Last weekend of October has arrived and that means one thing - it's time for another C4 Open exhibition. This year's event was as usual a lot of fun - there is a lot of talent out there and some of the kits made my jaw drop in wonder. At the same time, it was hard not to notice declining number of exhibitors. While airplane modelling appears to be as healthy as always, on military vechicle front only a fraction of models was on display when compared with last year. I never thought I'd say that, but I actually missed all those German 'big cats'. :-) On diorama front, things look even more dire - just a couple of relatively small displays, with none really standing out from the 'crowd'.
In any case, here's the first installment of pictures - airplanes in 1/144, 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scales. Hope you'll enjoy them!
lördag 24 oktober 2015
söndag 11 oktober 2015
Airfix Mitsubishi KI-46-II Dinah - Part II
Without further ado - here's the finished kit, in Air Defence of Japan livery (which by the way is a mistake to choose, as the extra armament of machines assigned to defense of home islands are not provided by Airfix).
Not much to tell about the final stages of construction or the paint job, except perhaps that I've chosen Tamiya XF-57 Buff acrylic paint for the overall beige color of the airframe. The choice wasn't based on any reference, but an assumption that Tamiya should have good insight into what colors were used by Japanese during WWII and XF-57 seems to come closest to the beige color specified by Airfix. Also, airbrushing with Tamiya acrylics is a blissful experience - you just paint and don't have to deal with all the hassle one always seems to have to wrestle with when using Humbrol and Lifecolor paints.
So here it is, hope you like it.
Not much to tell about the final stages of construction or the paint job, except perhaps that I've chosen Tamiya XF-57 Buff acrylic paint for the overall beige color of the airframe. The choice wasn't based on any reference, but an assumption that Tamiya should have good insight into what colors were used by Japanese during WWII and XF-57 seems to come closest to the beige color specified by Airfix. Also, airbrushing with Tamiya acrylics is a blissful experience - you just paint and don't have to deal with all the hassle one always seems to have to wrestle with when using Humbrol and Lifecolor paints.
So here it is, hope you like it.
lördag 10 oktober 2015
Airfix Mitsubishi KI-46-II Dinah - Part I
If you're one of the few people in the world who visit this blog on regular basis, then you'd perhaps have noticed that for a brief time I've posted couple of posts about a Revell Boston build and that those posts were thereafter removed. The reason for this was quite simple - I botched the job and had to bin the kit. After that timewise rather costly fiasco, I wanted to build something basic and you can't go more basic than Mitsubishi KI-46-II from Airfix.
Airfix made this kit in early 60-ies and it shows. It really does. The kit is extremly simple, in some respects 'crude' comes to mind. Furthermore, time wasn't kind to the mould and there is a lot of small blemishes that look like small dust particle, but are actually tiny bits of plastic. Those need to be filed down or scrapped off. Wheels and propellers are very bad if one is to apply modern standards. Undercarriage legs are horrid, with lower shock absorbers being actually represented by filled in triangular pieces of plastic. Worst of all, one of the propeller blades in my kit was thinner than the rest and bent inward. I tried to warm up plastic under hot tap water and straighten it up, but with limited success. Panel lines are, of course,of raised variety.
Overall, it's a rather dismal kit and initally I considered keeping the transfers and binning the rest. Something stopped me though and I'm glad I didn't throw it away. Once I started to work on it, it started to grow on me. Yes, it is extremly simple and 'old style' and yes, many of the parts lack the finesse of more recent kits. But the main body - fuselage and wings - fit very well together and the subject itself is such a gracefull little machine that you can't help but start liking working on the kit.
Below are the pictures of sprues and completed airframe. At this stage I usually prime the kit and I didn't deviate from this routine with this kit. Strangest thing happened to me though - my trustworthy canned acrylic Vallejo grey primer produced this time around a rather horrid orange peel structure, clearly visible in last two pictures. I've been using this primer for years and never had an issue. Now this! I tried to sand the worst of it down, but with raised panel lines all over the place, there really wasn't much I could do to improve the situation.
If anyone can explain to me why a 'tried', vigorously shaken can of Vallejo acrylic primer, used on a sunny September morning, all of the sudden can 'get it into its head' to create an orange peel surface, I would really like to hear the explanation.
Airfix made this kit in early 60-ies and it shows. It really does. The kit is extremly simple, in some respects 'crude' comes to mind. Furthermore, time wasn't kind to the mould and there is a lot of small blemishes that look like small dust particle, but are actually tiny bits of plastic. Those need to be filed down or scrapped off. Wheels and propellers are very bad if one is to apply modern standards. Undercarriage legs are horrid, with lower shock absorbers being actually represented by filled in triangular pieces of plastic. Worst of all, one of the propeller blades in my kit was thinner than the rest and bent inward. I tried to warm up plastic under hot tap water and straighten it up, but with limited success. Panel lines are, of course,of raised variety.
Overall, it's a rather dismal kit and initally I considered keeping the transfers and binning the rest. Something stopped me though and I'm glad I didn't throw it away. Once I started to work on it, it started to grow on me. Yes, it is extremly simple and 'old style' and yes, many of the parts lack the finesse of more recent kits. But the main body - fuselage and wings - fit very well together and the subject itself is such a gracefull little machine that you can't help but start liking working on the kit.
Below are the pictures of sprues and completed airframe. At this stage I usually prime the kit and I didn't deviate from this routine with this kit. Strangest thing happened to me though - my trustworthy canned acrylic Vallejo grey primer produced this time around a rather horrid orange peel structure, clearly visible in last two pictures. I've been using this primer for years and never had an issue. Now this! I tried to sand the worst of it down, but with raised panel lines all over the place, there really wasn't much I could do to improve the situation.
If anyone can explain to me why a 'tried', vigorously shaken can of Vallejo acrylic primer, used on a sunny September morning, all of the sudden can 'get it into its head' to create an orange peel surface, I would really like to hear the explanation.
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