DocRob

Great work on the plumbing , Danny and I guess it pays off, because it will be very visible on a F-16 compared to other frames. Love the work you put into the bird and follow with interest, even though I have no love for the F-16. Cheers Rob

Wow, can't comment that quick, than you build . I love the way, your Hellcat turns out, with the masked markings instead of decals. I found it always easier to integrate painted markings into a paintjob and weathering, specially considering the size. I'm eager to see your weathering on gloss paint base, specially the mentioned sun faded effects. I have no idea how you will realize that, but I'm buckled in and follow. Cheers Rob

Basic painting is done with the RSO. Now everything will be glued together, the windows with their painted frames will be added and other tiny parts. I tried to give the dull grey a little depth by using different shades. The base color is Lifecolour Schwarzgrau (Black grey), the lighter parts are Anthrazit grey and more stages got some drops of ivory. I decided against white, to let the Colour rendition not be too cool. That will help to get a nice looking dust coverage, while it hinders the starch contrasts a little. The volume effect is hard to see on the pictures, which where taken a shade lighter than in reality to show the details better. Cheers Rob

Sweet work, your Matador will look great. Cheers Rob

Good to see you continuing the P-61. I liked what you did then with the interior and details and look forward to your progress. Cheers Rob

By the time I was a kid times were different. Many things like exploration of space or deep sea had an 'anything goes' approach, everything seemed possible. People where hopping on the moon and little DocRob was glued in front of the screen or reading books about Cousteaus expeditions under the sea. That was no Jules Verne stuff, it was reality and it translated into a deep addiction to these subjects. Then there was Sci Fi, mostly in the form of Star Trek (Shattner /Nimroy) and Space 1999 and the gerat German Space Patrol Orion / Raumpatrouille Orion (No idea if it is available in English), but my screen time was limited by my parents and some of the stuff added to me being fascinated about these subjects. After a while the simple and often repeated plots started to annoy me more and more until today which lead to not showing any series of Sci Fi on TV anymore. Beside the plots I do not like the simple and ever same lame animated CGI. But that changed with me sitting in a cinema and watching ALIEN and sweating and wincing with my fellow attenders, how that Giger creature not only ripped apart the crew of the Nostromos, but also did the same to the boring and still reflecting the spirit of the 1950's, now old school Sci Fi. There was something new, it was dirty, it was tough, well designed with a simple but catching plot, it had everything the old stuff lacked, it was believable. Not in a way like real live, but in itself. I have the same problems with Sci Fi like Ernie mentioned, with stuff that would not work that way in reality, but if something tells a redefined story like Alien or later Aliens, I skip these concerns, because the story works in itself. Besides Alien and even more Aliens had a lot of metaphors in their story which enhances the audiovisual experience to a new level in Sci Fi. Having designed 3D animations for fun in my earlier years, I have to admit, that a well made stop motion animation is far better than the most computer generated animations with their always flirtation to hype effects, like the addition of lens flares in every possible setting in the late 90's until now. This in small describes the lousyness of CGI, blow up a defect in the believe of creating drama with it. Sorry to get me drawn away on that subject, but one last and pity thought about it is, that I lost my old finished model of a Dropship from Aliens while going to Spain. I would love to give it a new paintjob and weathering with my tools and abilities of today. Cheers Rob

After Jeroen tried them successfully I had to get me the complete package of AK's weathering pencils. I use normal pencils a lot for weathering, chipping and highlighting. I'm eager to try these on the gray canvas of my actual RSO build. AK states, that you can use them dry (of course) and with water to generate streaking effects and deposit effects with them. I will report a little about the results in the RSO build log. Cheers Rob

That looks awesome, nice and quick work and it seems like sanding down the oil canning effect a little pays off. Cheers Rob

Good to see this one continue . Can't wait for the finish line. Cheers Rob

I think this counts as Sci Fi, but I have to admit, that it's not finished until now. It will be the Hover Ship, with the crazy ground crew and some resin parts of the Berlin Wall in a fun what if scenario. Cheers Rob

Some little things were done lately, mainly assembling the main components like tank, containers and the lower part of the compartment. I figured it a nice touch to add a well used map of the Normandy area and crushed packet of Gloria cigarettes (better assembled after the pic). The second photo shows most of the subassemblies loosely fitted. Cheers Rob

Nice job on the engine. Are these ignition wires kit parts or did you add them? Cheers Rob

Thanx Senhores, I hope to continue soon with some progress as I'm eager to see what I could do with that monochrome grey behemoth. I definitely want to put some live into it. Cheers Rob

This cockpit is looking great, nice wear on the floor. The camera lens is marvelous, I like playing with different grades of reflection on kits surfaces and glass parts reflect a lot. Cheers Rob

Oil canning seems to be a little over done, at least compared to the renovation project of a F6F-3 from Yanks in Chino. Another shot I made from the folding mechanism. Cheers Rob

When I feel bad about an actual PE-project I browse through my extras for my 251 and start to get a more relaxed approach to the PE in front of me, even some dignity. This will be a true test of passion, I'm sure, but I will do it one day and in the end I can state, that there is more metal in the build than plastic. Actually the whole upper part will be made of PE and this will need to be soldered. Cheers Rob

Nice and clean work with the Tiger stripes. That paintjob suits the mean looking machine. Cheers Rob

Generally spoken, as an ex engineer, I love working with metal, be it white metal for gears or be it PE. For many subassemblies on armor kits, I love the stuff, as it reproduces the sheet thinness very accurate and you can dent and deform it in a very natural way. Bigger parts are better to solder to get a good bond. In aircraft modelling I have mixed feelings, as I like to reproduce very accurate flaps with PE. It's a pain, but no pain no gain, it is the best way to have the necessary sheet appearance. For cockpits I start to go away from pre painted PE, because on some of my last builds the Colour rendition was not good and hard to adapt Colour wise and sometimes the PE IP's were rasterized and didn't fit too well. Generally spoken, I'm a little bored by too many presentations of cockpits with pre painted PE, be it my own builds or others. Generally spoken, pure IP panels often look too flat for my liking. On the other hand, I received some Yahu panels lately which look great. The Colour rendition looks accurate, bezel details are great and they are matte. On many aircraft kits I built lately, the provided plastic parts for panels and IP's were too soft in detail to paint them nicely, dog. The best way of represent cockpit parts like panels and IP is resin. These parts hand painted look much more 3D and are better adapted into the cockpit. Another mostly sufficient way is the Tamiya/Trumpeter approach with plastic pars over film or decal. Proper painted this often looks great. For seat belts to me HGW's paper belts are the best, detail wise, and almost a must in 1/32, for 1/48 pre painted steel is sufficient. I have to admit, that I'm always afraid bending these, but never actually had problems with flaking Colour. I don't know which kit bugged you, but yeah, PE tends to let the emotions fly high, be it good, after you accomplished great stuff with it or be it bad, after applying 23 of 24 previously individual bended parts and loose the last one to the carpet monster. As a verdict, all of this could be written about resin, decals, white metal, vac canopies, foiling or paints and weathering products with different arguments. In the end it is our decision how to reproduce and which materials we use. Cheers Rob

Thanks Phil, it's not easy to get decent results on photographing models, it's a steep learning curve and depends a lot on the equipment, Cell phone or camera, what type of lens is available, the source of light and backgrounds and other equipment. If you use a camera, try manual metering and spot measurement for the light. Try to get as much light as possible and adjust the light temperature (in Kelvin) correctly (white balance). Use a decent aperture of at least f8 for sufficent depth of field. But do I remember right, that there were some nice pics of a Marder and a LRDG Chevy, so whom do I tell. Cheers Rob

Scaring work with these canopies, but it seems you have saved everything. Is there a reason, why you haven't masked the canopy before assembly? It would have made working with them a little less stressing. Cheers Rob

Thanks Jeff, it's always nice, when a vague idea transforms into the desired result. That is an important part of modelling to me, to constantly learn new things and take challenges, some bigger or some smaller like that leather bench and I have to admit, that the pure plastic gluing building process of a kit sometimes annoys me. Painting, weathering and finishing is the pleasure part to me. Cheers Rob

Thank you, this is an out oob build, the kit is very good and there is no real need for AM, but with all my builds I try to learn something new and in this case it was the leather effect and it will be to give a little live to a dull Panzergrau by adding tonal volume in a later stage and of course the placement of figures in a hopefully eye catching way. I toyed with both, black and white background and both have their pros and cons. In this case the contrast between Panzergrau and white is enormous and metering with the camera is a difficult task. In other areas than modelling I call myself a decent photographer, but to get used to harsh artifical light and a heavy dose of macro, with the need of a good depth of field still gives me the creeps. I use a good micro 4/3 camera and have a wide range of prime lenses. I don't use zooms anymore because of their optical limitations, but I'm always amazed, how good many of the Cell Phone pics are, without the fuzz of manual metering and adjusting. To me modelling photography is the most challenging field and I tried a lot of other very experimental ways to take photos like available light and art photography over the years. I try to learn from the masters and there are some in our little corner of the net. Cheers Rob

Next on my RSO schedule was the interior and I wanted to try something new. The leather bench painted in Tamiya semi gloss black looked way too new, so I decided to do something good for the health of my part time smoking wife and took some of her cigarettes, got rid of the tabacco and crumpled the paper. Then I applied some white glue-water mix to the bench and backrest and applied the paper. After that I dabbed some Tamiya earth brown onto the still a little wet cigarette paper as a background for the crackles. Looks ugly, but that was what I was expecting and the rib structure of the paper pays off. After everything was dried, I applied first some semi gloss black with a near dry old stiff brush carefully only stroking in one direction. After doing that several times, I changed to flat black and continued. While stroking I emphasized the places, where the crew must have left the most wear with the fewest color and added a little volume. The effect was a bit to glossy for my liking, so I mixed some drops of future with Tamiya flat base and applied again nearly drybrushing. A little shine should be left, like worn old leather develops. I like the result and the bench looks much more realistic and textured that way and sports the wanted crackled effect. The interior with all it's levers got some treatment first with Uschis steel pigments, some yellow penciling and MIG's European dust pigments and some tiny drops of AK's engine oil to the bases of the levers and tiny random drops, applied with a toothpick. Bad pic here, but Panzergrau against white background is hard to meter. I added some steel pigments to enhance screwheads, nuts and bolts and the suspension and added the exhaust which was given my trusty treatment of base color with different tones of acrylic rust paint and then different tones of rust pigments dabbed into the half dried acrylics. That is done with the Lifecolour rust set, which is perfect for the task, containing both, colors and pigments. As a last step, to get a little metal sheen, I apply a little steel pigment with a dry brush, just enough to get a slight metal look, which joins the different grades of corrosion. Cheers Rob

Nice, it's not all about large scale and tons of aftermarket. Sometimes it's about FUN and we tend to forget that. Your daughter looks proud, and I see you hop around and try not to tell her about the colour scheme of that specific aircraft and the possibilities to use some AM or at least specific decals Some time ago I built a Meng toon Kv-2 and had a lot of fun. It's not painted, maybe because I was not sure about 4BO and modulation combined with hairspray and enamel streaking https://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/5406-and-now-to-something-completely-different-meng-kv-2/?tab=comments#comment-67871 Keep the funny side up Cheers Rob

Nice eight wheeler, love the commander peeking out. Cheers Rob