Carlos' New Den

[lancfan]

Those Wildcat sprues look awfully like the Frog tooling.
David.

[MerlinJones]

Those Wildcat sprues look awfully like the Frog tooling.
David.

I was thinking the very same.
The pilot and especially the stand are dead giveaways.

Regards,
Bruce

[Justin1980]

Nice new Den Carlos,

Enjoy the wildcat, I have one in the stash, so you may give some motivaton!

Justin

[skypirate]

Those Wildcat sprues look awfully like the Frog tooling.
David.

I have built this kit. Compared to the more recent Hobby Boss example, the fuselage is a bit extra portly.
Not familiar with the old FROG kit.

cheers,

David

[carlos]

Been a long while - so I thought I'd resurrect this - and TRY to keep it updated.

Life got kinda busy for a long while there, and modelling had to take a back seat - but here's a brief catch-up on the few models I have built in the year or so since my last post on this thread.....

The P-40 and Wildcat I started, did eventually get finished.
Nothing strange or startling - they were very cheap kits, but they built-up reasonably well - The Wildcat canopy didn't fit at all well, so I cut it in two, and posed it open.



After I finished those, I built Trumpeter's IL-28 'Beagle', for the 'Early Jets' GB in April 2012
Then nothing until December - Revell's Swordfish.
This was my first foray into rigging since I was in my teens (30-odd yrs ago )
I used 'knitting-in' elastic, and I think it looks OK on a biplane - though I later tried it for antenna wire and needed to stain it, or the colour looked odd.




That update brings me to Christmas 2012.......

[carlos]

At Christmas, I recieved an airbrush and compressor set - courtesy of my wife.

Neat little set - dual-action brush - compressor has a small reservoir tank, pressure adjustment and gauge, plus a water trap.

For my first airbrush project, I already had a larger scale kit on the go (Revell's 1/32 Martlet) - I thought this would be a good place to start as it would avoid intricate airbrushing until I had more practice.
I started this for the Lend-Lease GB in December 2012, but stalled because I decided to re-scribe the
panel lines and it was never gonna be finished within the GB deadline (my first full re-scribe, as well as my first airbrushed kit)
Didn't like the look of the invasion stripe decals either, so I painted those too.
White first - then the black stripes - undersides next, then upper camo last - masking everything in stages as I went.
I was very nervous when it came to peeling off all the masking - but to my amazement, it didn't look too bad, far better than I feared.

I still haven't weathered it - So far I've always gone for the 'factory-fresh' finish, but I think this will benefit from at least a panel-line wash. I picked up some artist's pastels cheap from Aldi a few weeks ago, planning to try making a wash from those..... soon.... LOL

Anyhoo - here's the un-weathered Martlet as it stands right now.




I opened the cowling cooling flaps. Also, the kit had no exhausts on the cowling underside (VERY basic kit) so I scratched a couple - you can see them in that last pic.

After that I built another very basic 1/32 by Revell - the old Hurricane kit (sorry no pics of that yet)
Then participated in the Apollo group build.
Up until now I'd only airbrushed Tamiya acrylics on the major surfaces, and had been using the hairy stick for interiors, detail, etc... I kinda liked the smell of Tamiya acrylics.
For the Apollo command module though, I airbrushed Humbrol enamel - and the fumes were eye-watering.
I'd been using a face-mask when spraying, but when I took it off after spraying Humbrol silver enamel, I had to evacuate the room for a good few hours (after opening the window WIDE)

That prompted me to install some extraction - my booth now has a bathroom extractor fan, vented out of the window.

Since the Apollo GB, I've been building 3 kits simultaneously.
Airfix Val, Airfix new-Tool Zero, and Tamiya's 1/48 Zero.

This is the state of play of those kits right now...




And now...... I'll try to update on a regular basis

[Clashcityrocker]

Those 3 Jap planes look nice.

Nigel

[bilby1968]

Nice looking Nippon line up you have in progress

[skypirate]

Love that big Martlet!
Nice job with the scribing and airbrushing; well done!

cheers,

David

[AndrewR]

The Martlet has come out really well, with all the extra effort.
I always think invasion stripe decals look a bit too perfect, so I paint the stripes too.

Cheers

Andrew

[Ratch]

I always think invasion stripe decals look a bit too perfect, so I paint the stripes too.

Me too

[gfc1963]

WOW! Very nice stuff going on here. That Martlet looks great. And the Japenese planes look good as well.

[jssel]

Great projects going on Carlos. Very very nice.

[gomergizmo]

Great pieces. Nice artistry.

[carlos]

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement chaps!
I'm not too happy with the scribing on the Martlet - some distinctly 'wonky' lines, and looks rather too deep with the paint on (I didn't think it looked too bad before painting)
Oh well, we live and learn - obviously when it comes to scribing it's a case of easy-does-it.
Mightn't look too bad when weathered to look a bit more 'used'

Not had much time the last few days, so have only masked the larger Zero for leading edge yellow....

Oh, and the 'Wulf in Johnson's clothing' GB starts in a coupla days - I've got a stalled Airfix Helldiver waiting in the wings, for an Italian paint-scheme.
I'll link to the build thread when it gets going.