Tamiya 1/48 Vought F4U-1A Corsair

by Tõnis Kuus

Ok i'll start then.This is my model of the Tamiya 1/48 F4U-1A Corsair. This model is made as a heavy weathered aircraft and made to sit on a on a runway somewhere in the pacific. The pit has the Eduard photo etch set.

Dynasty Models 1/9 U.S. 82nd Airborne

by Dino Krafczyk

Okay, this is my first attempt ever to write for a blog. I hope I don't screw up too bad.. ;)

I found this nice resin bust of an U.S. paratrooper in the special offers corner of my local hobby shop. Normally resin products, especially that large, are quite expensive, but I got this one for 2€ - too good to be true!! It was made by Dynasty Models, a korean company, and the quality is superb. I like the expression on the guy's face. Somewhat heroic and somewhat ticked off..

First I washed the resin with a mild soap and lukewarm water. There are chemicals or something in the resin that will make the paint come off very easily if you don't wash it first!

Then I painted the face. Normally I would have started with a light flesh tone enamel base colour, but the bust comes in the typical, light beige resin tone that is just perfect. I applied a rather thick coat of a good quality burnt sienna oil colour and immediately began to carefully wipe it off again with a wide sable brush, cleaning the brush with a piece of tissue paper between wipes. The most important thing with this technique is to not use any thinner or turpentine on the brush!!! Otherwise there will be just a big mess.

When done correctly, the oil paint will leave only a subtle and transluscent coat on the raised areas of the face where the base colour will show through and it will stay dark and opaque in the recessed areas. After that the face should already look quite impressive and have a lot of depth. After drying (which may take a long time!) I painted the beard shadow with a subtle coat of dark umber oils, let that dry, and then followed a very careful drybrush run with a flesh tone. The cheek bones were painted with the most subtle coat of red oil paint and can barely be seen, but that's exactly what I wanted. The same red colour was used for the lips.

As you can see, I use the word "subtle" a lot. The steps I discribed above can easily be overdone and then the face will look scruffy or like a clown! So subtlety is the key to success..

After having painted the eyes, eyebrows and hair the face was finished and I painted the uniform and the helmet using enamel colours. For the uniform I used a light khaki tone and the shading was done with olive drab oil colour that I mixed with white to match the tone of the khaki. Since the bust is quite a large scale I used less contrast than I would on a figure in 1/35 or 1/72. Then followed a drybrush with a lighter khaki tone and the details were painted. The helmet was done using dark olive drab, drybrushed with a light olive tone.

That was my first time to paint something in a large scale and I'm very pleased with the end result. I hope I could give you some hints on how to paint a face with oil colours and maybe you wanna try it yourself. I only wish I would have taken some pictures during the painting process.

Maybe next time... :)

Academy 1/48 MH-6 Attack Helicopter

by Kasper Fischer

It feels awesome to be back in the workshop and I'm almost done with the next project.

I started the next project straight away and I will properly complete it tomorrow. It's a small 1/48 scale black attack helicopter from Academy. A really easy model without too many problems, though it seems I really got some issues with the clear parts in general. When I have done this one I will move straight on to my Apache so this little scout chopper was execellent practice. I am really looking forward to the Longbow...

Rest Models 1/32 Macedonian Phalangite

by Hamikar Barkas































This is a resin figure from Rest Models(Ukraine). It is the best resin figure in 1/32 scale i have ever seen! Great details, good quality and beneficial. I just had to add the middle part of the pike myself. Rest Models has a lot of other interesting figures in its program, i will try to get another figure in the next time.

The Macedonian Phalangites (pezhetairoi or foot companions) formed the main heavy infantry force of the Macedonian Army. These soldiers were equipped with a very long pike (sarissa), a short sword and a rimless shield hanging from the shoulder to fight in the distinctive Macedonian variant of the greek phalanx. The sarissa bearing phalanx would usually march to battle in open formation to facilitate movement. Before the charge, it would tighten its files to close formation or even compact formation (synaspsimos). The tight formation of the phalanx created a "wall of pikes", and the pike was so long that there were fully five rows of them projecting in front of the front rank of men—even if an enemy got past the first row, there were still four more to stop him. The back rows bore their pikes angled upwards in readiness, which served the additional purpose of deflecting incoming arrows. The Macedonian phalanx was considered invulnerable from the front, except against another such phalanx; the only way it was ever generally defeated was by breaking its formation or outflanking it.

Dragon 1/72 M3A2 Bradley

by Kasper Fischer


Well, it has really been a long time since I touched a model last but yesterday I pulled myself together and finished the Bradley diorama. It is in no way perfect but, again, I really learned a lot from this build. This was my first diorama ever and my first figures since I was 8 years old. I'm really satisfied with the ground work and I like the look and colour of the diorama base. I had big problems with the pin wash because I didn't use satin vanish and it really shows and painting 1/72 scale figure was a bit of a challenge too but I think they turned out ok. Not great but I'm sure I'll do better next time around.

Adventures in Scale Modeling

By Kasper Fischer

Plamo Tsukurou goes to America.

I found a 'new' modelling show on YouTube. It's really an old show but I have never seen it before. Though show was a bit noobish I can't complain about the quality of the production. They even had their adventures sponsored by Testors so it must have had some street credit.

Maybe it's just because the competition in scale model videos or because it's one of the first real productions I've seen in English but I really enjoy the show. I will only post a couple of episodes on the blog but you can check out the rest here.

Kellerbahn

by Kasper Fischer

Better late than lever. That seems to be my life in a nutshell. I just set up the layout in our cellar and got the brilliant idea to make an Advents calender. A tad late, but what ever. From now on and until the 25th December, I will be posting a new short clip from my cellar layout every day. The 25th December I will release the full length video named "Kellerbahn".

here's the first view of the set up.

Plamo Tsukurou | Battleship Kongō

by Kasper Fischer

Once again it's on. Plamo Tsukurou. All new HD episodes of the fantastic Japanese TV show on model building. I don't understand anything they say but still I feel I can learn from the show and it serves the job of inspiring me good. This modelbuilder makes a fantastic 1/700 diorama of the Japanese battleship Kongō in drydock. Super datailed, with buildings, cars, own railroad and even very very small workers. Very impressive...

Winners in the Weathering Competition

by Kasper Fischer

This was the first time I ever staged a competition so I had to make a few adjustments along the way.
I felt I had to include the audience some more in the competition and decided to make a Peoples Choice Award. This would, of cause, only be judged by the viewers. I allowed everybody to give a vote for the model, they thought was the best weathered model.

My good friend, Dino from Germany won with his awesome Tiger I and really deserved honor form the people.
I got a few pictures from him yesterday because I wanted to post them here. Big thanks to Dino for taking part in this competition. You can see his full video here.

Btw, I sorry for the slow start on the video but viva Atleti...

Wintrack trackplan.

af Kasper Fischer

Jeg har igennem de sidste par år arbejdet en del med at lave en god sporplan til mit layout. Det har sgu været svært men jeg tror jeg er ved at have fundet ud af det. Tre niveauer. En skyggebanegård nederst, et mellem niveau til op og ned stigning og en station på det øverste. jeg starter med at bygge skyggebanegården og bare forbinde enderne. Jeg har nemlig SLET ikke alle de skinner jeg skal bruge. Jeg regner men at det vil tage mig et års tid at samle skinner til det øverste niveau, så jeg har god tid til at finde ud af hvordan det skal se ud.

men her er min plan...