LOL .. and the tenzan have a good number of frames too . No bubble acnopy on the ww2 japan planes, at the same time one of fashinating thing of these planes and a bad step for modellers

As the canopy frames are not perfect molded (never on the original amodel piece ) ,this time i need to mask!!

Looking good bsyamato!

Reasoned, I hope you can recover that val!

Speaking of Val's and painting.  I am still new to this whole airbrushing of light layers and building it up.  I just wanted to see what everyone thought of my Val, do I need to build it up more?  I meant to make it darker along the seams for variation and shading. Any pointers would be appreciated.

David: What you've got looks good to me. It's better to go understated as you have than to over do it. When you put the panel line wash on it will make the lines 'pop' a little more on top of what you have there.

On what Gamera said.  I'm not a pre-shader (yet) relying on panel washes and with the PH Val's they were supposed to be pretty clean planes with little weathering.  You may want to leave the pitot tube off next time (and all the fiddly bits) until after all painting, decals and wash so as not to break it.

I'm with after shading and panel lining too To mee seems good too David, the tail have other colors to use?

David - Val's looking pretty solid! If you're looking for more variation, particularly darker shading around the panel lines, I've been experimenting with this kind of thing a lot in my recent builds. Great thing is, you've got options, more or less foolproof as long as you go slow and don't get impatient (a constant battle for me!).

Option 1 - Dark to Light

This one's pretty simple. Put a darker color down first. If you're doing, say, medium or light gray, go with dark gray. Tan, go with dark brown. With dark greens, black or a very black green. Focus on the panel lines, do some streaks in the direction of airflow (or down in the direction of gravity on the fuselage). If you want, you can do a lighter "fill coat" to darken everything up - depends on the color you're putting over it. Then build up your main color on top. Keep the spray pattern tight and build up gradually and kind of randomly. Don't avoid the panel lines, but give them maybe 50% of the paint you lay down on the panels themselves. The thinner you keep your top coat, the more gradually you can build it up.

Option 2 - Three-Layer Blend

Also pretty simple. Spray your main color first. Then mix in 50% white. Spray this onto the panels, steering clear of the panel lines. It'll look terrible. Next, go back to your main color, thin it with 75% or so thinner, and spray on top until everything starts to blend.

Bowled through most of the main assembly work on the George last night. Really starting to take shape.

At first I was a bit flummoxed by, but now I love the design of the cowl. It'll allow me to leave the engine and exhausts separate until after everything's painted.

Here are some views of the underwing 20mm pods and the centerline tank. I MacGuyvered my way into locating the drill holes by putting some dabs of paint on the tank's aft mounting pins, then sticking it where it would go using the two forward location holes. Paint marked the spots, and they got drilled out. Nice and easy!

Got some additional stuff to go, but it's all small bits that I think I'll paint off the aircraft and attach after painting (pitot tube, aerial, some little scoop dealy). 

Another bonus - the bottom of the George is NMF, and so are the gear bay interiors. No masking needed!

Looking good Doogs....no Polish machine guns on that baby!   

Yeah, looking good Doogs!

DoogsATX

 

Wow, cool looking camo Doogs.  How do you like that kit?  I have the 1/48 of that plane but a 1/32 should interesting to see, keep the pics coming!

Thanks! 

Have to say, I'm really, really digging the PCM kit. It's a bit rough in places, and the super-thick plastic was a pain to cut through for scratchbuilding the flaps, but I've had so much fun with it that I've snagged their Reggiane Re.2005 and a second G.55 with the torpedo bomber conversion (already got their Macchi C.205 Veltro in the stash). 

Here's where it's at now. Definitely in the home stretch.

well done on the George Doogs

Dirty night!! i mixed black and some brown with thinner for washing some cockpit, the mary and the veltro and a tank and a truck (all 1/72) : cockpits works good and here the almost finished mary cockpit, need to paint the silvers scratches and to put belts on the pilot seat and can glue the halves

David great job so far!

Doogs that cammo job looks great, did'nt that have a German DB engine in it ?

Bsyamato great looking interior!!!

Yes, the DB engine was in the G55 & Reggiane.  Doogs your plane looks great, love the paint scheme.  The G55 & Reggi are some of my favorite WWII fighters.

the macchi 205 use the db too

instant update! just dry the wash and returned to attack the cockpit

and did another mummy

leave out the pilot seat to put on the belts separately, will glue it after .

The align of the bulkheads are not perfect ... i forget tha is a short-run kit

heading to the bed

Thanks for the tip Doog, those are some nice looking planes!

Looking good bsyamato, I am always impressed with you "jeweler" modelers.

Nice work on the office bsyamato. Really cool.

Watch out for Doog's tips: pretty soon he'll talk you into building something "challenging but worth it" from a company in Eastern Europe that employs four people. Although I'll check in: my next plane I think will be a Hasegawa Macchi 202 in 1/48. (The bad guys sure built pretty planes.) If I want some challenging but hopefully worth it, it will be an Accurate Miniatures Avenger in Fleet Air Arm garb.

Didn't know this Group Build was here, but it can't hurt to throw in another Val - sure there are some things displayed that are useful to avoid. It's a Hasegawa "Midway Island" kit in 1/48 that I did this February. Paints were Golden Acrylics and Vallejo Model Color. I bought a pamphlet from modeling author Nick Millman who is a member in good standing of the great Zero color war and runs a great site called Aviation of Japan on "Painting the Early Zero-Sen." Vals by Midway had all gone green but as of their return from Ceylon many wore the amber grey seen at Pearl Harbor and a close cousin to the early Zero. Anyway, it's a mix of ochre, titanium white, carbon black and khaki: lightened for scale with light green grey. Except for the numbers I painted the markings using Floquil Soo Line Red which was the closest match I had to the very deep and dark red required. Some pics below. They start with a photo of a Val replica that shows why I put on some oil around the cowl and underneath on an otherwise lightly weathered plane. First of the kit shows it before all of the dot fading etc which hopefully gave it a little of a "lived in" look. BTW, with all of the greys and that fugitive green, it drove me nuts trying to photograph it.

Eric

Thanx guys want to finish the mary soon, next problem willl be to fix the wings that not fitting good after i glued the wing pieces ..

Nice Val Eric , i see it already on the aircraft section

I should have joined the Italian GB Nice job on all that crazy camo Doogs.

Bsyamato: Nice work there, I have to agree on admiring the amount of detail you pack in those 1/72nd planes.

Eric: Think I commented before but still nice work Thanks for posting her over here.

Gamera

I should have joined the Italian GB Nice job on all that crazy camo Doogs.

LOL, yep! Did it on a whim and it's been an absolute blast. I'm thinking next year, once P-47 is done or on round two or something, starting a "War in Italy" GB. Open to everybody, though, not just Italian stuff. IMO the Italian theater also saw some of the more interesting Allied equipment and schemes of the war. USAAF Spitfires, Shermans in two-tone, the B-25s of the 340th in their OD over NMF schemes...

Gamera

I should have joined the Italian GB

Got my Val mostly repaired, should have done w/pics this weekend.

BTW Doogs, is the 1/48 Academy P-47D worth $20?

I`m having major computer trouble. I`ve been trying to post pics of a Betty bomber but my laptop keeps crashing to a blue screen...something about a Kernal page error????  I`ve disabled or removed anything new hardware/software...very frustrating...works perfectly one minute and not the next. It lets me on once and awhile but if I try to plug in my camera ...crash! If anyone knows how to fix this problem please contact me "back channel", I`d be in your debt.

TIA,

Len

Len - how old is your computer? Granted, I'm on a Mac, but I had a similar problem with mine a few months back. It'd work, then just die. Turned out it was a bad logic board that had to be replaced.

Len,

All I can tell you is to try to isolate the problem. Does it only crash when the camera is plugged in? Did you try your camera with another computer, say one at work or a friends?

When my camera went bad I couldn't figure out what was going on but found the computer is fine  and the camera was bad. Though from what you describe it sure sounds like the computer is the problem.

Cliff

Gamera

I should have joined the Italian GB Nice job on all that crazy camo Doogs.

Bsyamato: Nice work there, I have to agree on admiring the amount of detail you pack in those 1/72nd planes.

Eric: Think I commented before but still nice work Thanks for posting her over here.

This time needed to invent LOL

DoogsATX nice idea i'm sure in with something that fly or not 

troublemaker66

I`m having major computer trouble. I`ve been trying to post pics of a Betty bomber but my laptop keeps crashing to a blue screen...something about a Kernal page error????  I`ve disabled or removed anything new hardware/software...very frustrating...works perfectly one minute and not the next. It lets me on once and awhile but if I try to plug in my camera ...crash! If anyone knows how to fix this problem please contact me "back channel", I`d be in your debt.

TIA,

Len

Len imho if you have data files saved on another hard disk partition (i suppose you use windows, blue screen avaible only there ) just insert the operative system disk and format the C partition, best way to resolve things but for safe things ask some near friend that can personally help you.

Afternoon assembly

without surgery this is the kit wings fitting, wrong way, the central section of the wing must be perfect horizontal

the surgery cuts

and after lots of cuts and sanding (removed about a mm or more on each fuselage/wings contact surfaces)

heres the result

when glue is completely cured will operate to fix wings at good angle and fill with plastic stripes instead of putty:

the good point of this kit is the easy workable plastic used

Going on the tail surfaces: i drilled the joint surfaces, the kit not have joint pins

lots of tamiya glue and fixing at the good angle; this will help for correct position of main wings

and the mary being to get final shapes

PS the upper wings surfaces are glued only from the front and wings tip zones so they can be fixed easily in the correct position.

Reasoned

BTW Doogs, is the 1/48 Academy P-47D worth $20?

IMO, no. The only Jugs I'd buy in 1/48 (excluding -Ns, where the choices are different) are the Revellograms and the Tamiyas.

Revellogram = cheap, good shape, builds up well. Cockpit's a bit wanting but not Lindberg-bad by any means.

Tamiya = excellent detail, brilliant engineering and probably one of the best 1/48 kits ever produced.

The way I see it, the Academy and Hasegawa kits dance in between, but it's kind of a pointless middle ground. Why spend $20 on the Academy when you can get the solid Revellogram for like $10-12, or the amazing Tamiya for $25-30?

DoogsATX

Len - how old is your computer? Granted, I'm on a Mac, but I had a similar problem with mine a few months back. It'd work, then just die. Turned out it was a bad logic board that had to be replaced.

At one time, I had 5 Dell laptops...me, wife and all 3 teenagers..figured that way, no fighting for internet time and homework,etc. Mine is the oldest and the only one still working..well, till now. The error message said to disable/remove any new h/w..s/w. The external drive had a program that auto ran to back up my computer files but don`t see anything in my program files for Seagate...maybe that caused the problem? Must`ve been removed when I did the system restore...I guess.

That`s the whole story. I know I should prolly buy a new machine but don`t have the $ at the moment...hopefully we can figure it out...

Thanks Guys!

Len

Len,

As Doogs said it might be a hardware issue. Though if you've been using the computer for six years it's hard to tell. Sometimes when you install and delete software it doesn't 100% remove itself and you end up with old stuff hanging around that sometimes conflicts.

If everything isn't already backed up on the external drive I'd do so, maybe burn it to some DVD/CDs just to be on the safe side and then take it by your local computer shop. They might be able to fix it. Or if it's a software issue just reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows can make a big difference. By doing so you're removing all that debris that has built up over the last six years.

As said it's hard to tell sometimes, I was grumping on another thread about a year and half ago about my machine just randomly rebooting constantly. Turned out there was a defect in the power supply that caused it to randomly short out. Two computer shops couldn't find it. Replacing it fixed the problem completly.

Good luck!

Bsyamato: Yikes! I didn't know you were going to have to do that much work. You're doing some surgery on that model!