I ordered the Osiris Models (now no longer operating) Matilda flail. It was very nicely detailed, amazing in some respects actually if you look at the chain flails, but the Matilda used in the kit was one of the very earliest ones with the armored co-axial M/G and the different exhaust system. I couldn't find any photos of the use of these earlier vehicles, so I went on the hunt for an ESCI Matilda, it being the most readily, if rare, 1/72 version of the later mark vehicle. I finally tracked one down (no pun intended) and set to work adapting the Osiris flail mechanism to the ESCI kit. It fit quite well actually and took minimal work with only the addition of the support beams to the sides of the Matilda being necessary. I did need to add the lane indicators to the rear however, but these hadn't been included in the Osiris kit either. One other small addition was the flail operator. He is a modified seated figure that has lost his arms and legs but he now fits in the rather cramped space. One drawback is that the commander figure from the ESCI kit has a face more reminiscent of a chimpanzee than a brave warrior.

Staying with the horror theme a little longer, Fr. Damien Karras the troubled priest from the 1973 Exorcist film went on the hobby table. The character was played by Jason Miller who sadly passed away in 2001. As a sidebar his son is Jason Patrick of Lost Boys fame! The kit is in 2 simple parts - the bust and the base. Looking it over there was only the slightest flash line in the hair, which was easily removed. The sculpt IMO is a freeze frame of when the demon enters the priest, saving Regan. I was surprised that looking for a screen grab of that part of the scene was harder to find than I thought. With the black priest garb this is going to be an easy paint up. I start as usual with my "pinkle" and red base coat to the skin. While that was drying, my plan was to make the name plate a tarnished bronze. I saw a tutorial where the tarnish is painting in first and then the metallic is dry brushed on later. So lets see... Then the bronzing... Next up is the face colors, and despite him looking very pale in that last image, I felt he needed a little coloring as the first skin application. The priest garb is simply black, and then I added some black gray as a highlight for the shoulders etc... V's Pale Flesh was added to the face and then with the outline of his eyes sculpted it, I added a little Agrax Wash to the round divots and then a greenish yellow to the irises once the Wash dried. The final need was taking my stylus tool and with a dip into black made the pupils. He was finished. He can now join his partner Fr. Merrin who was previously done. Thanks for looking. (apologies for the bad pic...)

I searched for this kit for some time as it is the only one I know of that is an injection molded plastic model of the Tiger before her conversion to a helicopter/command ship. It's a very old kit and there is a bit of flash and a lot of mold seams to deal with along with making sure everything fit together well. I drilled out the portholes and added the Gold Medal detail set and used generic doors and railings. I ran out of steam when it came time to rig her and since most of the rigging would be attached to a lot of those fragile PE parts, I chose the better part of valor and called it done.

I searched for this kit for some time as it is the only one I know of that is an injection molded plastic model of the Tiger before her conversion to a helicopter/command ship. It's a very old kit and there is a bit of flash and a lot of mold seams to deal with along with making sure everything fit together well. I added the Gold Medal detail set and used generic railings. I ran out of steam when it came time to rig her and since most of the rigging would be attached to a lot of those fragile PE parts, I chose the better part of valor and called it done.

I just completed the brand new Academy 1/144 B-2 Stealth Bomber. It's a very good kit with excellent fit, adequate cockpit, complete intake and exhaust trunking, optional opened wingtip speed brakes, fully detailed bomb bay and gear wells (which I left out since I was building this for my mother-in-law's shelf), and a choice of 3 bomb loadouts. The parts provided to close up the gear wells and bomb bay fit perfectly! Decals were excellent with a choice of 5 aircraft and the kit also comes with masks for the canopy and the wheels. I bent a length of clear rod in order to mount the model in flight on a simple base, using a concentric piece of plastic tubing cemented inside the fuselage as a socket. That's #14 for the year down! On to #15! Gil

I haven't built a B-17 kit in some 30 years and want to do the RoG kit but needed some practice so I tried this one. I forgot how big this thing is!! Tried to fix the wing dihedral with some success and used the engines from my Hasegawa kit to replace the Academy ones.....much better. Setting the bomb bay doors in the closed position was a challenge which I failed somewhat. The decals in this 'Nose Art' boxing were outstanding. Got me looking forward to building the Hasegawa and RoG kits now.

My latest effort is the 1/48 Hobby Boss FJ-4 Fury. The kit has recessed panel lines and rivet detail, and average cockpit detail. Overall shapes and outlines appear accurate, save for one glaring error: the rear fuselage, between the trailing edge of the wings and the horizontal stabilizers, had a very prominent "dip" that shouldn't be there. A review of this kit in Bert Kinzeys' Detail & Scale book on the FJ-4 has instructions on how to correct this error, but I decided to live with it as is. Wing fold joints are included, but you must cut the wing tips apart yourself. Overall, parts fit is good, with a little filler needed at the wing roots and at spots along the fuselage and nose. The kit decals provide markings for two Marine jets, from VMF-451 'Warlords', and VMF-232 'Red Devils', but the blue in the VMF-451 markings are way too light. Hobby Boss offers kits of both the FJ-4 and FJ-4B, but you can build either variant from either kit. If you build an FJ-4, be sure to sand off the rear-most speed brake door on each fuselage half, and use the nose gear door without the antenna fairing. My references for this build were: Squadron/Signal Publications No. 103, FJ Fury in Action; Naval Fighters No. 25, North American FJ-4/4B Fury, by Steve Ginter; and the excellent FJ Fury in Detail & Scale, Part 2: FJ-4 and -4B Variants, by Bert Kinzey. Another valuable online source of photos and information was this web page on Replica in Scale: https://replicainscale.blogspot.com/search?q=fj-4 I wasn't happy with the barely-there kit instrument panel detail and how the cockpit consoles were represented, so I used an aftermarket cockpit set from AMS Resin. The kit seat is good, but lacks cushions and belts. The AMS resin seat wasn't that much better, but it did have a seat cushion, belts, and oxygen hose molded in. The kit has nicely detailed sidewall parts, but I couldn't get them to fit with the resin cockpit set. The AMS set also includes a detailed part for the area under the rear of the canopy, for which Hobby Boss provides nothing. The cockpit parts were airbrushed Model Master Acryl Dark Gull Grey, then details were hand-painted, and attached to the fuselage half. The AMS set also included a exhaust piece with flame holder, but it didn't fit well so I used the kit exhaust, and a length of styrene tube with the flame holder glued to the end to give the exhaust pipe some depth . The intake trunk fit pretty well but still needed sanding and putty to eliminate seams. The nose intake ring lacks the approach light at the bottom, so a section was cut from the intake and three small holes drilled, and painted Tamiya clear red, amber, and green. The cutout for the lights was then filled with Micro Krystal Klear. I ended up doing a lot of sanding around the intake to smooth everything out. Before closing up the fuselage halves, I added several large fishing weights to keep the model from being a tail-sitter. The fuselage speed brakes can be posed open, and have good detail inside, but I glued mine shut. The fit here was poor. The prominent vents on each fuselage side were too thick, so they were sanded down to paper-thinness, glued on place and faired in with Vallejo putty. The openings to these vents are also shaped incorrectly, but I didn't try to correct them. Airframe assembly went smoothly. Minor gaps at the wing root, nose and fuselage were filled with Vallejo putty, and Mr. Dissolved Putty. Wing fences are molded onto each wing, and were sanded to thin them to a more accurate scale thickness. Parked FJ-4's usually have a nose-up stance. The kit nose gear strut is a little short, so I added a one-eighth inch section of styrene rod to the top of the strut, and replaced the compressed torque links with a photo-etched one from my spares box. The nose gear fork was cut away and repositioned turned to the right. I added wire brake lines to the kits' main gear struts, and painted all the struts Tamiya Titanium Silver. Most of my reference photos showed that the main gear doors were often open when the jet was parked, but the kit doors had no detail on the insides. I used very thin sheet styrene cut to fit inside each main door, and cut lightening holes in them based on the photos I had. I also added rivets with a riveting tool along the door edges for added detail. One painted and highlighted with Tamiya panel line wash, they looked much better. All the gear bays were painted white, then the details highlighted with Tamiya black panel line wash. North American usually painted the entire inner surface of their landing gear doors red, but careful study of photographs indicated that Reserve jets had white inner gear doors, outlined in red. The landing light in the smaller nose gear door was painted Chrome Silver, and a wire added to the back of this light. The kits' wingtip pitot probe was too thick and inaccurate, so I built a new one with lengths of styrene rode and wire. The FJ-4 series has three fuel dump vents: one on each wingtip trailing edge, and another just under the fairing above the rudder. The wingtip vents are molded solid, so they were drilled out and sanded to shape. The tail dump pipe was recreated with a small piece of styrene rod drilled out and glued in place, then painted red. A small white position light was also added to the rear of the vertical fin fairing just above the rudder. I also added a missing vent on the left side of the upper fuselage, behind the canopy. The kit includes two drop tanks, two Sidewinders, and six Bullpup air-to-ground missiles, but the FJ-4 never carried Bullpups. The FJ-4 had long legs for a fighter, and therefore didn't usually carry drop tanks, either, so I left these off as well. I should point out here that the Navy flew the FJ-4B attack version, while the Marines flew the FJ-4 fighter version. Reserve squadrons often flew a mix of both types. I primed the model for painting with Tamiya White Fine Surface Primer. The paint scheme I chose was that of a Navy/Marine Reserve jet based at NAS Memphis in 1962. It was in the standard Gull Grey over White undersurfaces and control surfaces, but with the entire nose, tail, and forward half of the wings painted Florescent Orange. I used Model Master acrylic Flat Gull Grey for the topside color, Tamiya White Primer for the underside color, and Model Master Acryl Florescent Red (which is actually Orange) for the high-visibility color areas. Leading edges of the wings and stabilizers were sprayed Titanium Silver as well. After painting was complete, I gave the entire jet a coat of Future Floor Polish for a gloss coat, then applied the decals. No decal sheets existed for the jet I was making, but fortunately they are easily scrounged. The '6M' tail code, wing code, bureau number, and aircraft number came from AeroMaster and SuperScale letter and number sheets from my decal catalogs. The Navy/Marine Reserve service designator came from an old Testor F2H Banshee kit. The rest of the markings came from AeroMaster sheet #14193, 'Furies of The Fleet in Color, Pt. 2'. Once all the markings were applied, a final coat of Mr. Super Clear Matt sealed the decals. The final step was attaching the canopy, which led to the trickiest part of the build. Under the rear section of the FJ-4/4B canopy is a cylindrical object which isn't identified in any of my references, but I do recall reading somewhere that it's an oxygen regulator. A black coiled cable, resembling an old telephone cord, runs from this 'regulator' to the rear of the ejection seat. The cord is stretched taught when the canopy is open. It's very visible in photographs, so I recreated the cord by wrapping thin copper wire around a small drill bit, spraying it black, and attaching it to the 'regulator', which was then glued to the underside of the canopy. When dry, the canopy was then attached to the model. The Hobby Boss 1/48 Fury kits are a mixed bag: beautiful, crispy-molded and engraved parts that are flash-free with good fit, but with sub-par cockpit detail and a large 'dip' on each side of the rear fuselage that shouldn't be there. Still, a little extra detailing and work will reward you with a fine model of this very capable Navy fighter of the 1950's.

Favorite model when I was a kid. Had to re-do it. Enough said that you can't relive your childhood. Fought me all the way, but it's done.

HI ! I have so many extra parts that I have accumulate true the years and finaly decided it was time to give them a little love , So here it is .. the first BABY step to the project !.. If you like to follow the complete WIP on this project , I have set up an GOOGLE page, just follow this link .. https://photos.app.goo.gl/NtNSgh1zJgx9jRSx5 Here an exemple of the one I have completed so far Enjoy ! Jmarc

This next build is a commission build. I have a client who requests/schedules a build every year. He was a Harrier pilot for VMA-214 also known as the “Blacksheep”. For this build he has requested a build of the famous F4U Corsair the Blacksheep flew and it be set in a diorama of a Pacific Island Airfield. The F4U I will be using is the 1/48 Tamiya F4U-1A Corsair which will be mounted in a custom display case From Grandpa's Cabinet's featuring a typical island airfield with a Mini-Art Marston tarmac, a row of palm trees to line the back of the display, a background behind the trees of a beach/ocean view, and mounts that the client can attach the squadron patch and his name tag. I will also be using Eduard photo etch details to add to the realism. Starting off with the cockpit I added the photo etch replacements for the seat and the seat mount on the rear bulkhead. The side consoles were then modified with more photo etch details. The instrument panel was replaced with a placard for the gauges and the photo etch face. The last of the photo etch details and seat belts were installed onto the cockpit halves and then the cockpit tub was assembled. I am now working on detailing the inside of the fuselage halves and the engine. I am hoping to get the fuselage assembled and starting by the end of the next week. You can see all the photos and details from start to finish in the build log at: https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-f4u-1a-corsair/

Just finished #13 for this year, the old 1/48 Monogram AV-8A Harrier, built OOTB except for some Quinta 3D cockpit decals. Did this one quick and dirty just to familiarize myself with the Harrier as I don't build many modern jets. The kit decals shattered on me so I had to substitute some "faux" Blacksheep markings that I won't be using when building the new UMA AV-8B. I also had to home vac a new windscreen as the kit part was cracked. It won't win any prizes, but it suited my purposes! Kit interior with the Quinta placards in place. I used my old Mattel vac machine to make a new windshield after sanding the cracked kit part smooth. And the rest of the pics! On to the next one! Gil

This was done as a challenge. A couple of friends of mine purchased this at the IPMS Nationals and more or less dared me to make it. So being the chump I am, I searched out the needed donor kit and had at it when I got home. The conversion kit consisted of six parts, two fuselage halves and four radiator parts, two tops and two bottoms. You had to cut into the donor kit's wing to inset the radiators. I've seen this conversion done a couple of times and done MUCH better than mine, but I think you can get the general idea of what a Tempest Mk I looked like anyway. I did personalize it in one way, I assumed that since it was a prototype that perhaps it was still being test flown by Hawkers, so I put my pilot in a white jump suit as I've seen on many newsreels of the era. Don't mind the color shift, he really isn't orange. In reality, there were two prototypes built, one of the car door variety and the other with the final bubble top. The shift away from the wing mounted radiators to the more recognizable chin one was due to a change in power plant as the original intended one had development problems.

Was wondering if there was an RSS feed that we could follow when new IPMS/USA news and updates dropped?

I tried to import the Event Calendar into my Google calendar so I could keep track of any events my club members might like to know about. I clicked on the little orange iCal button at the bottom left of the calendar and and copied the url it gave into the import section of my Google calendar. Google says there is no calendar file there to import. Is there another link somewhere to the actual calendar file we could grab?

This is "Sammy" Allard's No. 85 Squadron Hurricane Mk. I in France in the spring of 1940. The Airfix kit is quite nice if you put a little effort into it. The wheels are from Barracuda Studios, the early-style exhausts are from Quickboost, and the decals are from Xtradecals (except for the serials, which I made myself because the font on the decal sheet was totally spurious). The model is lightly weathered with oils - thanks to Steve Husted for the inspiration and instruction (via video!).

This is the Char B1 kit from the Char/FT17 set. It's a pretty nice little kit. Fit was good, if a bit fiddly around the main gun. Tracks are well done but due to their rubber band nature are hard to paint/finish. It even has separate tools, which in this scale and at the time it was released was somewhat of a rarity.

I began this one a few weeks ago starting with collecting parts from previous WC projects. I had molds for fenders, tires and wheels and a frame from a WC-52 that I was planning on building but never did. The frame was stretched by adding a section in the middle for the longer WC-54 wheel base. Springs and axles are brass with the differentials from two part resin. Body sides are 0.030" Evergreen plastic sheet. The cab is diecast and was cut from a '41 Dodge pickup. The doors, dashboard and windshield have been saved for use. Unlike the other WC projects the hood has some slant and curve to it due to the commercially built cowl. So new hood sections will be cut from brass sheet. The top has been the most challenging because of the complex shape and the idea of keeping it open for detailing the interior of the body. A master was made of Renshape from which a silicone rubber slush mold was made. With the mold done two part casting resin was mixed and poured into it allowing it to cover the full inside surface of the mold but without filling it. After 4-5 smaller pours around the outside, I had a well formed roof that was about 1/16" thick. Something I could use to detail the body interior. That's where we are so far. Working on those quirky little returns above the cab doors now.

Just finished the Academy 1/48 F-4J in Blue Angels colors. This was a kit started by fellow club member Larry Goodell that I took off his hands so it could be finished up. The markings were from Mil Spec and were tough to apply on the bottom as none of them were pre-cut to fit the landing gear doors. Some of them also tended to chip along the edges some. There's a LOT of warts on this one as it was a purely "git 'er done" project. It does look good sitting next to my BA Connie though! Now on to the next one! GIL

Hello all! Now that I found a bit of free time, here's the latest pass in review of all the models I finished in August... and the one at the end of July that I never got to post. First, the last one finished in July. This is the Airfix 1/76 scale British Mk.I Male from WWI: Now for the ones I finished in August... In no particular order we have: PST 1/72 scale Russian 37mm AA Gun: Another PST kit, the 1/72 scale Zis-42M Halftrack: Revell 1/72 scale Russian BTR-50PK APC: Back to PST for another 1/72 scale BTR-50PK APC, this one in Egyptian markings: Another Egyptian subject, this is the Trumpeter 1/72 scale SA-6 Gainful in Egyptian markings: Next is a Heller 1/72 scale GMC truck from the "Red Ball Express": I might do something with that cab; I don't like the way it looks. For now it's done. Next up is the Riich Models 1/725 scale M109A2 Paladin done in Italian markings: Finally we have these last two. First is the Attack 1/72 scale German Tatra T-111 cargo truck. I built this one entire without instructions since they didn't come in the box and I couldn't find any online anywhere: The last in this group is the Modelcollect 1/72 scale German FAUN SLT-56 that came with the Leopard 2A7. I'd built the tank some time ago, so it was time to build the transporter: And that is all I have for now. Stay tuned, there's more coming down the pike. Meanwhile, thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

This model is the star of the 2024 film Nosferatu. If you haven't seen it yet, you must. While it's a take off of the 1920s silent film, it is 1000 times creeper. Bill Skarsgard has the title role and boy does he deliver! The 1/4 scale kit is from Pestilence Labs and comes in five 3-D printed parts that are flawless. The hardest part was getting decent sample images of the Count. If you have seen the movie, you know many parts of it are visually dark. I found 2 images I liked, but still had to lighten them. If nothing else it clearly shows that his decrepit uniform wasn't just "plain." Lets get started. Being his skin is a pale, dead color, I started with a base of purple. I don't know if the coat color was an artifact of the lightening, but I thought it looked good enough and went with the darkest blue I could find. After I painted the blue, I found a pic of the costume on display and the coat is nothing like I was thinking. The dark tone of the film hides all the details. But the embroidery and extras on his coat were clear and I painted them a bronze color. Once dry, I dirtied it up. The hat looks dark, so that was an easy part. The skin looked to me as if it was colors of gray, But I wanted to add a little saturation to it. So in the end I mixed V's White Gray with a little bit of Pale Flesh. I thought it gave me that sickly pallor. His hand was done in a similar manner. I also noticed that the fur collar was just one color, so I started dark and then added highlights to the tufts. The painted was based in black, and then highlighted in a dark gray and dark brown. The jewel was done in the style of miniatures ( not all that happy with the result). Then the feathers were done in a very dark red with some lighter red just to draw out the detail. The base was next and I saw in a critique video that the reviewer was knocking bases that attracted more attention that the supposed focus - the figure. So the base was painted with V's Black Gray, and then I added that bronze (to unite the figure with the base) to the adornments and skulls. Dots of Turquoise gave it the verdigris, and then I dirtied it all up. I left the eyes for the end the way his head is slightly tilted down, it told me that he was looking thru his brow. I painted them like I always do with a base of black, and then the 1/2 circles of brown, and corners of that same White Gray. To add to the creep factor I added a dark yellow to the part of the iris that would be lit. Then that was dry A used a Citadel red wash to get them bloody. A few coats of V's Metallic Varnish gave me the gloss and I was done. Thanks for looking.