Heinkel He-178

Needing a change from my Figures, I decided to pull the Special Hobby He-178 out of the stash. I first saw this in the New Kits section of SAMI magazine.  It's not exactly my "genre" of X-planes and jets. But being it's "A first" I figured it's worth a spot on the shelf. 

The kit is one sprue, with a clear styrene "glass" , an instrumentation film, and a piece of PE.  Nice - 

I started the build with the cockpit and thats when I realized this wasn't going to be a simple build. The cockpit has to include a seat, the stick and the foot pedal mount. The foot pedals are formed with PE, but there are no indications on the part thats the floor of the cockpit. Oh boy...
So I just had to guesstimate. Then getting it in the cockpit I had to keep cutting the floor down so the seat and the stick would show in the opening of the plane. Ugh. I'm not used to, and don't like hacking up models like this.

Finally I got the two fuselage halves together with a lot of glue and tape - 

I needed to leave this for a while to thoroughly dry. So I went on to do the wings, which is in 3 parts. The wings "sorta" fit and again with lots of Tamiya Thin glue and some sanding afterward it went together. I moved to the landing gear which has PE folded around them. After getting the parts fold and glue to the styrene parts, I was ready for a break.

How can a kit have excellent PE parts, and the film for the instruments be so devoid if marking for where part should go?  Check back for another chapter

Finishing Up The Howling

This time around it's time to put paint on Eddie. Once again, the lighting on the set was very dramatic and it was hard to tell what color Eddie was. That and the fact that there were man werewolves in the movie and I have a hard time keeping everyone straight. So I went with a generic gray, and more brown on the face and hands. I also painted the eye a beige, in prep for making them a piercing yellow. Here's the start -

I basically did my usual, and make the deepest recesses darker and the highlight brighter. So here he is all finished and on it's base -

With some dramatic lighting

I think this time I missed on the seams. Using the Aves, I got carried away with the fur and didn't keep the direction in mind. Also in places I made the fur tufts too small for the surround fur. Oh well. It's a nice 2 footer model.  Thanks for looking.

The Howling part 2

I spent a few nights finishing up The Howling bust.  I think were I left off was I was just about to attach the arms to the figure - 

For the first time in a while I turn to Aves (rather than the Vallejo putty) to blend the furry seams together. I then glued the arms to the body and primed  - 

 While that was drying I turned my attention to the base and started in - 

I then looked online and found the poster I needed to copy - 

and came up with this -and then filled in the red color -

I also added a little color to the back

The Howling's Eddie the Mangler

Despite my saying it's time to move away (temporarily)  from the horror kits, Eddie has been sitting on my night stand with no nose etc...  Ok, I thought let me, at least, put his together.  Sculpted my Mark Van Tine and casted by Gillman Productions, Eddie comes in about 8 pieces of gray and cream resin. There are no bubbles or flash to be seen.
The parts were key and went together easily. IIRC there was only one join that needed more than a tiny bit of putty to close off.  Here's where I am so far - - 

Every once in a while you get a part where Mark has doodled on. ;)

 Thanks for looking!

Another look at my Hobby area.

There is an ongoing thread on SSM of guys showing their work areas. They're all good, from those with the tiniest tables to the guys that have whole rooms.  I haven't taken pics of mine since the side shelves when up, so I figured it was time for an update.

The work area - 

Kits, kits and more kits. Despite my age and the number of kits I have, I plan on doing every last one of them. 

This last pic also shows my home made photo booth. There are also more kits under my work table, and a few smaller boxes on the desk shelves to the left.
Eventually (when Lowes gets them in stock) there will be a counter top across the two cabinets (giving me more space). 

Finally, a shot of some of my completed, partially completed, and soon to be started models.  Thanks for looking.

2016 Columbia IPMS Nationals

I just got back from the Nats in Columbia SC. It was a great time with lots of over the top terrific models and great seminars. As a matter of fact the only negative of the Con was b/c of it's popularity. If you showed up any later than 20 minutes before a talk was to start you weren't getting a seat. I never saw that before. Nearly all the seminars I attended were 'standing room only.'
I had a great time, and can't wait til '17 and Omaha. 

Here's a pano of the Contest Room - 

 

I posted the pics I had taken at the Clubhouse. So take a look at them there:

Figures -  

Dinosaurs -  

"Sci-Fi, Luft '46 and Space" Vehicles -  

To see who won what check out this IPMS PAGE - 


2017 Nationals were awarded to Omaha, NE.  2018 to Phoenix, AZ, and 2019 to Chattanooga, TN. 
So, we'll see you there. 

Thanks for looking. 

Finishing the Juggernaut

Having gotten the vehicle toggether, primed and painted the next step was together decals on. Looking through the instructions there's no real indications of where the decals go besides the obvious stipes on the sides and the designs on the front and rear. So okay I'll wing it. Cut get the first decal ready to go on and put on the front of the vehicle and ... whoa ... they are *very* transparent. This isn't going to work. So the decals go inb the garbage and  I get my red paint, and Tamiya tape and I'll just do it free hand. When the striping as done, I thought it looked pretty good - 

Coming to the close here I felt I needed some sort of base to indicate the fighting that was going on. I too some Celluclay onto one of the woodn plaques I got from Michaels and made some uneven terrain. I decided at this point that I would add a few bomb craters, and maybe I would find something to drop into a crater.  When the Celluclay was dry, I primed black as I wanted to go for a scorched earth look. Adding some sand with PVA glue added to the texture-

The middle of the dio was left blank. No point in detail the part that will never been see again... ;)  Now I had to look for something to drop into the largest bomb crater. The model is supposed to be 1:350 scale and it was pretty tough to find something of comparable scale. In the end I figured I just wing it and found a Spider Droid from a miniatures game on eBay -

The droid came in a week, and as I thought it was pretty toy like. But I figured it was going to be blown up in the crater so I could really do a number on it. First thing I cut the antenna from the top of his head, the two back legs  and then cut his nose gun off. I found a replacement gun in the form of a very thing brass tube. Time to get the drill out. I drill out the hole for the nose gun, the left eye, and a large jagged hole to the side of the left. eye. The right eye I shaved down with an Xacto blade. I think to some of my very thin lead wire and created exposed wires that hung out of the hole, and the eye, and from the separated legs. I also took a pliers and bent the nose gun. Yeah he's pretty messed up. I then painted him with various pigments to make it look like he really exploded. I glued the main body into the crater and the legs went nearby - 

All that was left to do was to add black and white pigments to simulate ash, and then some brown pigments for some bare soil and I was done.  Thanks for looking.