"Battle of Mylae" 260 B.C. in 1/72 scale

by Michael Rieß



I have depicted a fight between a Carthaginian and a Roman trireme at the Battle of Mylae in 260 BC, in this diorama. Roman soldiers are storming across their boarding bridge (lat. corvus, engl. raven) for a direct assault on the enemy ship. The Battle of Mylae took place in the First Punic War, it ended with a Roman victory.

I used two Trireme kits and several packages of figures from Zvezda for this big project.


The first video is about the construction of the ships and the planning of the diorama. I show you all the different kits and figures I used in the build. I also share some of my knowledge of the ships and their use, in a historic context.

In the second video I give you a close up of the figures.

The third video is about the construction of the diorama. I don't have a lot of experience with water effects and I'm not completely satisfied with the result but I learn by trying and this was a fun project. 

F-16C "Barak"

by Michael Rieß



This kit from Italeri is just a reboxed Kinetic kit with many additional parts to build a nice model of an Israeli F-16C "Barak" in 1/48 scale.
I really enjoyed the assembly, although some filler was needed on the fuselage. I also destroyed some parts of the model (like the canopy), but i was able to repair them.
All in all i´m satisfied with the result, the silvering decals are a little bit annoying but i think it is still okay.
The details are nice and the kit itself costs about 20€.
I painted the model with Revell Aqua acrylic paints.

Wings of Ice - Diorama of the Day

by Kasper Fischer

Yesterday I showed the bronze star so naturally I will show the 2nd Placement today.

This interesting piece is made by Antonio Giuliano and is called 'Wings of Ice'. The diorama is in 1/35th scale and features a M24 Chaffee (Italeri), a 1/32 Ju 87B / R “Stuka” (21st Century Toys) and figures from Tamiya.

Wanna see more pictures? Visit www.afv-news.com

US. M32 Tank Recovery Vehicle.

By Francis Lee




Model: (1/35 scale)
Nichimo M4 Sherman chassis
Italeri M32 TRV parts
Tamiya Figures

Several months ago, I made a M4A1 Sherman diorama. These days I use the chassis of that Sherman tank of NICHIMO and combined it with parts from a M32 TRV of ITALERI. They fit with each other easily. Right now I wonder what to do with the original turrent of the Sherman, perhaps I should think of another diorama for the turrent.

Italeri AH-64D Longbow Apache

by Kasper Fischer

By some strange mistake I have never posted the pictures of the finished Apache on the blog.

Error corrected.

The Italeri kit was a really fun model and came together just nicely. No big issues. The only think I had some problems with was fitting the Longbow side-skirts. I had to paint the wings and ans the side-skirts before gluing them into place and doing so afterwards was a bit of a hassle. I destroyed the paint-job a few places and damaged some parts but nothing major.

The last few olive drab models I have made was painted with Tamiya paint but I'm not really satisfied with that line of paints and am switching to Vallejo. This was the first model I've painted using only Vallejo. It's different than Tamiya and I have to get use to that but I really like working with it.

I used Winsor & Newton black oil paint thinned with odorless petroleum for the wash afterwards. 

Tamiya 1/35 Staghound Mk.I

by Hamilkar Barkas

The kit was an easy build, everything went together very quickly.

Although the kit comes in a Tamiya box it is the quite new Italeri kit. The quality of the parts is blameless, some photo-etched parts, stowage and figures are also included. I was not satisfied with the appearence and details of the crew figures, so i will search for alternatives, for example resin figures. I painted the model with Revell acrylic paints. The green basecolour is Matt65 bronzegreen. The model is weathered with a dark wash, drybrushing and MIG pigments.

The Tamiya 1/35 Staghound Mk.I (kit #89770) is a reboxing of the old Italeri T17E1 Staghound Armoured Car Mk.I Late Production (kit #6459) Tamiya have added an addition sprue from Tamiya's 1994 kit British Universal Carrier Mk.II European Campaign (kit #35175), including 3 figures.

The box includes the large colour reference manual from the Italeri kit. The markings are also the same decal sheet as the original and the only other difference of this Tamiya re-release is the addition of a metal barrel and some photo-etch parts.


Like the Tamiya Mk.66 "Swiss Air Force" (kit#89784), which is also a collaboration between Italeri and Tamiya, this kit is labeled "Limited Edition". Tamiya doesn't indicate what limited means but these kits may not be around for a long time and if you wish one of them for your stash, you better be early.

Italeri 1/48 AH-64D Longbow Apache OoB Review

by Kasper Fischer

The Italeri 1/48 AH-64D Longbow Apache is deferentially not the greatest or most accurate kit on the market but it has a lot of parts and it will make a great 'out the box' build. If you like to super detail it, no problem. There's a lot of aftermarked parts and detail sets in stores, including some photo-etch parts from Eduard Model Accessories ltd and a brand new resin cockpit from Aires Hobby Models. You can easily spend more money on detail sets and upgrade parts, than the model it self costs. The Italeri Longbow is an rather old kit and it really need a new tooling but it is a very inexpensive kit and it will give you great value for the money.

I can only highly recommend this kit to everybody. Both to the newbie, like me that just want a kit with a lot of parts. This is also for the experienced modeler whom wants to super detail the Apache and spend month building the helicopter.

This will hopefully be a quick build as I'm really looking forward to airbrushing and weather this model.