Landlubber Mike

Welcome back Chris! That model must be massive! Cool that you are building it for a friend.

Would you take the same approach for paints and clears other than from Zero paints - i.e., like colors and clears from Tamiya and Mr. Color? Those definitely don't run as hot, but I do like the idea of the multiple coats that help level things out. I've been working on trying to build a "flower power" VW Samba Bus T1 for one of my daughters, and had a bit of a time trying to paint a decanted Tamiya blue color for the body. A big part of it was that the plastic parts didn't have a clean edge to be able to mask properly, so there was a lot of touch ups required. Other problem was it seemed I would get a different shade of blue between sessions, but after multiple thinner coats, the panels seem to all have hit the proper shade. I finally got it straightened out, but I might try the multiple layered coats in the future. It's nice with planes and other subjects where you can hide paint defects with weathering, etc. Much harder with cars where you generally want a pristine finish!

Just catching up with your log Rob. Nice job! Coming along quickly and excellently per your usual! Thank you for sharing your painting process. Just to confirm, you do the multiple coats with added thinner percentages for both colors and clear coats? I haven't quite figured that out yet, but seems like a good approach versus trying to get the color down in one coat. This is probably especially helpful with colors like reds, yellows and blues that may not reach the full color on a single coat.

Looks like something out of Mad Max. Really cool subject Rob, nice work!

The Roma is a really interesting ship color wise. In case you haven't seen it, Plasmo did one in 1/700 that is spectacular as per his usual:

Cool little project. Ugly looking thing, but in an interesting way with some cool details. Nice job!

Looks like a fun build. I saw someone else refer to these kinds of builds after a long build as a "palette cleanser" - maybe that will get your mojo back up and running.

Very cool - i have a few of the Royal Class boxings, was close to pulling the trigger on this one. Looks really good and with good options on decals.

Thanks for posting these pictures. Great models for sure! The best of ship class is amazing - that wire tower structure in the middle really is incredible and sets it off from other models.

Wow, nice haul for sure! Was that the one in VA Beach? Is it there every year? Once my kids are out of the house, I'm going to try to make it to a show. By then, hopefully the stash will be a little smaller so I won't feel as bad adding to it.

Martin, this is modeling at its finest. Really great job man, impressive!

The sloppy hand job in part four?

I have the hot wire table. Really great for cutting foam boards, etc. for dioramas. I used to have a DB250 small wooden lathe for my wooden ship models. Really helped making masts and spars. I ended up selling it when I upgraded to a Sherline lathe that can do both wood and metal turning. Sometimes I kick myself as the DB250 was so easy to set up that I probably should have kept it just for that. All this to say, I've found the Proxxon tools to be good quality - at least the two I've owned.

What do you think of it? I've been considering this one or the Dspiae one.

Wow, this is insanely good!! Well done! Nice to see these kits being built, rather than just hoarded like gold.

Nice vehicle Ralph - next upgrade I see in your future is Robert DeNiro's custom-designed climate controlled motor coach from Meet the Fockers...

Just catching up with your log now. Looks like a great kit, and I remember Rob's great build. I'm always a big fan of spending 3x the amount of the kit on AM, so I'm in on this one Awesome to know about the customer service! I tend to buy most of my kits second hand, but even when buying first hand, I tend to check all my kits and AM packages to make sure everything is complete and not broken, etc. I've had more than a few instances where I've been short changed in one way or another, but thankfully, the manufacturers have always come through. Great start!

Me too! Really amazing paint work, wow!

I had a package two weeks ago coming from IL I believe that first went to PA, then somehow went to CA, then TX, back to PA, then finally VA. Guess it wanted to see the country. I've had other packages come to the my local sorting facility about 5 miles from me, back out to a sorting facility 30 miles from me, back to the local sorting facility, then finally to my zoned post office. With the amount of packages USPS handles, I can see there being some that slip through the cracks, but seems to happen more than one would expect, especially in this day of tracking info, etc.

I can only guess - probably same place that did so to me as well. 🙄

Wow, that Fiat transit looks fantastic! Good choice!

Interesting on the nose shape. Looks like you don’t need to take too much to get closer to an accurate representation, nice work! I’m hoping to start mine in the next couple of weeks. With kid activities over for the summer, I finally have a lot more time for the work bench. I’ve got two Planet Models resin kits - a 1/48 Curtiss SNC-1 Falcon and a 1/72 Northrop Gamma 2J - that just need some weathering and I can call them complete to free up some space (I didn’t post build logs for them as I don’t think they would generate much interest here given the subjects and scale).

Beautiful Kevin! Stellar work my friend! I don’t know if North Star is still in business, but years ago I had placed an order and they stiffed me on half of it. They apologized saying it was an oversight and so I placed a small second order - stupidly - and told them they could include the missing items from first to save shipping. Then they stiffed me on that one. Ion figures are some of the best out there. I’ve only used them on 1/350 and 1/700 builds but would assume that the 1/200 ones are equally good.

Thanks Martin! I feel like I should get these done before cracking open the Me410 boxes, if anything to have more bench space. I’m really quite close to the finish line with these so I just need to put my head down and get to work I think.

For some reason, I kinda lost interest in finishing these two dioramas over the past few months in part trying to decide what to do with the Opel Blitz truck and in part with the next step of painting and decals. I did turn back to them more recently as interest returned. I mentioned before that the SOL Opel Blitz kit was a total mess with fragile parts, warped parts, etc., so I broke down and bought the Tamiya kit. Wow, the Tamiya kit went together like a dream! Perfect fit, great instructions, etc. I built up most of the kit a few months ago, but then had to figure out how to modify the kit to match the picture in the towing diorama. Today I finish the modifications, which included using brass rod (round and square) and some of the wood planks from a Sol Model Opel Blitz kit. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I primed it and the various cab parts tonight, so hopefully can get started on painting it later this week. Thanks for looking in!