Painting an entire castle

It was about time I spent some more time on our medieval castle.
The pink interior for the "wizard tower" (female gnome mage with a Hello Kitty fixation) turned out REALLY pink, almost to the point of not being able to look right at it. Since it will be concealed and only visible through the windows, it may not be that bad though. After painting the doors, I closed the tower up and attached it to the main keep.

One of the merlons on top of the battlements had to make room for an extra watchtower. I wanted to avoid it being visible through the narrow window slits. Power tools for the win!

Some serious gaps here and there where attacked with Tamiya putty. I put down tape alongside both sides of the gap (to protect the plastic from the rather abrasive putty), spread putty liberally, then lightly spread it down with a spatula. I removed the tape immediately after, to have a clean line and to avoid breaking the dry putty afterwards.

A couple of hours of cutting and gluing in front of the television (finally watching Numb3rs now), we also have a gatehouse (with functional drawbridge, portcullis and double doors) and a raised walkway.

3-4 hours of priming and painting later, we have the result below. Windows and doors are taped from the inside, to protect the light grey interior. I deliberately sprayed the yellow/grey in uneven layers, to attempt to get some slight colour variation. Under harsh light, it looks a bit weird, but I'm hoping further washes will modify the intensity anyway. I used 70% Dark Yellow and 30% US Grey (Vallejo).

Next up : finding a good colour combo for the roof tiles. I'm thinking a mix of Hull red (which is very brown red) with a few drops of Scarlet red. I try to work with the colours I have available, instead of just keeping on adding more and more different paint bottles that never get used more than 20% anyway.

Detailing Chinook rotors

The Chinook is as good as finished, so I took it to a local IPMS-meeting to show off the scratch-build interior (at least, what CAN be seen through the rear hatch) and maybe get some feedback and/or tips.

One person remarked I did a lousy job on the rotors, while those parts actually look nicely detailed. He was right : I had just lazily sprayed it all black and hadn't put more thought in it.

So, I resprayed the middle in Vallejo black grey, then dry-brushed over the raised details with a lightened shade of German grey. When dry, I applied Black glaze to remove the "Hey, look, we're brand new and unused!" look.
While doing the glaze, I also coated the entire blades with a very thin layer, to make it a little duller. (The same effect might have been achieved with some matte varnish.)

Next up is trying to do some light weathering on the entire kit and attempting to do some exhaust staining behind the engines. I'll be trying to achieve this with oil paint for the first time. Wish me luck!

Below a picture of both rotors. The above one has had the blades treated, the other is still awaiting it's glaze layer.

Belgian Airforce Days!

I haven't seen an airshow in at least 10 years. Come to think of it, about as long ago as when I stopped modelling. Seems like more than one hobby was put on hold at the same time.

A good friend of mine invited me to go see the Belgian Airforce Days at the celebration of 100 years of our Airforce.
In my late teens to early twenties, I visited many shows. It was also my prime source of model kits. I found 2 (TWO!) model kits on the entire event (A Turkish F-16 and an Alphajet). Our hobby is definitely on the decline.

On to the show. Our main workhorse is the F-16. They were accompanied by their Dutch, Greek and Turkish sisters. I can still "feel" the sound of the afterburners as they flew past.

Teams from all over the world (Belgium, France, Italy, UK, Switzerland, Jordan, even the United Arab Emirates) were present, demonstrating impressive skill with up to 10 planes. I don't think I've ever seen this many teams in one show together.

A large number of helicopters (Agusta, Hip, Hind, Apache and a fierce looking Eurocopter Cougar) joined the list.

One of the more memorable moments? The flyby of the Blériot IX - the very first airplane in our force, now 100 years ago - and one of our F-16's. It was touch and go if the Blériot was going to take off at all, as there was a mild breeze. :-)
As the Blériot is doing 50 km/h (~ 30 mph) and the F-16 can hardly do anything slower than 300 km/h (~200 mph) with blaring stall-alarms, it took several passes to get them aligned properly for the camera's.

As we were leaving, a Mig-29 was in the air, displaying a tremendous amount of power and (vertical) acceleration.

A day of awesome impressions deserves a good ending, as we went home in my friend's new Tesla. Suffice to say, this last "show of force" of the day was impressive as well :-).

Check out the dedicated Facebook-page for more and better quality pictures : Belgian airforce days.
I took many pictures, only to discover at home that there was a smudge on the lens. So, all the pictures have the exact same defect in them. You'll see what I mean. Well, I'm not gonna use that as an excuse for not posting them!

Chinook - Almost there ...

Not much left to do now, except a few more antennae, not included as kit parts. The building instructions suggest stretched spure, so that's what I tried.

I had never done it before, but have to say it's easier than I initially feared. For a short antenna (1 or 2 cm), this is really not big a deal. But for the longer one, I found it hard to stretch a part long enough with a consistent thickness.

As I soon discovered I was unable to produce anything good enough, I simply took some Evergreen styrene rod that I just happened to have lying around anyway.

Next step : to weather or not? These are very well maintained machines, so I don't want to overdo it.

Chinook progress

A few more hours spent on the Chinook, in between the Viper cockpits and installing the swing and slide in the yard. It needed a wavy line near the bottom to ease into the the pitch black underside.

I spent just under 3 hours on the decals. Now I remember why I prefer armoured vehicles over airplanes!

I removed a few of the canopy masks too early because I was curious to see how well the paint job was, but maybe I shouldn't have done that. The 2 coats of varnish (1 gloss to receive the decals, 1 matte to seal in said decals and remove the gloss sheen) have made the canopy less transparent. I have no idea what product to attack those "glass" panes with, as the Alclad varnish seems very durable. Another lesson learned in patience?

Just when I though I was about done, I tried fitting the loading ramp in the open position, which is really needed if you are to see anything of the interior. You can guess that it wouldn't fit already? It's a weird thing. When fitting the canopy, I concluded that I fitted the interior too far forward, blocking the canopy from closing. Now the ramp at the back won't fit because the rear wheels are too far back? So either the interior is too long, the cockpit is messed up or .... Anyway, I'd recommend against building this one with the ramp open. I fixed it by adding about 2 mm of styrene strip. The result was a bit wobbly, but as the ramp was pushing against the wheel's anyway, I superglued them against the oleo's, making it a lot more sturdy. Both landing gear and loading ramp are now a lot less likely to break.

Shortest project ever

And it's done! Certainly a fun "little" project, but also the first kit that tried to ruin my back.
The whole family is happy with it. Even the cats use it to shelter from the rain while still being able to peek inside the house to see if there's any movement.

Number of parts : 184 wooden beams and planks  + 411 nuts, bolts and screws
Time spent : 15 hours
Number of assistants needed : 1 or 2
Project completion time : 9 days

Tools required : electric drill, electric screwdriver, hammer, #17 wrench, spirit level, spare drill bits.
Extra materials : 360 kg concrete mix, 2 swings

Family project

For my next project, we'll be building a Durlang 1/1 scale tower. I will be assisted by my brother and my father.
Yes, it's a playtower, with 2 swings and a slide :-).

The parts feature finely engraved details, a very realistic wood-grain and are cast in lifelike wooden colours. Regular glue or cement are inadequate for connecting these parts, but screws, nuts and bults are provided in the kit, which is a nice detail.

Issues?

• No locator tabs, except for the holes for the largest bolts.
• Minor warping on parts longer than 1 or 2 meter. Some force can be applied while screwing pieces together, so it's an easy fix.
• Minor fit issues with parts being 1 cm too long or too short. Hardly noticeable in this scale.
• We ran out of concrete before filling the last hole, and had to rush to the store.
• Step 13 mentions you should use 2 screws of type 6, but they should be type 5. If you do not catch this early enough, you have to either take a big piece apart again, or find spare screws of the correct type. The aftermarket for this kind of kits is huge, cheap and readily available just about anywhere.
• My (motorized) screwdriver ran out of juice when attaching the final 7 screws, so we had to wait half an hour to get it reloaded just enough to finish the job and call it a day.
• My back hurts.

Inserting the walls. It's starting to look the part.

Mixing cement. Only 10 wheelbarrows to go.

First durability-test in our typical Belgian weather

The roof-boards fit poorly, but can be persuaded a bit.

The last screws go in the roof.

Granddad showing off, Hercules-style

Viper - Part 3 (Cockpit decals)

Everything going in the fuselage - or requiring paint before further assembly - is painted. Both cockpits are USA Grey (Vallejo 71.047). The pilot's uniforms are camouflage green (71.022), with a few drops of the grey, to make it a little more dull.
The landing gear for the Mark II is aluminium and for the Mark VII is steel. The difference is only caused by me misreading the instructions too quickly. I found some nasty seams on them anyway, which had to be sanded smooth. I'll be redoing them aluminium as well.

Cockpit decals
The cockpit for Revell's Mark II has a very nice amount of decals. Moebius' Mark VII has ONE! The Revell version of this kit has a lot more decals, but I'm not going to spend money in obtaining them.

Pilots
The pilots just needed a bit more detail. Grey boots and gloves (German grey - 71.052), a black belt and joystick and a golden helmet with silver visor (not yet done).
While looking for a new bottle of black paint on my workbench, I stumbled upon an old but unused bottle of  "Black glaze" (70.855). I obtained it in a big batch of Vallejo paint from my brother-in-law's stash of unused paint and kept it out of curiosity.
Unsure of the difference between (and inexperienced in the use of) glazes, washes and plain heavily diluted paint, I gave it a try on one of the pilots. Heavily diluted in a first layer, it looked awful until it dried. The (old) Vallejo thinner I used is white and dries clear(ish), but looks weird at first. Once dry, I could see the purpose of this glaze. A second layer went on less thinned. See below for the difference between the treated and untreated pilot.

 

Cockpit assembly
The Mark VII cockpit-pieces fit perfectly, but the Mark II pieces have a lot of wiggle-room in their assembly, so to prevent it from not fitting inside the fuselage once assembled, I glued it all and sandwiched it in between the fuselage halves. This way, fit is perfect and I can let the glue set with everything in it's proper position.

Here are both resulting cockpits. I added a little painted detail to the Mark VII, because that one lonely decal didn't do the cockpit much justice.

Once the pilots are done, everything will receive a coat of varnish (to seal in and protect the decals) and the fuselages will be closed.

Viper - Part 2 (landing gear)

Next step is assembling the landing gear. I will pose both birds on the ground, not in flight. They will sit nose-to-nose in my display cupboard.

Mark II
The landing gear needed a lot of persuasion to sit together, but that's where all the clamps come in handy.

The front leg was a bit of a trouble-maker though. The right side was badly warped. I could have clamped it and let the glue do it's work, but the warped part would pull the straight part out of line, and the entire leg would be askew. So I just glued the top together and - 12 hours later - used hot water (boiling hot!) to straighten it out. I submersed it 5-10 seconds, then applied force in the direction I wanted it. After 4-5 repetitions, the result is very good and I applied the glue.

Test-fitting the fuselage shows there's not much there in terms of "gear bay". The front looks okay, but the back appear to be 2 big holes into the empty fuselage. More test-fitting later will reveal if it'll be needed to fill this up or if it will be obscured enough by the landing gear.

Anyway, those "insides" will need to be painted if we want to avoid bare plastic remaining visible, preferably black.

Mark VII

No issues whatsoever with the landing gear and this model does have gear bays and nothing else of the interior visible.