Coopers Tea Rooms - Diorama of the Day

by Kasper Fischer

I just saw this beautiful piece today and I most say, I'm mighty impressed. The light really sets the mood in Yasu Okugawa's diorama. I really like the whole setting and I wish more modellours used light in their pieces because it really brings the scene to life.

Some of the amazing details inside the car.

The garden tools and the flowers.

Here's the complete diorama in daylight.

"Abandoned Refuge" - Diorama of the Day

by Kasper Fischer

This incredible AT-AT were build for a contest at starshipmodeler.com and has later been sold to a private collector in Texas. The price is unknown but it certainly wasn't cheap. The packaging of the diorama took over two full days and I bet they were pretty nervous during the transport.

The diorama is named "Abandoned Refuge" is in 1:32 scale and was created by Dimitri Kaliviotis. 

"The Guardians" - Diorama of the day

"The Guardians" by Alexander Krasnov.

WOW!!! That's all I can say... This is simply amazing. The diorama is 40x28cm and the scale is 65mm. The piece, named "The Guardians", was created by Alexander Krasnov from Ukraine. I'm normally not all that interested in Fantasy figures and models but this incredible diorama is so far beyond anything I have ever seen and I really hope you guys enjoy this as much as I do. The pictures are published at www.diorama.ru and if you want to see more pictures by Alexander Krasnov, just follow this link.

-Kasper

How to add magnets to Plastic Soldier tanks.

by Kasper Fischer

All you need is a circular  file, some super-glue and your magnets.

When you play a game like Flames of War, magnetized turrets is a great feature. It insures they don't come of when you are transporting your units to and from battle but it also protects your tanks when you are actually playing the game. The turrets can easily fall of and hit the floor when you set up your troops.

The new plastic models from BattleFront have incorporated this into the design and included magnets in the kit. All you need is to glue them in place. This is a really good idea which I only can support but if you are like me, and build PSC tanks, it doesn't really help you.

Luckily the PSC tanks are just as easy to magnetize but you have to do it before you build the model. We have created a short video tutorial to show you just how easy it really is.

Enjoy follows!

Painting small scale vehicles.

by Kasper Fischer

"The Fallen King" in 1/72 scale by Svend-Åke Grufstedt.

If you are as impressed with the amazing work by Svend-Åke Grufstedt as I am and would like to improve your painting skills, you really should go ahead and download his new booklet. 

It is a rather short, but very precise guide to painting small armour.

Svend-Åke takes you through all the steps he uses to get his tanks looking like they do. He writes about forced-contrast, the hairspray technique, salt, pigments and oil-paint. 

The booklet is a free download and can be found through this link.

Bf-110C "Wespen" Eastern Front 1942

By Francis Lee

1/72 Bf-110C of Fujimi Scale Model.

I brought this kit in around 1985/ 86, The box was still printed with the veryy old Fujimi logo.

I am glad that I brought it together with another Bf-110E that I can build it up later.

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I have several friends who dislike Fujimi's products, they feel that most of their kits are not accurate as other companies kits. I am not expert of Bf-110, but my comment of this kit is the fitting of each parts are very well fitted. Old model kit usually come with old fitting problems especally the canopy usually wont fits well with the plane body, but this Fujimi Bf-110 is good.

VIDEO of this kit:

1/144 scale Mitsubishi Betty G4M1 Bomber

By Francis Lee

This is a 1/144 scale tiny Betty bomber I brought in around 1988 that cost only US$ 1 dollar of that time.

I am glad that recently I foind it out along with other 4 Japanese bombers in same scale from my parents home.

The model was originally produced by a Japanese brand call Imai but after the company closed down in around 1987, the moulding & tooling of this model kit was sold to Hasegawa, so Hasegawa repacked it and sold it in the market..

After research, I got so many photos of many crashed Betty bomber in the jungle/ under sea of Pacific. Probably the best-known incident involving a G4M during the war was the attack resulting in the death of Isoroku Yamamoto. The G4M with tail number T1-323 - which was carrying the Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto - was attacked and shot down by Lockheed P-38 Lightnings from 339th Fighter Squadron of the 347th Fighter Group, Thirteenth Air Force, USAAF on 18 April 1943. . So I decided to build 2 sets of dioramas with a crashed Betty of one of them by the same box of Betty Bomber.

First of all I halfly built the plane without attached one wing and the wheels and set it up as a crashed in a jungle. After I took photos for it I clean the plane up, fix the wing, wheels and other bits & pieces onto the

Betty and repaint it coz the crashed plane had too heavy weathering so I repaint it with IJN green again and applied the remain set of decals which came with the kit.

Finally, I made 2 sets of diorama photos by one tiny Betty Bomber kit

VIDEO of these 2 diorama