telepatu

Thanks, Ernie! I was worried that you extended the deadline because of me so I had to finish it now. :) I posted some pictures in the RFI section

Hi! I'm not sure if I qualify as a new member, having lurked around for some years already before registering, but I'll give it a go. As a young bloke many, many moons ago I built many, many models. Some of them are still around in my home. An old B-24 Liberator in 1:48 hangs over my remote working desk. I remember being very enthusiastic when getting that one and building it in one day. I might take it down and redo some things in it or maybe not. Some how I "lost the loving feeling" for models in the hectic studying years. Partly because I set too high standards for myself. Now I know better. Or should know better. I returned to the hobby after settling down in my hometown in Finland. Although in the beginning the hobby has been more of building the stash part. I have started some kits, then lost interest somehow when something too complicated has stalled the build. I feel like I have too many unfinished builds, so I have begun my own Clear the Shelf of Doom project. I build for fun and for myself. I know that I won't be able to create Best of Show masterpieces, but that's ok. Now that the kids are growing up all the time, the bench time is also increasing a bit. This year I participated in the Everything Ukraine Group Build here; it was the first GB for me. It was fun. Somehow it motivated me to push a bit further, trying new things like weathering. I might do it again. Both weathering and group builds :) I have many kinds of kits in the stash, but almost 80% is aircraft, 10% vehicles, mostly armor and 10% ships. About 1/4 of the aircraft are of larger scale (1:32, 1:24, 1:35). I have built or are planning to build many aircraft from the history of the Finnish Air Force. I have a soft spot for the Swedish Air Force as well, having lived there for a while. Who's next? :) Br, Jani

This looks great! Excellent Cobra

Rushed, you say? I wish I could rush like you :) Amazing work.

This has been an interesting journey. I have never done WIP or a group build before, but this was fun. Having some sort of deadline helped me to kick my own behind to finish this. The Skif kit had some issues that tried to push me away. To be honest, it could have been me and my clumsy hands as well. Back in the day this was pretty much the only game is town if I wanted to have the 122 SpH 74 (2S1) for Finnish Army. As a bonus, it had the decals already in the box. Now I would start with the newer Trumpeter kit. Too late I noticed that the typeface of the registration number Ps521-xx is not the same as the actual typeface. Well, that's something I'll live with. As with some omissions in the kit and smaller details that are missing. Closeup photos on the big screen reveal even more boo-boos.. As I don't try to build any competition winners and build for fun, I'll let them pass. This kit was also the first time I did some actual weathering. Previous models I have made have been nice and clean. For this model I braved to do some pin washes and splashed some mud on the tracks. Plain and simple artists' oil for the pin wash and Vallejo's Splash Mud for the mud. The mud is not exactly convincing in all the places. All in all, group build was fun, thanks for organizing it! I'm happy to have the 122 SpH 74 in my model cabin. I'll post some more images in the Ready for Inspection section. Soon I will need a simple Tamigawa build, currently I'm wrestling with the ancient Revell Corsair.. Br, Jani

Really nice, I will take a note of your fixes. I have the same kit started but stalled.. Br, Jani

Thanks! The Skif model was a bit of cumbersome in some places. From what I hear, the Trumpeter kit would be better. It seems that there a bits that are missing from the kit. I don't even know what those are, but they are in nearly all the photos that I saw. Decals are in place and some final touches before weathering. There are some mistakes with the placing of some PE, which might need fixing. The typeface of the decals isnot the same as real thing, but at the moment I'm beyond caring. I'm half tempted to call this done...

Group builds are fun to follow. This time I even participated in the Ukraine build, for some I felt motivated to dig out the old model that most hate and try to build it to my satisfaction. Themes can vary a lot, there have been many interesting suggestions already in this thread. In our local club we have a theme for the model exhibition that we arrange every year. This year it is "Motor sports", including anything with motors and racing. I have started the Corsair "Lucky Gallon" using the old Revell, at least it will be a different Corsair. Br, Jani

Two green colors and one black later, removing the masking was exciting. Most parts were great, in some places the too thin black paint bled under the masks. Some touch ups needed here and there. I still don't like the rubber tracks, but I'll try to make them work anyway.

I added some weight inside the hull and started painting it using the Hataka paint set. Oddly enough some of the paints were "optimised for brush" and some "airbrush tested". Two of the greens were "Airbrush tested" and sprayed quite nicely even without thinning. The "Nato black" was optimised for brush so I thinned it with nearly 1:1. However, that caused the paint to become too thin. I sprayed the last layer straight from the bottle and it sprayed nicely as well.

Thanks, Martin. Priming revealed some places where touch ups are needed, but otherwise I'm liking the look of it. Br, Jani

Finally some progress during the last days. Working with the photo etch set was interesting, it really adds some nice detail. I have a small PE bending tool from RP Toolz, which helped a lot with bending the tiny bits. I'd say this is almost ready for priming. Most probably this will not be ready before the deadline, but I'll continue anyway. This has been fun group build, thanks for setting it up.

Some tiny update on the progress. I didn't feel like doing the wheels, so I jumped ahead a bit. The turret is coming along nicely, some imperfections in the muzzle break, which I patched with some carvings from the sprue. Not much progress in total, most probably this won't be finished before the deadline, but I'll try to keep it up.

Building the lower hull was surprisingly tedious work. There were few, if any location pins. After careful taping and gluing piece by piece the hull was finished. I added some additional support from sprue parts inside the hull.

I started the build from the lower hull, which was split into many pieces.

The kit contains some photo etched parts, they look nice. Plastic looks nice, not too many cleaning up required. The tracks look interesting. I might need to check the Trumpeter's track links.

This is the goal.

I have been thinking about participating in a group build for some time. Maybe it's finally time to take the plunge. I have a 2S1 Gvozdika from Skif in 1:35 scale. Finnish army acquired a bunch of used 2S1 Gvozdikas from former East Germany on 1992 and 1994. They are named "122 SpH 74" in the Finnish army. This howitzer has been on my to-do list for some time and now this Ukrainian GB seemed the right time to start. I have the Hataka paint set for modern Finnish Army, which will be put to test as well. The plan is to do pretty much an out of the box build.

Scalemates makes it even easier, the Ukrainian model companies are now highlighted with Ukrainian flag

I just found this GB, I'm trying to find some suitable projects. While browsing the Scalemates I found the "Brands" section, filtering by country "Ukraine" I get 122 results, that is quite a lot. Some companies have only a few items, but some have long lists of products.

I'm liking it so far, I've read 34% currently. I have the ebook from Kobo, those are easy to carry around when traveling. Um, when traveling was a thing :(

Well, actually I'm currently reading this 😄

I just finished Samurai! by Saburo Sakai and I'm currently reading this

I'd like to donate this kit to the raffle

Hi, could I enter as a recipient, please? I'll have a look at the stash for something to donate. Is 1:35 armor acceptable? Regards, Jani