Subscribers’ Gallery – aircraft

AV-8B Harrier II shown in its Italian markings. The Trumpeter kit is showing its age, but with a little TLC it can be turned in to a rather nice kit.

I used the Aires cockpit, and wheel wells, along with Reedoak figures, and Verlinden carrier deck trucks.

Below is the back story…
An Italian AV-8B Harrier hitched a ride home aboard Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) after six months of maintenance in the US.

The Italian aircraft, along with its flight crew, returned to Grottaglie Naval Base, Italy, on January 3, after the six months of scheduled maintenance at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, and two weeks of final checks and training aboard Kearsarge.

Hope you enjoy!
Mike T.

Another one for my portfolio.

This is the HobbyBoss A-1A ground attack aircraft of the Brazil Airforce in 1:48 scale.

I found this kit a dream to build, it has no problems at all and it fits perfectly and the landing gear is excellent. I only added a resin bang seat.

I highly recommend this kit. :)
Jeroen B.

Here are a few shots of my recently finished A-37 Tweet; it’s the old 1:48 scale Monogram kit with the afterburner detail set, a great little model.

This is my Airfix 1:72 A4 Skyhawk in flight on blurred base.

“Going In Hot” she’s done painted using Hataka Red Line US Navy & USMC “HI VIZ” Paint Set mounted on a blurred base from www.coastalkits.co.uk what do you guys think?

Jezz C.

Hello and I thought I’d share another one of my builds here.

This is the 1:48 A-4E from HobbyBoss with a New Zealand jacket on. I really liked the Skyhawk in these colours so I just had to do it.

I fitted an Aires cockpit set in it which was originally meant for the Hasegawa kit but with a little trimming it fits perfectly. The nose wheel was moulded in the nose gear so I bought the separated set from Eduard to fix this. The rest is all oob.

The paints are the sea camo colours from Gunze (H303/H309/H310 and H311) and I used Alclad black primer and microfiller as a black base and Alclad2 Aquagloss and Klear Kote matt for gloss and matt coats. I must say that the stuff from Alclad2 is absolutely fantastic. Decals are from Superscale.

Have a good evening and see you next time!

Jeroen B.

Here is my A-7E Corsair II VA-15 ‘Valions’ from the Hasegawa 1.48 kit.

This is the Academy 1:48th Apache AH-64A. The kit was purchased at a local model show for the handsome price of £2.50, as it turned out a total bargain. After looking at the array of aftermarket add on that are available and the cost of purchasing them I decided to go for another “out of the box” build using extra materials I had lying around and some bits from the spares box.

As with most builds things started with the cockpit. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the Apache cockpit, but to say that it is dull is an understatement! It’s basically black on black so the bring a little life to this area I indulged in a little “artistic” licence and used colour on the switches and instruments. The cockpit tub was sprayed Black grey and then highlighted with a dark grey mixed with a little light blue. The whole thing was then dry brushed with white to pop the detail and then the previously mentioned colours applied. The seats were painted in olive green and then an oil wash of lamp black was applied to show the creases. This was then put aside to dry and the next phase started.

My next task was to construct several sub-constructions, these being the engine nacelles, chain gun mounting platform, tail rotor hub (this contains 16 individual parts and is no bigger than your thumb nail!) and the main rotor. Once constructed one of the main flaws with the kit was discovered, the join on the engine nacelles. With a large amount of sanding, filling and more sanding the prominent seam was removed along with the entire lovely panel line detail and rivet pattern. I then had to consult reference material to re-scribe the panel lines and I then spend 2 hours punching the rivet detail into plastic softened with liquid poly. Once this was completed the cockpit was fitted into the fuselage and the 2 half test fitted. This revealed another major problem; the cock pit was over width and caused the fuselage to bulge. Not a great issue but lots of time spent trimming sanding and test fitting to get things right before committing to the final glue up. I am pleased to say that everything else went together well and the rest on construction went very smoothly.

One area that I did spend a little time on was the canopy. I removed this from the sprue with a hot knife as the plastic felt a little brittle and I was worried that the plastic would show crazing if too much pressure was applied. I then sanded the removal points flush with the wife’s nail file (she still thinks she lost it!!) and I then spent half an hour polishing the surfaces (in and out) with a polishing stick. Still being worried about the quality of the plastic I dipped all the clear parts in Johnsons Klear and left it to dry over night before masking with Tamiya tape. Once this was complete I then fitted the glazing to the fuselage with thin superglue and accelerator and addressed any joins that required attention.

Now the fun part, the painting stage. The whole kit was primed with Alclad micro primer and then base coated with Vallejo Model Air Olive Drab. I then highlighted the centre of all of the panels with the base coat lightened with about 10% sunny skin tone. Once this had been left overnight to dry I sprayed a highly diluted mix of the base coat over the entire model. I them applied a coat of Mig Filter ‘Tan’ for traditional camouflage, I find that this is best done now as the Vallejo Model Air paints I use give a nice semi gloss finish, a surface that the Mig filters seem to like. Once dry I then glossed the whole model with Klear and applied the decals with Micro set and Sol, I did however have to go back over the decals with Gunze Sangyo Mr Mark Softener (this is more aggressive than Micro Sol) before I was happy with the finish. I then applied another coat of Klear in preparation for the oil washes.

I used Mig’s Dark Wash for the pin wash on the upper surfaces and a mix of Payne’s grey and lamp black for the underside. Once dry the whole model was treated to 3 coats of Vallejo Model Air matt varnish. Job Done!!

This is my second model.
We have limited equipment in my country (Iran), for example I built the engine from waste. I made Remove Before Flight tags by print on paper.

• AH-64A Apache
• 1:48 Academy
• Paint from Italeri
• build in September 2012
• I made this model during about 10 days

Already here is embedded my model.
Best regards, Mohammad Adl from Iran

This is the Revell 1:144 kit. Straight OOB. Even in this scale the model is big (60 X 60cm!). It was a challenge with some modelling issues like length of the decal on the aircraft body, bad fitting if wings. But when finished this is an impressive model and only Revell have it in this scale.
Best wishes, Alexander K.

I think that the title roughly translates to “Mortal Ambush” and it’s no wonder looking at the size of that serpent! A great finish here by Alberto and some nice – typically Japanese wear and tear on the airframe.
This is the Hasegawa 1:72 scale kit.

This is my Tamiya 1:48 Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero.

• It has been built out of the box with just the addition of Eduard seat belts from their IJN range
• The kit has superb detail and it fits!
• I used Xtracolor paints which consist of X354 IJN Grey and X353 IJN Green.
• The interior colour is Humbrol 78 which is about right
• I used the instrument panel decals which with plenty of Microscale Micro Sol, sink into the mouldings and look just fine
• Wing leading edges are yellow with a touch of red to give the correct colour
• The prop blades are Humbrol 70; the cowl colour is blue/black which I mixed from gloss black and gloss blue
• The Sakae engine was sprayed with Xtracolor Steel, push rods painted black and then given a wash with Tamiya Smoke (X-19)
• After spraying the topside IJN Green I faded the paint a little with some gloss white and sprayed this over in random patches for a faded look
• I used dark brown acrylic ink in the panel lines
• The kit decals were very good and with some Micro Sol went down over the raised detail and into the panel lines
• The kit comes with a canopy mask. The individual panels have to be cut out with a new scalpel blade but they do fit the canopy panels
• Also supplied are four pilot figures. I painted up three of them and use them with all of my Japanese aircraft collection.

All in all, a first class kit and a pleasure to build…
Cheers for now, Roger B.

Here’s my AU-1 Corsair “Miss Penny” from Revell 1:48 scale.

The pilot for this plane is (still alive) Mr. Colonel Dick Francisco a former Marine in Korea and he named his plane as Miss Penny in memory of the daughter of his wingman Colonel Forest Nelson who was MIA in Korea. After Mr. Nelson left his family to go on a mission he never returned back home and he was declared MIA. Miss Penelope Robichaux-Kunts “Miss Penny” Mr. Nelson´s daughter was three years old back then. Her mother could not support her after she lost her husband and the USS Miss Pillion support her family. I own the book written by Miss Penny about her life. She is now a friend of mine in FB.
In this case I did also detail the cockpit from scratch. The pilot´s harness and belts are made using masking tape and copper wire for the buckles. I used stretched sprue and plastic card to detail the instruments, lights and more controls into the cockpit, opened the fuselage hatch and detailed the interior with communications and aerials and the control stick bar-system. Detailed the engine and the landing gear as well.
Jose Alvarez ECM Hobbies

Here’s my AEG G.IV (Late) in 1:32 scale made from the Wingnut Wings kit. so completely out of box, no additional aftermarket sets used. I really like the size of this giant and especially nice detailed engines that add a lot of variety to overall uniform look.
This is how it can look like without rib-tapes pre-shading/post-shading. I separated those rib-tapes only by overpainting them with matt varnish and then applied global filter over the whole wing surfaces. And these filters have tendency to accumulate around those rib-tapes and create soft dust like visual separation.
Cheers, Zdenko

Attached are some photos of the Albatros as requested. The model is built from the Eduard ‘Weekend Edition’ kit in 1:48, all OOB. Paints are Gunze, and oils for the wood panelling.
Cheers, Jen

Here is another fantastic build from Zdenko – this time his builds of the Wingnut Wings Albatros B.II Early in 1:32 scale.

I think that this model is simply stunning in terms of weathering and finishing – amongst the most realistic models I have seen to date – wonderful stuff!

See some of Zdenko’s other contributions in your SG like his DH.9a and Polikarpov R-1.

Thanks again to Zdenko for sharing his great work with us all – lots to learn from here just by careful study of his photographs that are equally very high quality.

Here’s another of Hong Hwan’s superb scale models and his photography isn’t bad either!! Very inspiring… Geoff

Anson “Colourful Annie” by Max Williams
This is the Classic Airframes Anson “Colourful Annie” – it was the first one of its type that I had made and was quite challenging. The kit is a mixture of injection moulded plastic, photo-etch and resin. The instructions, as with many CA kits, were very vague, often ambiguous and sometimes wrong! I was helped in my build by a couple of articles in model magazines that I had spotted over the years, and by a Brett Green build feature on the Hyperscale site. The two most contentious areas of the kit are the positioning of the undercarriage in the nacelles – it’s easy to get them in the wrong place, and I strengthened mine with the addition of plasticard formers – and the resin cowlings. These have to be cut off some chunky mouldings, but what is not explained is that the inside diameter of the cowl also has to be increased. I had problems with some warped resin parts in the cockpit but I made some new bits out of plastic rod. Despite all of that, I enjoyed the build sufficiently to have another one ready soon!
This particular aircraft is painted in the markings of 6 SFTS Mallala, Victoria. R3518 actually crashed whilst being flown by a pupil pilot idoing a cross country solo in June 1943 – he became disorientated in cloud and dived into a hillside. He was killed and his plane written off.

Xtracrylics were used throughout, though I have to say I won’t be using these very often as they tend to clog the airbrush even, it seems, when thinned. Pro-Modellers “light dirt” was used to weather the model.

Here’s my 1:32 Arado Ar196 floatplane made from the very nice Revell kit.

As is usual, I have gone for a weathered look and added some scratch built items – hope you all like it!
Nat P.

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Here’s a build that I completed back in January (2012) taking 4 months to build. A fantastic model with some very nice detail and at the incredible price of only £24.99. The only issues I had were with trying to close the fuselage at the wing roots. Masking and spraying around the floats was a bit of a challenge but being able to fit the wings afterwards was a great help. I’ve included some build detail as well.
Vaughan P.

Italeri (Accurate Miniatures Re-box) 1:48 Avenger III FAA
Paints: Tamiya, Citadel
No aftermarket extras, but scratch built the FAA navigator’s compartment behind the pilot.
Thanks, Mish E.

This is the Accurate Miniatures TBM Avenger in 1:48, with the exception of the seat belts, the model is build straight from the box. This is a nocturnal version of the TBM, the lower grey colour was over painted by using the darker upper colour. All the squadron markings were down-lighted by over-spraying the upper colour.

Accurate Miniatures 1:48 scale
It was made such a long time ago now I really can’t remember what I used but there was a small pack of brass and the exhausts. I think I jazzed up the engine but it disappeared into the body work! The original kit itself was very good and went together without problems. The markings were from the box.

Here is my Classic Airframes Avro Anson in 1:48th scale. She is finished as MG104 based at No. 10 AGS Walney Island in 1944. She was one of the Ansons flown by Bill Chatters during his gunnery training. Research showed that she was fitted with a Bristol BI Mk IV turret carrying two Browning .303 machine guns rather than the earlier Armstrong Whitworth turret fitted with a single Lewis gun, so this had to be scratch-built.
Other small additions to the basic kit includes windscreen wipers and motors, undercarriage up/down indicators in the upper nacelles, detailed Cheetah engines with con-rods and plug leads and of course the door in the open position.
Max W.

The model is the Tamiya B.I/B.III kit in 1:48th scale and builds into a 30 x 29 inch model of this famous British bomber (a personal favourite alongside the Mosquito).
This kit is the older version of the kit and was updated using the Flightpath updates, before being given an appropriately weathered paint scheme, the markings were from an aftermarket set.

Just a few of the Airfix 1:72 scale Shackleton – first completion of 2018. It had its moments but got there in the end.
It’s a nice kit overall and good to have the ‘Shack’ available in different variants.

Hope you like it!
Andy B.