Oops, I did it again!

I did it again :-(. I told you guys - long ago - how NOT to buy paint. I also told you I wouldn't be buying any new models, because I have enough of them for now. In all fairness, early this summer I DID tell you I fell in love with a kit and it would be my next purchase.

BUT, I'm running ahead of things. Let me start at the beginning of today's story.

For some time now, I was aware of a modelshop in Bruges : "Verbrugghe Modelbouw". My in-laws are from Bruges, so its not like I'm never in the neighbourhood, but until yesterday I had not found time and opportunity to go visit the shop. There are now ZERO hobbyshops left in Ghent, and this one recently moved to another (and bigger) location, so motivation was higher than ever to go and take a peek.

My girlfriend asked me what I intended to buy, but since I only needed some brushes and varnish, I told her I wouldn't be spending more than €15. (Oh, the sheer audacity of that statement :-))

The picture below (blatantly stolen from their website and thus their property) shows one of at least 20 or 30 such shelves. They also have a lot of RC stuff and boardgames, but their modelling stock is HUGE. They appear to have all manufacturers and paints - except for AK interactive, which will arrive in january. Navigating the shelves, it was difficult not to get overwhelmed.

I picked some super-fine brushes, some CA-accelarator, flat varnish and was looking for a razorsaw (to remove very small pieces from the sprue) until my eye got caught by something on my wishlist. An internal debate followed, whether or not I should buy it or wait. Waiting might result in not easily finding the kit again in a year or two, so I just made sure I'd have it and took it with me there and then.

Without further ado, below are the spoils of my visit : Meng's merkava Mk.3 (with mine roller system) is now sitting proudly in my stash and I somehow ended up with a motor-tool, instead of a razorsaw. No doubt, the tool will last a long time and be usefull countless of times.

A quick glance inside the new tool's kit, for those who are interested.

Something about the Merkava has me mesmerized. I can stare at this box for hours. Well, not really, I immediately opened it up and stared at the contents for hours (or at least 15 minutes), inspecting the parts and being impressed with the detail.

A 30-page booklet will guide me through the construction process.

Several items seem to have options. While it's very nice to have these options, it also requires you to be extra careful and not partially assemble these options with the wrong combination of parts.

Sprue Cutters Union #15: Everybody's A Critic

Running late this week on my SprueCutters assignment. We're being asked how we look at finished models from friends, the internet and our own.

- What do you think makes an outstanding finished model? -

"Finishing" is a relatively new term for me. As a teen, the model was finished when fully assembled, painted and decals were in place. In the past year I've learned to go beyond that, or at least try to. I'm trying to challenge myself to 1) build better than I used to and 2) attempt some weathering.

Build better?
For me, this does not mean going all out on aftermarket parts. I still build out-of-the-box, but I try to file away imperfections, fill seams and make adjustments that are obvious and not too difficult. Basic stuff really, but a challenge sometimes nonetheless. I spent several hours filing, filling and sanding on my U.S.S. Missouri and while still not perfect, I've reached a point of "f@#$ this, close enough".

Weathering
I'm trying to go slow about this. I've tried some washes and just this week started working with pigments. It's easy to overdo all  these effects, so going slow is the way to go here. There are many techniques for me to learn, but I'm tackling one at a time.

DONE!
I've declared 5 models as "finished" this past year, although at least 2 of them will come out of the display cupboard later in life, to improve little things. I'm far from a perfectionist, but it's hard to say when they're really done. Practicing and perfecting techniques will maybe make this easier as my skills improve.

Giving and receiving criticism
As any modeller, I like to show off my finished models (or even Works-in-progress). That's the reason for this blog, a dedicated Facebook page and taking finished models to the next club meeting. I think I can speak for all my fellow modellers when I say we feel proud of our creations and take extra pride when others say nice things about them. Constructive criticism is taken to heart and only serves as extra incentive to make the next model even better.

I've seen many models (perfect and far from perfect) and given my own honest opinion. You can tell a beginner modeller to try to remove that obvious seam or give finishing tips, but don't go trashing his work. Nobody likes the "rivet counters".
You can notice the obvious misshap and try to think how you could have fixed it if it happend to yourself. Give it a positive spin if you know a way to fix it or if you can't, just express sympathy, then compliment on an aspect of the model that worked really well or looks great.
I've seen wonderful models, that reveal imperfections when viewed up close. I'm personally very sensitive about brush strokes, which is why I do everything possible to avoid them myself. I've seen brushstrokes on award-winning models, but when you move back from your 10-centimeter up close inspection, the little blemishes may disappear, leaving the overall model to dazzle with other aspects of it's build or the builder's creativity.

I like models with a unique aspect, a soul so to speak, showing it's builder personality. An imperfect execution does not diminish the achievement.

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Don't forget to read other Spruecutters opinions :

• The Eternal Wargamer
• Scale Model Workbench

M60 - More mud

Time to get some mud on our little tank. Last thing i did with it was give it a heavy mud wash. One downside of the wash is that it makes the model very shiny (as we saw with my little Puma). The positive side is that - even after many weeks - the wash can still be manipulated with a brush dampened with white spirit. It also leaves the model somewhat sticky.

I thought this stickyness could prove advantageous while applying pigments and it did. I applied earth tone pigments all over the model with a brush and it left a fine layer behind, toning down the shinyness (is that  a word?) of the overall model.

A thick layer of pigments will never stick to any model without some adhesive. I have a bottle of Vallejo "pigment binder" which serves this purpose. It's an acrylic medium, although I do not know the difference between varnish and this product. I used a brush to spread some binder on the blade, wheels and sides and sprinkled several different pigments over it. Then I stippled it all into place with a stiff-bristled brush, to work it into the binder, remove excess pigment and give it a finer look.

I did the same on one side of the tank, working in mud in the sides and wheels. The left picture is of the untreated side, right picture of the muddy side.

  
I'm going to let this dry and find out later how much of the pigment will stick into place if I carefully poke it with the brush again, just to see how much "binding" this binder has actually done. I will probably overcoat the entire thing with varnish anyway, because that's a guaranteed way to keep the pigments in place.

I may need to repeat this process in the places were I want really heavy mud.

The base was also treated extensively, first with washes to blend the painted colours together and disguise the parts where it had too obviously painted lines, then with the same pigments as the tank. After the last pigments were added, I'm not sure how much of the original paintjob is still visible, wondering if I could just have added the pigments on the black base and need not have bothered with actually painting it ...

Bismarck & Missouri - Double WIP

I decided to report these together, as I always seem to be working on them in tandem, always masking them up together and spraying the next layer in one session. There's a gap of at least one day between every colour. While painting, these acrylics are dry after several hours and you could probably go even sooner, but with  masking tape I'm not taking any risks and waiting 24 hours.

Both primed in black. I'm using the black more often than the grey now. It just sprays smoother and the primer colour doesn't seem to make much difference on the end result.

First layer on the side of the hull. "Light grey" for the Bismarck, with "US grey" on the front and aft. A mix of "hull red"(which is far too brown for my taste) and Revell's "Ferrari red" for the Missouri. I should have used more red, but "close enough" is my motto.
(I photoshopped the general view and close-up together each time, to reduce the amount of pictures.)

Masked up and ready for the second colour : the Bismarck's deck is a mix of "Panzer ochre" (which is greenish ochre) and "Tank brown" to get ... well, brownish-greenish ochre. The Missouri is "Intermediate blue" from the waterline up, which is more a blueish grey if you ask me.

Silly putty to the rescue for masking the Bismarck's superstructure. The Missouri is masked for 2 colours : "US grey" above the intermediate blue (everything above the lowest part of the deck) and black  grey (not yet applied) for the waterline.

The Bismarck's horizontal surfaces sprayed up in "Intermediate blue". A picture of the silly putty to prove how easily it is removed in one piece, leaving no residu on the model. The trick is to put it down rather thick.

The Bismarck with all masks removed. The Missouri will stay masked until the deck is done. I sprayed the last vertical part of the hull (and all vertical surfaces on the superstructure) in "US grey". I should maybe have gone with "Light grey", but it'll be okay anyway.



Side by side, for a size comparison (1/540 Missouri and 1/1200 Bismarck). Disregarding the scale difference (in the same scale, the Missouri would be about 10% longer than the Bismarck), this setup could never have happened in real life, as they were on opposing sides of the war and - more importantly - the Bismarck sank 3 years before the Missouri's commisioning.

The fiddly bits for the Bismarck in light grey. I forgot to paint one mast and the airplanes.

Starfury - First shot at weathering

The building instructions for the Starfury also contains a section on suggested weathering techniques. Bascially, you hold an index card against a panel line and lightly spray against it. Remove the card et voila!

I gave it a first shot (on the underside of the model), but the paint I chose (US grey) was way to dark in contrast to the basecoat (light grey). I kept working, just to get the hang of it. it was also the first time I tried the slightly finer nozzle (the black one) on my Aztek airbrush.

I'm going to go over it again with the basecoat and make the second attempt a lot more subtle, e.g. by mixing the colour I used in the first attempt 50/50 with the basecoat.

Just one problem : in order to have more control over the amount of colour you add to the model, it is suggested to heavily thin your paint. I did that, with a generous amount of the Vallejo thinner. Problem was that the paint was then too runny and created spiders on the model.
Do I need something else to thin the paint without making it run, add acrylic medium or something transparent like varnish or do I just need finer airbrush control? (suggestions welcome)

Sprue Cutters Union #14: The Worst Part Is...

Now that the Spruecutter's Union has discussed methods, tools and preferred subjects, we move on to the parts of our hobby that we enjoy the least. Is it sniffing glue and paint fumes, locating small pieces on a thick carpet or trying to re-assemble broken decals?

- What do you think is the worst part of the hobby? -

If you asked me this question a couple of months ago, I'd say : Airbrushing!! If you've been reading my blog for a little longer than a few months (or want to catch up by reading everything labeled airbrush), you've read about my occasional battles with the airbrush. It wasn't my friend, at times it was my nemesis, but a necessary evil to overcome because the paintjob is soo much nicer than what I can achieve with handbrushing.

Now that I - somewhat unexpectedly - have a new airbrush, this relationship has changed. I no longer battle the tool, but can focus on the technique, which is a great relief. I can concentrate on playing with the paint, thinning ratio's and getting the hang of the dual-action trigger.

So, what DO I consider the worst part of the hobby?

Seams in hard-to-reach places
I don't mind filling and sanding, but I hate when it's in little nooks and crannies or on a part where sanding also removes little raised detail.

Broken or misbehaving decals
Broken decals can be fixed by just carefully sliding them in place. If you're very lucky, it's not (or hardly) noticable, but I *HATE* when the decal doesn't want to be put in it's place.
You place the decal on the tip of your hobby knife (or whatever you use) and carefully position it where it's needed. You pull back the knife, but he decal is stuck. You grab some tweezers or toothpick and try to slide it of the knife. Next comes the point where you wish you had 3 hands. You can feel a twitch coming in your arm, but you hold it steady because you know the consequences.
Now you've dragged the decal 1 millimeter too far, so you lift the damn thing up to start all over and THEN : it folds in on itself, sticking like it has permanent adhesive and will never come apart again. Trying to unfold it just breaks it apart and you throw the damn thing away.

If this was a "do not walk"-label on a modern fighter, chances are there's a few spare, or you can redistribute what you have left so nobody notices. It tends to happen to unique and very important pieces tough ....

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Find out what other modellers fight with :

• Fill 'n Sand
• The Eternal Wargamer

Enterprise-C - Details

I've been handpainting some of the details on the Enteprise-C. I really need to practice holding my hands steady, assuming I'll ever learn.

I painted the escape pods in a colour that just felt right. I used flat yellow (Vallejo), added a tiny pinch of Ferrari red (Revell) to make it orange-ish, then added a lot of white to tone it down. It's really close to what I was aiming for.

The phaser banks are "black grey" (Vallejo model colour), slightly darker than intended, but happy with them anyway. I discovered black grey as a colour from a fellow modeller at a IPMS meeting. It's not as in-your-face as true black, which is rather shiny even when claimed to be matt.

I did not fancy painting all those little windows, so I used markers. I used Posca's PC-1MR, which has a 0.7mm tip. Still slightly on the wide side for the really small windows, but close enough.

In a close-up shot, with too much flash, the windows really stand out a little TOO much. My hope is it'll be less accentuated in normal light and with a layer of matt varnish. It's also easy to spot where my hand started shaking a bit.

Next up is finding more little details to paint - like maybe navigation lights - followed by a layer of varnish, the dreaded decals (which are very old, so fingers crossed) and then final assembly.

Sprue Cutters Union #13: Preparation

This week is all about prepping for the next build. Weeks of thorough research or just dive in the box, tube of glue and loaded paintbrush in hand?

- How do you prepare for your next build? -

Do you mean mentally or physically? Mentally, I need to be in a relatively relaxed state of mind for any modelling session. Building or painting does have a relaxing effect on me, but if I'm too stressed or tired before I begin, the tiniest problem or an encounter with the carpet monster can ruin my entire evening.

This is, of course, not what this week's question intended.

Because of my fairly relaxed way to choose new kits, I do not have to research a certain topic and find out which manufacturer has the most perfect version of the kit, browsing vendors and Ebay for weeks on end. I just have a number of appealing models in the stash and I pick whichever grabs my attention the first. I can imagine this is different for a builder that exclusively builds 1/35 scale Tiger tanks.

My actual preparation routine consists of a few simple steps :

1. unboxing the kit (and taking pictures to blog about it)
2. washing all the sprues in warm, soapy water to remove any possible oil remnants that might make it difficult to paint certain spots
3. go over the instructions step by step
4. go over the instructions step by step (yes, again!)
5. check the paint requirements (more below)
6. start building

Step 5 is a little more than just that. 

• I start by writing down (in a new Excel-sheet, in a dedicated folder for this build) all the suggested colours from the building instructions, in a breakdown of colour and what it's used for. 
• The colour callout is always Revell or some other brand I do not have, so I start matching the colours to what I have (mainly Vallejo). 
• Of all the missing colours, I substitute for near-matches. Nobody will ever notice me using black grey instead of dark sea-grey, or silver instead of aluminium on one or more petite detail, especially if the subject will be weathered. (The one person that does, can count on a frown and a shrug)
• Now I start googling pictures of the subject (or other people's reviews, including which paint they used) and try to find if the missing paint can be replaced by other colours in a "Yes, I know the boxart says darkgreen, but this picture I found has it in lightgreen and it looks neat" kind of way.
• What's left missing and is not TOO exotic (so it has a decent chance of being needed in a later build), I purchase in the LHS, which is nowhere near local since the last one in Ghent closed. It's a 30-minute drive, in a direction I never have to travel. They don't have Vallejo anyway, so I usually purchase paint online.

While browsing reviews on the particular kit, I invariably find comments like "The tracks are wrong for this model" and "The turret is 3 millimeter too short, you should replace by this or that resin aftermarket part."
I don't care about such things. For all they know, I just happen to be modelling a Tiger tank, running on salvaged British tracks, because they happened to fit and it was that or stay stranded. (It could happen!)

So there you have it. It's a pretty basic prep, with most time spent on colour decisions, with a relaxed FICE attitude (Fuck It, Close Enough!)

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How do other modellers prepare? Check it out yourself :

• Kermit's Bench
• Sven Harjacek Scale Models
• Fill 'n Sand
• Martin's bench corner
• Jay's Scale Model Adventures
• Miniature and Model Painting

M60 - Base progress

I tried highlighting the higher parts of the base with a lighter colour. I used Vallejo "Iraqi sand". I tried this using the black nozzle on my new Aztek airbrush. It's meant for "detail work", whereas the white one I used earlier is meant for "high flow".

This smaller needle does indeed provide a lot more control over the amount of paint, but I'll be needing to thin the paint a little because straight from the bottle it doesn't flow nicely all the time.

The result is okay, as my intent was to make the overall impression a little lighter. There are some clearly defined streaks here and there, which I'll try to get rid of later.

I'm not sure how to proceed yet. I'll try some drybrushing (to make the lines blur more in the overall colour toning), a mud wash in certain area's and there's also pigments to experiment with further.

As requested by Nick, a picture of the base WITH the tank. The contrast is still very high, but there's enough work to be done on the tank itself :

• add streaks to sloped and vertical surfaces
• add (a lot of) mud to tracks, wheels and bulldozer blade
• remove the glossy look

Ford Shelby - Finished

After ruining the roof's varnish during final assembly, I let it rest a month, before I masked it up again and gave the roof a (very heavy) layer of varnish. Some dust got into the varnish and the regular painter's tape I started using recently for bigger surfaces (to cut cost on the more expensive Tamiya tape) left some glue residue on the hood.

Because model cars were never my thing in the first place, I'm calling this one finished and gave it a place in my display case.

Price : € 9,95

Number of parts : 44

Time spent : 5.5 hours

Project completion time : 40 days

Paint : (Vallejo)

• White primer
• White
• Black (skirts and details)
• Insignia blue (stripes)
• Aluminium (details on the underside)
• (Revell) Ferrari red (taillight details)

Other :

• Tamiya X-22 gloss varnish
• Tamiya lacquer thinner (to thin the varnish)
• MicroScale Kristal Klear
  I used this to simulate the glass in the rear view mirrors, over a little piece of aluminium foil. The result is not to my liking, which is why I didnt take a close-up shot of the mirrors. This has nothing to do with the product itself, tough.