Aircraft modelers??

[caldera]

JHerne sir, you have the Midas Touch.  The folks in Japan should invite you over to paint this bad boy:






I had tons of WWII models as a kid - Revell ships and Monogram 1/48 planes, but I was awful.
Fell in love with Liberators after seeing this:





Unfortunately, my skills peaked about age 5 when I had this exact kit:



This pic is from Ebay.  This is a 1969 kit still sealed and he wants $700.00 for it.  Wish I never opened mine.   

[JHerne]

I got a few like that....

Jay - I have a Revell 110G....send me an email addy and I'll scan the instructions for you.

J

[maddafinga]

Nice looking work!  I haven't been able to model for a couple of years since I lost all my equipment in a fire and haven't had space to start accruing stuff again.  I like that you don't have that overly shaded panel line look that I just don't much care for.  It doesn't seem to look too realistic to me either, but it seems to be all the rage these days.  Really nice clean lines on your canopy frames and the wheel rims too. 

What do you use for the natural metal?  A couple of those looked like silver paint and one or two others looked like Alclad perhaps?  Really excellent work for certain.  I just love modeling.  Love it in a big way. 

Just this past weekend I had to restrain myself from hitting my really excellent lhs and picking up some stuff.  I was halfway through a really good Hasegawa A7E Corsair2 with resin cockpit and wheel wells and intake and all the pe I could get for it, and a big Mustang project as well, using parts from the Hase and Tamiya pony and as much resin and pe as I could get my hands on, rub on stencils aftermarket decals and the whole ball of wax.  Going to have to start that guy all over again, but it'll be fun when I can.  As much as I try to avoid it, I always end up coming down with the advanced modeling syndrom.  I stare at something and fixate and just can't leave it alone.

Very impressive stuff man, post all you can.  I love seeing well built kits like those, thanks for putting them up.

[JHerne]

Thanks Madda. The P-47 was Metalizer, done back in the day. The Ki-61 and P-40 are both Alclad, done over black primer. I stopped using the Alclad primer awhile back as it was very tempermental. Now, I simply spray flat black over the model and then polish it down. Works like a champ.

I'm not a big fan of the heavily-weathered, heavy-paneled model. I spent 10 years as an aviation museum director and spent nearly all my time around vintage aircraft - they simply don't look like that.

My other pet peeve is seeing aircraft with ord hanging off them, and all the panels opened up. Its been standard policy since the start of combat flying, you remove anything that can go boom before working on an aircraft.

The key to AMS is simply moving on before it stops being fun. There are some cockpits that have every bell and whistle (like the Ki-61), and there's others that don't even have seatbelts. It depends (for me anyway), how the model went together, whether or not it'll be competition quality, etc. I have modeler buddies who will spend an entire year working on one model, and in the end, it looks no different than the model I spent 3 weeks building.

[maddafinga]

Thanks Madda. The P-47 was Metalizer, done back in the day. The Ki-61 and P-40 are both Alclad, done over black primer. I stopped using the Alclad primer awhile back as it was very tempermental. Now, I simply spray flat black over the model and then polish it down. Works like a champ.

I'm not a big fan of the heavily-weathered, heavy-paneled model. I spent 10 years as an aviation museum director and spent nearly all my time around vintage aircraft - they simply don't look like that.

My other pet peeve is seeing aircraft with ord hanging off them, and all the panels opened up. Its been standard policy since the start of combat flying, you remove anything that can go boom before working on an aircraft.

The key to AMS is simply moving on before it stops being fun. There are some cockpits that have every bell and whistle (like the Ki-61), and there's others that don't even have seatbelts. It depends (for me anyway), how the model went together, whether or not it'll be competition quality, etc. I have modeler buddies who will spend an entire year working on one model, and in the end, it looks no different than the model I spent 3 weeks building.

I'm one of those one year guys.  I think a big part of that is because I'm under such deadline pressure every day at work, so I take every bit of time I want to, so I can get everything just exactly how I want it.  I can work at my own pace and to the level of my abilities, and that is fun to me.  I know what you mean though about stopping, there is certainly a breakover point.  I've seen dudes who can just crank out really nice models in no time flat.  I've always been a teeny bit jealous of them, but just a teeny bit. 

I enjoy the dry fitting process and being able to make stuff fit just so before feeling like I've got to move on just to be moving.  I enjoy the paint prep process and the weathering, and all that really, so I just don't ever feel in any hurry to finish it any sooner than I want.  It makes me feel good.  I like taking all my time and painting very carefully and in the thinnest possible layer over and over.  It's all just so fun to do.  Not woohoo kind of fun really, but deeply satisfying in a way that I can't describe.  Hell, I even like messing with photoetch stuff, it just looks so cool when it's put together well. 

That said, I have built a number of kits just out of the box and left gaps where parts just don't fit right inside wheel wells and such, and that didn't bother me much at all.  Maybe it all depends on the mood. 

Man, I've got to get a room cleaned out and put some tables and lamps in there.  Just reading and typing all this stuff gets me all antsy.

[GtoRA2]

Very nice work.

[Hap]

 

[JHerne]

Hey Madda, the IPMS National Convention will be in Omaha in 2011 (Phoenix this year). You want to talk about motivating, check out of those shows.

Caldera, that 1/10 Yamato model is simply amazing. Unfortunately, she's already painted in Kure Gray!

I jump around in terms of moods, right now (and for the last year or so), I've been into 1/32 aircraft. I also do armor...


This is a 1/6 Jagdpanzer IV/L70. All metal, weighs in over 100lbs., 4 feet long from barrel to exhaust pipe.


Here's a 1/16 T-34/85...full interior, gearbox, wired radios, etc...


And a 1/35 German E25 'paper project'.

I've got a 1/6th Tiger I on the bench at the moment, and a 1/6 SdKfz 250/3 after that....lots of projects, so little time!

Thanks guys.

[rstel01]

I'm an Armor Guy also (plus 1/32 1/35 Helo's for Air Support  )

This is just a real tiny portion of what I have in my Hobby Room, I have been doing 1/35 for about 30 years.

[maddafinga]

That stuff looks great, especially the halftrack!  I like armor modeling, but I don't do much of it because of my airplane obsession.  I can sure see the attraction though, it's awfully fun to dirty those things all up, not to mention the stuff you can scratchbuild that just sits there begging to be checked out.  Nice work man, thanks for sharing!

[Reschke]

Thanks JHerne that is what I was thinking about. I had forgotten what the name of the floor polish was. I will give my Me-410 a good wash when I get around to working on it. I used to do a lot of armor and way back in the old days I had a few Panthers, and Shermans done with a smattering of T-34s as well. They all went the same way that my ships did when I was a teenager....fuses and fireworks made for some great battle recreations along the creek banks and in the yard of the homestead.

[Denholm]

JHerne, do you have any models of the Mosquito (any variant)?

[Swager]

Great work!  Great models!

[Husky01]

  Amazing work

[JHerne]

Thanks guys. Mr. Denholm, I'm in the middle of a Mossie project at the moment, it got put on hold when I decided to open it up completely and scratchbuild the engines, motor mounts, etc.

I'm using the Mosquito up at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh as a my reference, they've been nice enough to grant me access to the aircraft.

At present, I'm doing a vacu-form SB2C Helldiver in 1/32 scale. Fuselage, wings, tail are all done, I'm scratchbuilding the interior at present.

Jeff