been too kind, my friend. Appreciate your support no matter what form it takes.  

[Big s]

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

UPDATE:

Checking in- had to rush my wife to the hospital last Thursday via 911/ ambulance; she has AFib (Atrial Fibrillation) and COVID; the latter is especially dangerous, as Chemo patients are very susceptible to infections due to the number they do on the immune system. Currently, she's in ICU while they try to knock down the COVID and address the AFib; to that end, I needed to isolate from her to protect her from anything else (have seen her a couple of times in full gown, gloves and gear). It's delayed her next Chemo treatment, as they cannot give it to her while she has an active infection. So basically, just sitting at home with nothing to do aside from call her when she's up to talking on the phone. Not expecting her out before Christmas... and the house feels utterly empty.

Nothing for models; no materials or kits available to me (no good hobby places nearby within walking distance). Priorities are food, medicine and transportation (buses to/ from medical center). 

Thinking about masking taping the cat, but painting the critter would be hard as they probably won't like the tape.

(I find this puzzling).

Stay tuned...

 

Best wishes for you and yours. Hoping you can get a little cheer in these tough times. Definitely a tough thing to go through during the holidays, hopefully she’ll be out soon and getting well

[wm cheng]

Our thoughts and prayers to you and Mrs Pengbuzz!  Good things happen around this time of year, so I hope you get your fair share.  Thanks for the update.  

Some more slow progress (it will slow even more as the holiday activities pick up I'm afraid).  So much pre-prep work on this kit before I can even to the fun part of painting!  Ended up having to cut off and rebuild all the canard and rudder pins as they are so weak and don't go very far inside, so I had to glue up some solid plastic inside the holes to re-drill the holes so they go deeper and can grab better.  So many little things to do like internal braces because the kit just "squashes" the middle of the airframe when glued together or leveling up pieces so they sit flush, I hate work that you never even see when finished!

Looks kind of cool with a much lower profile canopy or as a drone unit 😛

So many gaps to fill and sand!

masking the canopy inside and out (has the same internal black brace as the F-35 uh).

More tiny masking!

Sanding around the intakes and getting that tail serrated engine area to fit was a bitch.  But its starting to look more like a plane.

After a lot more sanding with the spot Mr. Surfacer primer highlighting all the spots that still need more work, after a few tries/days, I get it pretty smooth to a point ready for paint.  This is my most hated part; sanding and more sanding, but I've learned the hard way that if I skip out this step and race towards the paint, the next step highlights all the mistakes.

After I thought I had addressed all the seams and I sprayed everything with the primer - it showed me there were sink marks all over the place in areas not even close to the seams.  I hadn't seen sinks marks on models for 20yrs or on non American kits 😛  I don't even normally primer the entire model, but I am glad I did with this kit.  I ended up filling all the depressions with Mr. Surfacer 1000 brushed over and re-sanded smooth.  I think I got most of them. 

They have the colours reversed in the instructions, the light grey is called out as the Mr. Color number for the dark grey and vice versa - luckily I caught that before I started to paint.

I should own stock in Tamiya Masking tape, I'm going through quite a lot of it - it really is the best stuff for not pulling paint up with nice sharp lines.  I then masked the Spinter Camo pattern which I love.

Ended up a bit dark (a little too contrasty for my tastes from all the reference photos), but this ended up working out even better than I had hoped.  The next stage I was going to try to replicate that metallic sheen you see in all the newer stealth F-22 & F-35 greys.  This was going to be my test bed to lightly mist Alclad Dark Aluminum over the camo so both the lighter grey and darker grey gets the metallic sheen.  It ended up lightening the entire model and tying together the two greys really well.  Now I know to exaggerate the camo pattern on my F-22 & 35s.  The Alcad was the smallest metallic particles I could get in paint, and its not bad, works better on the lighter grey than dark, but really changes with the angle you view and with the light source.  Sometimes it looks too light, and sometimes it looks too dark - weird but its more like the photographic references.

I was worried that the masking tape might lift the really fine misting of the Alclad, but luckily it didn't - again this Tamiya stuff is worth every penny!  Again more masking for the lighter carbon edges of the scheme.

Can you tell I'm paranoid with overspray 😛

I'm learning masking for these 5th gen stealth fighters are going to be a bitch!  I'm trying to paint most of the details on as there's a very limited decal sheet that was supplied, but also all the photo references has shown me a very clean aircraft with very limited data stenciling.

After 2 weeks, here's where I'm at.  I've sprayed everything with a gloss coat in prep for decals.  I'm really liking the sleekness and lines of this aircraft, I thought it was kind of awkward but maybe because I've been looking at it for too long.

Edited yesterday at 12:04 AM by wm cheng

[Thom]

That's nice and intense paint work @wm cheng. Really smoothed out the kit's faults.

Finally got the gear bay painted up, after the clear gloss coat ate the first white coat away. Had that happen a couple of times now, Got out the Alclad gloss to move past it.

Now detailing the cockpit and getting it ready to be installed.

 

[Urashiman]

Didn’t post in a while.

Got new stuff for future workbenches. Hehe

Finally got my hands on a Hasegawa VF-1D that is not sold for a fortune. I was always eyeing that ASF-X, so finally got a nice one

And on top, a Plamax Super Valkyrie. Fun fun.

I once read: building model kits and purchasing model kits are two different hobbies. I hope to have some more time to actually build stuff. Life is kinda busy at the moment.

[SteveTheFish]

I'm working on painting this 1:6 Nadia figure that our friend Tekering 3D-printed for me! This is like an older Nadia with a more mature body. Sexy! So far I've done her fleshtone, which is a mix of Tamiya XF-10 Flat Brown, XF-2 Flat White, and X-6 Orange. Tamiya's paints have a rather limited palette and do not include fluorescent orange, so I used regular orange. I only recently learned that there is a Mr. Hobby fluorescent orange color I could have added to the mix, but this looks fine enough as it is. Orange is pretty fluorescent regardless. (FYI: for doing fleshtones, fluorescent orange or pink is pretty essential when mixing your own colors.) I guess this print also had a Blue Water gem for her necklace, but that got overlooked when printing. No matter though; since I've decided this is an older Nadia, there is no Blue Water as it's been spent.

In the back is the July issue of Model Graphix magazine. I somehow missed this issue this past summer with its big Macross article and cover, so I bought it online. It came today in the mail.

[electric indigo]

@wm cheng I guess what every 5th-gen fighter modeler has to realize is that it's much easier to paint & mask the light edges before the main camo than the other way around. I fell into the same pit when I built my J-31 😅

[tekering]

2 hours ago, SteveTheFish said:

I guess this print also had a Blue Water gem for her necklace, but that got overlooked when printing.

Actually, it got overlooked on the original 3D model.  The full-body version had it:

However, it wasn't included on the headless version. 😒

Strange, that. 🤨

2 hours ago, SteveTheFish said:

I've decided this is an older Nadia, there is no Blue Water as it's been spent.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. ☺️

[SteveTheFish]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Actually, it got overlooked on the original 3D model.  The full-body version had it:

I did not notice that. In any case, the pendant is oversized and frankly looks dumb. If I really wanted her to have one, I'd mold one from another kit in Oyumaru and cast it in clear UV resin because the one in the picture looks a bit awkward. I can't remember, but I think the Blue Water ceased to exist once she used it to cast a resurrect spell in the final episode.

[pengbuzz]

16 hours ago, Big s said:

Best wishes for you and yours. Hoping you can get a little cheer in these tough times. Definitely a tough thing to go through during the holidays, hopefully she’ll be out soon and getting well

16 hours ago, wm cheng said:

Our thoughts and prayers to you and Mrs Pengbuzz!  Good things happen around this time of year, so I hope you get your fair share.  Thanks for the update.  

Thanks for the well wishes, folks. ❤️ Definitely a tough slog all ways around! About the only thing I've been working on is getting more grey hairs! O.o

[Papa Rat]

@wm cheng Wow! Thanks for the update. What a paint journey. It’s looking amazing and worth all the time spent. ♥️

@pengbuzz wishing you all the best. Hope you find some reprieve. Hope your cat stays tape free too  

@Thom Looking sharp. Having top coats fail is the worst. I have had mine eat back into layers below too. Maybe too much thinner? Not sure what causes it. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Papa Rat

[wm cheng]

@Thom That F-35C looks amazing!  Can't wait to see more and now I'm looking forward to this ugly duckling.  I guess they don't highlight the ram tape anymore on the latest F-35s?  That will make painting easier?

@Urashiman That Shinden looks sweet!  I have the earlier one with the grey and orange markings, does this one also come with a huge sheet of decals for all the grey lines?  I think this might turn into a Star Trek model with wallpaper decals where almost every square inch is covered 😛

@electric indigo

Edited 10 hours ago by wm cheng

[wm cheng]

@electric indigo What do you mean you do the light areas first and mask those out to do the camo afterwards?  That seems harder, because the lighter greys don't get the metallic sheen only the camo areas does.  So it kind of makes sense to do the lighter areas on afterwards, then you don't have to protect the flat grey areas from the metallic mist.  I'd love to see your J-31!

(weird that I couldn't add anything after the original post after the @electric indigo tag - I had to make a separate post - sorry)

[Thom]

2 hours ago, Papa Rat said:

@Thom Looking sharp. Having top coats fail is the worst. I have had mine eat back into layers below too. Maybe too much thinner? Not sure what causes it. 

Me neither. At least I had some Aclad Aqua Gloss and that worked good. 

1 hour ago, wm cheng said:

@Thom That F-35C looks amazing!  Can't wait to see more and now I'm looking forward to this ugly duckling.  I guess they don't highlight the ram tape anymore on the latest F-35s?  That will make painting easier?

Not anymore, which will help. And the RAM panels are the one thing that every manufacturer seem to over-emphasize. At 1/48, a decal would do just fine, considering how minimally raised they really are. Not having to pick out another shade to highlight them is great. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Thom

[Urashiman]

2 hours ago, wm cheng said:

@Thom That F-35C looks amazing!  Can't wait to see more and now I'm looking forward to this ugly duckling.  I guess they don't highlight the ram tape anymore on the latest F-35s?  That will make painting easier?

@Urashiman That Shinden looks sweet!  I have the earlier one with the grey and orange markings, does this one also come with a huge sheet of decals for all the grey lines?  I think this might turn into a Star Trek model with wallpaper decals where almost every square inch is covered 😛

@electric indigo

Yeah… the decals are bigger than an DIN A4 sheet. Tons of delicate lines and stuff. Might want to mask that… 

I‘ll take a picture tomorrow

[electric indigo]

@wm cheng Here's my J-31, I did a quick build & just wanted to see it in a not-black scheme back in the day. It was way before we got all these nice J-35 pics.

Still the most beautiful past 4th gen fighter that actually flies IMO.

My approach was: paint the fuselage with shading, then spend a whole lot of tape & time to mask the whole body, then spray the light grey borders.

What I would do today: Spray the light grey borders freehand, then mask them with just a few strips of tape, then do the main areas, shade, weather etc. and when you're done there, remove the masks for the edges.

[pengbuzz]

What I would do:

Spoiler

Sand and then paint and masking tape the lighter color, cut it into strips, paint the rest of the plane the camo colors then apply the tape.

 

Then,

Spoiler

Get a pepsi.