Military Modeling Blog

Area 52 Models

2011-04-25T12:42:00.001-04:00

I spent this weekend painting examples of a couple new kits for Area 52 models. The first model uses the resin interior and landing arms from Area 52 updating the Pegasus U.F.O.

The second is a Recce Pod for the Krieger 1/20 Falke, not installed on the kit.

I also did work on the masters for these kits.

Canadian War Museum Panther

2011-04-17T14:05:00.005-04:00

This is the Panther A currently on display in Ottawa, at the Canadian war museum.

There are often questions about the original paint scheme and origin of the vehicle. Hopefully this vintage photo of the vehicle will help provide some insight:

Spitfire cockpit painting

2011-02-22T18:29:00.002-05:00

My 1/32 Spitfire is moving along slowly with the latest progress of painting the cockpit.

Storm Miniature 1/35 Zu-23-2

2011-01-11T15:23:00.004-05:00

I recently received from Andy Bass of Storm Miniatures his new 1/35 Zu-23-2 kit.

This is a pre-production sample, and did not include instructions. I'm hoping to get this painted for his box-art, I just finished building the kit this morning.

The kit is excellent quality with many fine details. The kit consists of finely cast resin, wheels designed by Hussar, and 2 brass 3 piece barrels from Czech Master. Cleaning up the resin parts was simple, and only required a sharp #11 blade, after that the kit assembled really fast. Easily a weekend build.

This kit will be extremely popular for those who build modern dioramas and anti-aircraft guns. There are many possibilities for this kit with the widespread use of the gun worldwide.

Pacific War Photos

2010-09-28T12:13:00.004-04:00

I came across a great set of pictures from the Pacific theatre on another blog today, for those who may also be interested:

Click here for the photos

Orange Hobby

2010-08-18T14:51:00.003-04:00

Today I received all the updates from Anson at Orange Hobby for the DML Jagdpanzer IV L70 and I must say I'm impressed!

The quality is similar to ABER, but with a few bonuses really making these sets a good value, like all the turned brass parts, brass nuts and bolts, 3 piece barrel with threading and rifling, resin, decals for the fire extinguisher, and if you order direct from Anson a very affordable price tag.

Panther G finished!

2010-07-10T10:16:00.004-04:00

Finally wrapped this project up! A few more pictures are up in my temporary gallery.

Making Bases

2010-03-10T23:33:00.003-05:00

Some advantages of making your own bases are they cheaper than those commercially available, they can be made from all sorts of exotic woods, and they don't look tacky like an old trophy or plaque base that we see covering the tables at almost every model convention.

To make nice bases I suggest obtaining the following:

-Different sizes of blocks of wood to cover with veneer.I try to make all the bases at least 1 1/2 - 2 inches thick.
-An assortment of different veneers, I like birds eye maple, walnut burl, maple burl, any sort of nice burl...
-Stainable Wood glue, a sharp knife, sanding blocks, and some long clamps
-A large flat surface like table that you can clamp onto.
-Wood finishing products, such as stain and lacquer clear coat.

Step 1: I decided to make the base for my Panther from Walnut Burl:

Step 2: Apply the veneer to the wood block, start by doing the edges, cover the area where you are applying veneer with a thin coat of stainable wood glue.

Step 3: Once the base is covered with veneer, sand, making sure to take the arris off the edges and remove and excess glue. I used a 200 grit sandpaper and worked well, but you could go finer. Make sure not to sand threw the veneer! (note: I did not use the sanding stick in the photo for this, except for removing the arris)

Step 4: Stain and varnish. For this base, I liked the natural colors of the wood and decided to just apply 4 coats of fast drying polyurethane from a spray can. I think the natural colors in this case look excellent.

Step 5: I had a friend at the local framing shop do a black frame around the bottom for the final touch. A frame like this is usually very cheap and takes them about 5 minutes to make on the spot.

Step 6: Apply model ;-) I will also have a name plaque done at some point when the figures are painted.

The end result is worth it. Any model you have spent large amounts of time researching, detailing, and painting deserves a nice base to be displayed on.

Panther Weathering Part 2

2010-03-09T13:08:00.006-05:00

This week I just managed to get more painting done, next will be painting the figures.

Panther Weathering

2010-03-03T13:30:00.002-05:00

Although still many hours to go, the weathering on my Panther is progressing slowly, still needs paint chiping, more dirt, details, oil stains, ect. ect.

More soon hopefully.

Spitfire Engine

2010-02-20T19:57:00.002-05:00

The final hurdle! I have assembled all details possible at this point on my spitfire prior to getting out the airbrush.

I did not want to distract from the outline of the spitfire and have an entirely exposed engine so decided on just having this one side panel off the plane. I didn't do much on the engine except some fine details and wiring.

Some modelers who leave the top panel off may want to add the "ROLLS ROYCE" cast into the rocker covers, some small ABER photo-etch letters would probably work fine.

Spitfire Wing Blisters

2010-02-20T17:55:00.002-05:00

The wing blisters in Tamiya's Spitfire is a detail that has caused a lot of debate over the new kit. Included with the kit is a uncommon although in some rare cases accurate squared off set of blisters. The version most common is as portrayed in this photo:

Already, some resin manufacturers have provided new blisters, however, these new blisters I do not feel accurately portray the photo, and also require removing the kit blister entirely from the gun cover, and glueing down the new ones - I don't know why anyone hasn't just made strait replacement pieces yet? I decided to stick to my goal of doing all the details from scratch for my build and set out to copy the photo I had, below is my end result and I feel it is accurate enough for me:

Just a couple wires left on the engine and I will need to build a pilot for my Spit and actually start painting this thing.

Panther Airbrushing

2010-02-19T12:56:00.004-05:00

I've been slowly painting my Panther. At this point the airbrush work aside from clear coats is complete, and after a gloss coat I will begin the washes. I have been using Humbrol paints for the camouflage colors, and some Tamiya lacquers for the dust and dirt.

I used the color plates and pictures from Duel in the Mist by AFV Modeller publications as my main reference for painting the dot pattern. The markings are from Archer dry transfers, pieced together from one of their Panther mix sets.

1/32 Spitfire Details

2010-02-18T12:06:00.003-05:00

I've been working away for the last couple weeks at Tamiya's excellent 1/32 Spitfire. The kit is great strait out of the box, however I decided to make a few minor corrections and add some of the finer details that are not present in the kit.

For the seat I added the padded back-rest, missing rivets, and made corrections to the harness using fine wire (.006" & .012")

The sidewalls of the cockpit have been riveted using a fine pounce wheel, I feel it is better to at least represent some sort of riveting than nothing at all in this case. For the more prominent rivets I used sliced .010" plastruct rod, a very time consuming and frustrating process.

The throttle and main landing gear mechanisms have been detailed by removing the thick molded controls and replacing them with thin plastic scratch-built ones, and I used a fine saw to add the recessed paths that they sit in.

The control spade has missing tape added, a detail that is in every spitfire but Tamiya decided not to portray in the kit, possibly because it would not look right molded in plastic. I wrapped thinly sliced decal around the control spade and sealed it with a coat of Tamiya grey putty mixed with Tamiya extra thin cement. More sliced .010" rod rivets are visible in this picture as well.

The cockpit side walls detailed.

The pilots access door has been detailed and I have scratch-built an oxygen hose, another detail missing in the kit if you choose not to model the plane with the pilot in the cockpit. The hose was made by using aluminum rod bent to shape, wrapped with fine wire, the brass piece on the end was made on my small home-made lathe, and the clasp is an old piece of photo-etch.

Some of the kit decals inaccurately portrayed such as the blue artificial horizon have been replaced with more period instruments from a Mike Grant decal set I was given.

I have added new brake lines and a few missing rivets to the landing gear.

A few more details need to be added to the engine, and I want to do some sort of pilot figure to go with the plane, and then it will be time to paint!

Anatomy Correction

2010-02-18T11:57:00.003-05:00

It was pointed out to me by several modeling friends that I made an error in the anatomy of the commander of my Panther. I went back to the figure after taking several pictures of myself in the same pose and corrected the shoulder and position of the arm.

A few cuts and some magic sculpt was all it took to make the correction and I must admit the figure looks much more realistic.

Panther G pre-paint

2009-12-14T12:52:00.004-05:00

My Panther G is ready for paint! It represents a Daimler-Benz machine and will be painted in "dot camo" turret numbers 215 from Kampfgruppe Peiper.

There are more pictures on my flickr account, some of the main construction points I learned from friends and tried to implement on this Panther besides the small details are change the suspension to give a more rear-heavy look, remove the over-scaled gap between the hull and turret, and use 1/48 ABER tool clasps for a better in scale appearance.

New Puppy!

2009-12-08T22:08:00.005-05:00

It's my new modelling buddy that now belongs to me and Katie.

1/10 SS Grenadier #2

2009-11-21T15:35:00.001-05:00

Primed and after fixing up a few minor areas ready for paint.

1/10 SS Tanker

2009-11-15T14:22:00.004-05:00

Today I finished my 1/10 bust of an SS tanker.

I painted the bust entirely with a brush using Humbrol Enamels. Testors dullcote for the matt finish and Humbrol gloss clear poly for the eyes, sweat, googles, ect. I will try to give more information on the painting process later!

There are a few more photos in the gallery!

USMC M4A1

2009-11-08T18:40:00.007-05:00

I finished my USMC M4A1 Sherman! I started the model in summer of 2008 inspired after reading this account of the battle at Cape Gloucester.

The final result:

For the rest of the pictures go to My Model Gallery

Panther G Crew

2009-11-08T18:15:00.006-05:00

I'm finishing construction of a Panther G and was inspired by this picture of a Panther tanker to do a commander in a similar pose.

I decided to use Alpine set 35047. The only downfall of Alpine figures is that they are so good, we end up seeing the same figures being uses over and over again at shows and online. I tried to make as much of a unique spin on my crew as possible.

I used Apoxie Sculpt for the areas needing sculpting, a Hornet head, and some ABER headphones and throat microphones soldered together with fine wire.

Making Welds

2009-11-08T17:24:00.004-05:00

What you need is a dull #11 blade, Tamiya "Super Thin" cement with the fine brush, and some plastruct .010" and .015" rod (depends what size weld you want, to me .020" from evergreen is always too big, and stretched sprue is just not consistant enough)

For this weld I am using the .010" as it is not too prominent. First cut the rod to length and use just a touch of glue to tack it in place:

Next is time to melt the rod, carefully brush on the cement, let sit for a few seconds, and use your dull #11 to add start adding texture, aim for a semi-circle type pattern, if the #11 tip is dull, it should be easy:

And now do it again, add some more glue, wait a few seconds, and further define the texture:

When you are happy with texture, seal it with another thin layer of thin cement, and you are done:

These tiny welds can add alot of character, and it seems most people don't even bother with them, but I think the result is worthwhile!

The process is actually very quick and fun!