telepatu

Now this looks really interesting. Following 🍿

Following with interest how this kit will build up. I see that Björn has a Thulin D listed in future projects. Thulin D was the first aircraft in the Finnish Air Force, it would be cool to build that one

Revell has a Hawker Hunter T.7-T.7A in 1:32 listed on their website: https://revell.de/en/shop/product/037869090-hawker-hunter-t-7-t-7a Price tag is a bit nicer (49,99e) than the Meteor (119,00e)

There I was slowly building the Minicraft C-97 while waiting for the paint to dry on the An-225.. trying to test fit the wings 😖 There must be another kit floating around the world that has two starboard wings, right? If you happen to read this, please msg me 👋 Also the canopy seems more like a canopy from a C-54, definitely not a C-97! 🙃

Big thank you to Ernie for organising the raffle again! Merry Christmas to all. Here's hoping for a better next year to everyone!

I'm in. Sorry to be a little late to the party, but I'd like to offer a set for Bf 109 building: A kit: Revell Bf 109 G6 Early & Late (kit nr 04665) and a reference book, Valiant Wings Bf 109 Late series (F to K including the Z series) Alternatively, if the recipient is not keen on Messerschmitts or lives on the other side of the world, we can work out a gift certificate to the hobby shop of your choice. Merry Christmas, Jani

Some progress report on the Kamaz. The Zvezda Kamaz is a new tool from 2024. It is surprisingly well detailed, especially when compared to the Mi-8. The Revell is a rebox of a KP kit from 1989. I suppose 35 years for development in moulding technology can be seen. It is almost a shame to butcher this nice kit. Almost 😈 I built the Kamaz when waiting for the cement to dry on the An-225. The cockpit was quite simple build. Lovely detail. But the pipes and lines and whatnots under the fuselage are really tiny. Here's the basically completed truck sans wheels and hubcaps. Now it is waiting for its turn at the paint booth. There's already some queue from other builds as well 😆 -Jani

And I still couldn't get the trailing edge to sit tight 🤔

quick shot from the bench

Well, I guess there is a bit of a daredevil in me. I saw the Mi-8Trucks that @mark31 posted in the poll, that looked really interesting. That image kept nagging me. I knew I had a 1:72 Mi-8 in the stash. That would fit perfectly in the theme for our local club's exhibition. When I saw the Kamaz truck in the almost local hobby store, I knew I had to grab it. So... challenge accepted? 🫣 This will be a quick, mostly OOB build between other builds. Something resmembling this is the goal: We'll see how it goes. 😁 Unfortunately it is only in the small scale, 1:35 kits were a bit too pricey for current modelling budget. Sorry about that. Regards, Jani

Thank you for your kind words. Hopefully I'll find the canopy sooner or later. After all the time invested in this one I'd like to get it over the finish line. 😅

Wtih the extension to the deadline I thought I'll give it a go and finish this "frog" 😜 I painted the digital camo starting from the lightest colour first, then masking the next darkest colour ("Dusty Grey") and so on. I did the first two colours with one masking session. Then I removed all masks and masked out only the third darkest colour ("Mouse Grey"), removed all masks and masked out only the darkest grey, "German Grey". The result can be seen here. I like the end result, although I made the mistake by choosing too d ark colour for the dusty grey. I didn't have exact matches for dusty grey or mouse grey so I winged it. Dusty grey pixels were too dark, which lead to mouse grey being too dark again.. you can see where this is going... In the end, I ended up adding some black to the German Grey that I would have had straight from the bottle. Even then the Mouse Grey and German Grey are almost the same. Removing the bottom masks revealed quite big paint lifting. I was a bit worried that the Foxbot masks would lift paint since the instructions warned about it. In this case it was the regular masking tape that did the lifting. If I recall correctly, this wasn't Tamiya tape but some other brand, might have been 3M. I need to be wary of that later. Well, that can be fixed with another session with the airbrush. I started gathering up bombs and fuel and whatnot to add them under thw wings. Looking good so far, still some painting to do. Even the pilot found his way near the plane. I stole the pilot from old Monogram F-102. I guess I need to build that soonish so I wouldn't have an incomplete kit in the stash 😆 The most observant readers have noticed that the canopy is not here yet. I left it out so I can paint the ejection seat and pilot separately, adding them once the big paint jobs are done. I put the canopy in a safe place in the beginning of summer. That location is so secure that now I cannot find the bugger anymore! 🤦‍♂️ So this build willl remain unfinished for a while. I'll paint the under wing stores and others just in case I find the canopy later. I already glued the ejection seat in, otherwise I could have changed this into a diorama where the pilot is ejecting 😁 Speaking of dioramas, changing this build into this diorama has occurred more than once 🤣 Foxbot masks were quite nice to work with, they are quite thick and don't conform to tight curves too well. In those places I adde some extra masking tape. I have some more masks from Foxbot, looking forward to working with them in another projects. Thanks for reading! Br, Jani

This is the current status: fuselage glued, some cleaning to do on the seams. Left wing root required some extra filling, there was a gap of almost 1 mm. Most probable cause was me, not closing the internal gluing point fully. The fail fins are also assembled, I'm planning to paint those separately.

After the cargo bay was painted it was glued to the fuselage halves. The fit was quite good, but I missed one part, it was not fully closed, which was hard to detect in this phase. The wheel wells had nice guiding bits, which were helpful since I almost attached them backwards. 🦤 The fuselage is glued from one side. I built the nose section already, that can be seen in the background. The bottleholder has been excellent, I would have tipped the Tamiya extra thin at least five times when I was handling the long fuselage. The instructions call for 20 gr of weight in the galley. Not much room for the crew anymore 😆 The instructions called for grey paint in this area, I don't know why... It can't be seen anyway. I have added the Metallic Details grills on the fuselage. They do add some detail, which is nice.

I have started the build, I'm liking the kit so far. The build starts with the cargo bay. From the looks of it, it won't be seen at all if the nose is closed. While I'm a firm believer of "if it can't be seen, don't bother with it", I tried to paint the inside. There's even some weathering on the walls and the floor. Not that is can be seen at all. Maybe with a bright torch? It does look quite barren when compared to the real thing (screen capture from a youtube video):

I haven't seen that one. I remember seeing an "Antonov 500" in the movie 2012:

Hi! I won the huge An-225 in the Christmas raffle of 2023. Huge thanks to @Clunkmeister ! I kinda promised to do a WIP, so here goes... Initially I was going to go for an out of the box build, but somehow I ended up with few aftermarket bits. - Wheels set from ResKit - Engines and exterior details from Metallic Details - Kabuki masks sets from New Ware; engines set and basic set, hopefully they will speed up the masking process at least a bit We have a local modelling club exhibition coming up in November with a theme of loosely translated as "what the heck is that". The Mriya fits that category perfectly. So I have a deadline, which is both good and bad. 🤷‍♂️ The box is huge and the model is big even in 1:144 scale. Length is 61,2cm / 24,1in and wingspan is 58,7cm / 23,1in. Aftermarket bits gathered together for a group photo This is the real thing, the one and only. Sadly bombed to bits in 2022. While I'd like to do the "open mouth" version it opens up the whole can of worms of painting and doing the inside cargo bay as well. Which takes a lot more time, but we'll see how it goes. It also breaks up the majestic lines of the aircraft. Maybe I can make it movable, it doesn't seem to be an option from the instructions 🤔 Br, Jani

Thanks! The graduation is at Stirling uni, but it is still a few days away, 27th of June. We'll travel earlier so we can enjoy family time before and after. Travelling is not cheap so we try to maximise the fun whenever we can go

I had a long planning session or many actually on how to attack the masking in several layers. In the end I decided to go from lightest to darkest colours. I painted the bottom and top colors with the best alternatives I found from my stash to the ones provided in the Foxbot mask set. Next step is to mask the areas that remain with the lightest colour and get ready for the second grey. The Foxbot masks were quite thick and they didn't want to conform to tight edges and corners. Tamiya masking tape provided some additional help. There are places where the edge is not as sharp as I'd like. Some touching up is expected once the masks are removed. This picture shows the second grey layer painted. I have two more layers of darker shades of grey to go. However, this is as far as I can go during the group build time frame. I'll finish it later, time and life permitting. I'm going to our daughter's graduation seremony in Scotland so I'll be away from the bench for a while. I really don't mind, builds come and go, but there are only a few occasions for university graduations 🤗 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Have a nice Midsummer! Br, Jani

Long overdue update to this build. I have done some painting during the last few weeks, but I haven't had time to upload progress reports. Here is the main fuselage and all bits connected to it, ready for priming. Here is the primed plane with the decals and the Foxbot masks that I will use. Sadly the decal set does not contain the intake warning triagle thingie, which is quite visible. I don't think I've seen a digital Su-25 without it. Well, the decal set is a generic Ukraine decal set by DAN models. If I can't source it from any other kit I'll have to do without. 🤷‍♂️

I just read your updates, sorry to hear this. Good wishes and speedy recovery!

Time for a long overdue update. This build has been going on quite slowly, the kit is fighting me all the way. It looked good in the beginning, wings assembled and some primer sprayed on the cockpit parts. There are only a few locating pins, the cockpit was tricky to get correct so I glued the walls to the fuselage first to have some control how it goes. Looking at the landing gear gave me chillies so I decided to switch for a in flight mode. Surely the closed up landing gear doors would be easier? Well... the doors were in one piece. That would have to be broken into three doors for gears down option. The fit was not so great. While struggling with the cockpit and landing gear doors I managed to lose the ejection seat. Luckily I had a Verlindedn K-36 resin seat set sitting in the stash. Test fitting it to the partly assembled cockpit, not so great result Since this will be a in flight model, I need to source a pilot somewhere. I guess the seat will be mostly hidden so the resin seat goes to "waste". I raided an Academy MiG-29 box for a seat. It should be close enough. Here's the comparison between the Academy seat and Verlinden seat. Can you guess which one is which? I decided to close up the fuselage and deal with the seat later. It looks quite possible to drop it in later. Not all panel lines lined up nicely. Either the front ones lined up and the ones on the back did not or vise versa. I made the best of it and filled the landing gear door gaps with putty. Next problematic bit seem to be the tail fin. We'll see how it goes. Br, Jani

Really nice! I've always wondered why do they bother with camouflage on the spaceships in the TV shows and movies? Looks nice and menacing, sure. But for what is purpose? I assume visual sighting is not the top method of detecting ships in space many, many, many kilometers away with very very fast ships. But on the other hand, it looks cool so yeah! Bring it on.

This is so cool! I remember watching the movie as a kid. I had read the book earlier and I still managed to enjoy the movie

Thanks. It'll be interesting to see how the masks work. I ordered similar masks for MiG-29 as well. If they work nicely, then I'll get some more. Somehow the Ukrainian digital camo looks really nice to my eyes. Too many brown+green spitfires, maybe?