BlrwestSiR

Mark, like the others, I haven't seen one of those built so it would be nice. Carl

No kidding. Flu was bad this year. At one point, 1/3 of my youngest's classmates were home with the flu. Thankfully we'd gotten their flu shots so they dodged that bullet. I should use this with Sue when she asks me to do any manual labour. Mind you, she'd probably cuff me up the head and make me do it anyways. As for you Gary, keep the defense up and stay healthy. Hope your wife recovers quickly too.

Thanks Maru! I'm still not the best at figure painting either so those should help. Carl

Yup, just slightly harder to get than a Tamiya Thunderbird F-16.

Not sure what changes have happened. I think that it's probably volume more than anything. But, it got here and in one piece so I'm fine with it.

It was sent out from the US on Dec 12, arrived in Canada on the 22nd and was forwarded to Canada Customs for clearance the next day. It then sat there with no updates until this morning when they said it was out for delivery. I have to find an HK Meteor kit now for the base kit as well as decals. Thankfully the Zotz ones seem to be still around with a couple shops.

Just got this in the mail today after Canada Customs had it for two weeks.

The feds have announced after much back and forth that Canada will be getting 88 F-35s with an initial order for 4 to arrive in 2026. With all the cool special paint schemes the RCAF has been known to do our CF-188s in, it'll be cool to see the F-35 in something other than grey. Good thing Tamiya just released their 1/48 kit. I should have bought a case when they were on sale last month. Carl

Having built their Scammell, this should be a very nice kit once it comes out. Nice to see they're doing new subjects.

So true Peter.

That's looking really great. The gear does looks complicated.

Welcome aboard! It'll be great to see how you do the exploded view. Everyone so far has been buttoning them up. Carl

You're one of us!!!

There's also the 8 window nose but that's the movie version. Or was that the TV one?

Progress is progress Phil. Sometimes I have time to glue a couple parts on, sometimes I can finish a whole page of instructions.

Nice work on the cockpit Hubert. The punch set looks impressive too. I've got the Waldron set and have thought of getting the RB Toolz ones. Carl

I was reading about the Armoured Lorry on The Modelling News this morning. Definitely looks unique.

I think he's bought them all already and the shops are waiting on a restock.

As the Dark Lord himself would say: Impressive, most impressive!

That's for sure. There's also a XIV conversion coming for the Tamiya XVI kit. I'll need at least one of those if not 2. The XIV is my favourite Spitfire.

There was a documentary about ILM and they talked about when they and other effects houses started using CGI how the model makers either learned to do digital effects or were let go. One by one all the shops that did physical models were gone and so was the industry. What is interesting though is some of the managers have started doing things with miniatures again. They like having a physical model to reference and use and so some of them are getting back to their roots. Peter Jackson liked to use a combination of physical and CGI effects in his films.

Good call on the correction set. It'll make big difference.

Peter, if you can find pictures of the ILM workshops from when they were working on the films, they look like hobby shop warehouses. They'd have tens of copies of the same models so they could take parts from them and use them to detail the filming miniatures. Lots of Tamiya kits of tanks, ships, F1 cars you name it. There are guys who made it a mission to identify the various kit parts and find them in real life. Very different from these days where it's all done in a computer. A completely different set of skills.

Ernie, it's really looking great. I see what you mean about the turtle deck compared to the pics. Never knew how that retracted so thanks for that lesson. Like you and Peter, I'm starting to make the switch to 1/48 for jets. I'll (hopefully) build the 1/32 ones I already have in the stash but I'll move down to 1/48 from here on.

Looks very nice indeed.