Gamera

Mike: Come-on!!! We want photos! Hurry up!!! 

Ditto! Pictures! Pictures!

Details, details lately.

Dullcoated the turret, added a little wash to the jack and still painting in those tow cables. Not to mention I made a bit of an 'oops' on the underside of the big gun I had to fix. (Not shown)

I also added some more wash to the wheels- they just looked too 'clean' to me.

Added the crosses. What a pain to have to add a total 5 decals! Just kidding! Some of the aircraft I have done have well over a hundred decals and this was a breeze! Also I installed the little gun, painted with some brushed on metalizer again, this time in gunmetal.

Hmmmm.... now I see this picture, I can see I forgot to clean up the mold separation line on the gun! Damn camera can see better than me!

Still some work to go on the tail, some painting and installing the jack, mufflers, etc. I had a mess back here as I first tried to wash with that Testors 'stain', then tried to wipe it away with a cotton swab! I had fuzz all over it!

Makes you realize how small this model is, when you see I have it propped up with the lid off my Diet Coke bottle.

On a side note, I see on Hasegawa's website, they will be re-releasing their F-111E in 1/72nd scale....

I have the Hasegawa FB-111A, F-111E/F, and the EF111A Raven in my collection. I would love another 'Vark, but no doubt I it's not going to be cheap as they will be offering it as a 'limited release'! There is still the F-111G Aussie 'Pig' still available for now.... Guess I can't have them all, can I?

Great work once again Jim!      Yes, I am glad you put that coke bottle lid in there for scale.  It gives a much better perspective on how small that model is and what fine detail you are doing!

I think the wash on the wheels looks great!  The whole tank is looking fantastic!

Yes, unfortunately Hasegawa and "limited edition" put together usually equals a high price.  But if you can afford it, buy two, save one of them.  Then when they are no longer "available", sell it on eBay for a higher price and make some money!

Ken

Hi Everyone,

I have done a little work on the Phantom.  I cleaned up the top edge of the avionics bay walls where the photo etch will be attached.  I also began final test fitting the cockpit with the fuselage and found I have a little more tweaking to do.

I have been busy with some projects around the house and at my Mom's house that is keeping me away from the workbench.  Normal.  I will get back to it.

Ken

Son Of Medicine Man

Great work once again Jim!      Yes, I am glad you put that coke bottle lid in there for scale.  It gives a much better perspective on how small that model is and what fine detail you are doing!

I think the wash on the wheels looks great!  The whole tank is looking fantastic!

Yes, unfortunately Hasegawa and "limited edition" put together usually equals a high price.  But if you can afford it, buy two, save one of them.  Then when they are no longer "available", sell it on eBay for a higher price and make some money!

Ken

I see it being offered at Hobbylinc Japan as a presale reserve for about 30 bucks (yen to dollar converted). No doubt that will be a lot more once it's imported and American retailers add their bit....

I remember back in the day when Hasegawa kits were plentiful and relatively affordable. Had I been able to look into the future, I would have stocked up on Phantoms and Aardvarks, my two favorite planes and kits in this brand.

I got much to do today, but here I sit at the computer, jacking around......

Pics of the KV-2 have arrived. It was a nice side project but my last armor build for a while. Back to my first love: wing things! The story of how this tank caused the Germans such fits during the start of Barbarossa made the research perhaps more fun than the build itself. Certainly nowhere near the value of the T-34, this behemoth  along with KV-1's nonetheless allowed the Russians valuable time to catch their breath and slow the German advance just enough before "General Winter" really put a hurtin' on the Wehrmacht! 

Nice Mikey! Just now read up on your behemoth. 45 tons! Yow! And a big gun!

Today was busy as I had so many domestic chores to do, most of which I didn't finish anyway.

Later I sat down and did a marathon session of paperwork for Mom's estate. Now I'm just drained emotionally. Even after several hours, I'm not even near being done. I need to go to the bank and see about a notary and something called a Medallion Certificate! It's like a notary, but a lot more checks have to be made to verify who I am-I don't know what they need, perhaps a DNA sample and pledge the life of my first born.....

Mike: Nice work! Weathered but not over done, love how she turned out!

Jim: Yeah, I swear sometimes it takes five times as long to do the paperwork as it does just to do what you're doing.

Yes Jim, I went through some similar stuff with my dad's estate last summer. Without a lawyer it can be a daunting challenge. Even with one it's still emotionally draining. No easy answers to it.

Nice job on the KV-2 Mike!  It looks like it could drive off!     

Ken

I feel for you Jim.  I am not looking forward to the day when my Mom passes away.  She had to handle the paper work for when my Dad passed away, but when she does, it will be up to me.

Ken

Son Of Medicine Man

I feel for you Jim.  I am not looking forward to the day when my Mom passes away.  She had to handle the paper work for when my Dad passed away, but when she does, it will be up to me.

Ken

Well, all this is being made worse by the fact that my sister is being resistant to the idea that I will need to sell the home. She believes that she should live in the house for free as she has no income and neither does her good for nothing 22 year old son. He is staying in the house right now and "has no where to go"! As the executor and PR there is little they can do to stop me in what I need to do, but it would be so much easier if she were cooperative instead of being a road block! The thing is, it may come down to where I may have to go to formal proceedings to evict him from the house! When this is all said and done, I will have no family left, at least not by blood! I really don't need her, as she wasn't there anyway when I could have used someone, if even on a supportive level. I made all the decisions when it came to Mom's medical care, her end of life care, and I was the one who had to put her in the ground!

Although it is unlikely she will survive me, with the way she smokes and the drug use in her past, I am going to be sure that there is paperwork in place that excludes her from being involved in anyway, if something should happen to me.

On an added note, after I made all the arraignments, all she had to do was show up for the funeral. She shows up late, and lives less that 15 minutes from the cemetery!

I apologize for the rant, it just sort of just came out.....

jimbot58

Son Of Medicine Man

I feel for you Jim.  I am not looking forward to the day when my Mom passes away.  She had to handle the paper work for when my Dad passed away, but when she does, it will be up to me.

Ken

Well, all this is being made worse by the fact that my sister is being resistant to the idea that I will need to sell the home. She believes that she should live in the house for free as she has no income and neither does her good for nothing 22 year old son. He is staying in the house right now and "has no where to go"! As the executor and PR there is little they can do to stop me in what I need to do, but it would be so much easier if she were cooperative instead of being a road block! The thing is, it may come down to where I may have to go to formal proceedings to evict him from the house! When this is all said and done, I will have no family left, at least not by blood! I really don't need her, as she wasn't there anyway when I could have used someone, if even on a supportive level. I made all the decisions when it came to Mom's medical care, her end of life care, and I was the one who had to put her in the ground!

Although it is unlikely she will survive me, with the way she smokes and the drug use in her past, I am going to be sure that there is paperwork in place that excludes her from being involved in anyway, if something should happen to me.

On an added note, after I made all the arraignments, all she had to do was show up for the funeral. She shows up late, and lives less that 15 minutes from the cemetery!

I apologize for the rant, it just sort of just came out.....

No problem Jim.  I fully understand.  I have a sister too that I will have to deal with as well when the time comes.  Currently she does not speak to me and has very little to do with my Mom.  I am the one who takes care of my Mom as well.  It sounds very similar to the situation I will be faced with.

Ken

Aaaaaggghhhh! A serious set back tonight! I have been experimenting with dot filters on the Tiger, starting with the turret. That seemed to go well. Tonight was a different story: I went to work on the body of the tank with one of my 'dots' being white. As I blended away, it started to take on a chalky appearance. I decided to quit and then went to a black wash to tone down the white. That only seemed to bring up the white even further! I then got a cotton swap and tried to wipe it away! Again the swab came up dark and the white was left behind, making it even worse! I finally went to drastic measures and began repainting......

I'm too disgusted to put up photos as I don't even want to look at it!

I had read several discussions here and at a few other boards, and there were some that said they did their dots over a matte finish and some over a gloss. I unfortunately tried the matte.

Conclusion:

1.) Gloss might be better to start with

2.) Dot filters may just be too difficult in this scale.

3.) White was not a good choice.

4.) I suck at this.

or:

5.) All of the above with #4 getting two votes!

jimbot58

Aaaaaggghhhh! A serious set back tonight! I have been experimenting with dot filters on the Tiger, starting with the turret. That seemed to go well. Tonight was a different story: I went to work on the body of the tank with one of my 'dots' being white. As I blended away, it started to take on a chalky appearance. I decided to quit and then went to a black wash to tone down the white. That only seemed to bring up the white even further! I then got a cotton swap and tried to wipe it away! Again the swab came up dark and the white was left behind, making it even worse! I finally went to drastic measures and began repainting......

I'm too disgusted to put up photos as I don't even want to look at it!

I had read several discussions here and at a few other boards, and there were some that said they did their dots over a matte finish and some over a gloss. I unfortunately tried the matte.

Conclusion:

1.) Gloss might be better to start with

2.) Dot filters may just be too difficult in this scale.

3.) White was not a good choice.

4.) I suck at this.

or:

5.) All of the above with #4 getting two votes!

Oh Jim, I am so sorry to hear that!  It was coming along so well.  And no, you do not suck at doing anything!  You do such wonderful work at that scale!  You are just trying something new and you just have to develop your skill at it.  Just like you have at all the other things you do at this scale.

I know you will recover it and it will end up looking fantastic, just like all your models do!   

Ken

Yikes Mike! And she was looking so good! I hate going back and repainting stuff like that.

I'm certainly no expert on the whole dot filter thing, only having done it a few times myself but as I understand it:

Never use straight white. I always use a light tan for my light colour and have had pretty good success with it.

To tone it down you'd probably have been better using tan or brown to dilute it instead of straight black.

I've been told to apply the filter over a semi-gloss, since with a flat it will be hard to remove the excess and with a gloss you'll take the whole thing off. Still I've had decent luck with gloss since if you remove too much you can always put a second layer down. Sorry, not sure what you can do with too heavy other than repainting as you did. I'd be tempted though to air brush a few mist coats of the original mustard yellow on though to try to tone it down first instead of just repainting though.

I've seen some people use bright shades like red and blue etc. but I'm kinda a wuss and mostly use just earth tones. That and variations on the base coat like yellow and blue on a green tank so you get some areas with yellow tinted green and others with blue tinted green. I just don't get using shades like bright red.

I'm going to try to get some dot filters on my plain jane Churchill I'm doing for Bish's D-Day GB tonight. I'll see if I can post some photos here if you think it will help any. At least maybe you can avoid my mistakes!

Anyway that's my two cents for what it's worth, I'm still trying to learn the whole thing too. You might be better off asking someone like The Doog for advice, he's done this far longer than me.  

Jim, I know virtually nothing of dot filtering; never attempted it. I think everyone here understands your frustration and disappointment. We've all been to the point of investing so much time and energy only to see it go haywire in the bottom of the ninth. Some models I simply threw back in the box as is rather than launching it against the wall. From what you've described this is certainly salvageable but perhaps a break from it is in order for sanity's sake if nothing else. Keep us posted and hang in there buddy!

Hey Jim,  What kind of paint did you use to do the filter? I use artist oils and turpenoid to blend them and have no troubles with any color over a dead flat finish. The paint I`m using for filters is a cheap set from AC Moore , made by Pro Art. I was just thinking maybe it was the type of paint you were using. Good luck,

Len

Well, here goes the dot filter on the Churchill. As I said I'm a bit of a wuss, using just earth tones and nothing with really bright contrast. Hopefully it will turn out ok. 

troublemaker66

Hey Jim,  What kind of paint did you use to do the filter? I use artist oils and turpenoid to blend them and have no troubles with any color over a dead flat finish. The paint I`m using for filters is a cheap set from AC Moore , made by Pro Art. I was just thinking maybe it was the type of paint you were using. Good luck,

Len

Len

I used some oils in a set I picked up from Walmart made by Daler Rowner of the UK. According to the web, they have been around for some 230 years making art supplies.

The set I bought seems to be classified as a "beginners" set.

Simply Oils

It appears they make several grades all the way up to ones intended for professional artists. The ones I have are made for ordinary folk like us.....

I probably won't be painting a Mona Lisa anytime soon anyway.

I don't think it was so much the paints as it was just too much contrast using the white. I thought it would give it a faded look, but instead overwhelmed it. I don't think I can blame a paint for having too much pigment.

By comparison, I have a tube of black and burnt umber made by Winsor and Newton that each cost me more than the whole set of the cheap oils. I do notice a difference in the quality if I use the black for washes: when thinned with the turpinoid, the cheap stuff comes out as a very dark gray where as the other remains a true black.

I repainted last night and am giving it a day or two before I re-clear coat it and redo my black wash. The kit came with two different German crosses and I will just have to live with using the others, whether they are accurate or not.

Jim

Gamera

Well, here goes the dot filter on the Churchill. As I said I'm a bit of a wuss, using just earth tones and nothing with really bright contrast. Hopefully it will turn out ok. 

Gamera, is your Churchill a black or a very dark grey? Computer monitors can be deceiving...

Back again. Sat down with the Tiger 2 and found some bits that weren't right and I wasn't satisfied that the paint had dried enough anyway. I set it aside and took down the Tiger I to look over. I found I was a bit disappointed though as this kit appears to be an old one that Dragon updated by reworking some of the sprues and adding some PE parts.

Newer parts appear to consist of the road wheels and running gear, and the upper and lower hull. Old parts include the turret, gun and other main parts. These have very thick sprues, lots of flash and seams that don't match that well. The gates where the parts are attached are very large and look like they will be a PITA to trim away.

You can see the moldings aren't very crisp as they were on the King Tiger, and check out the flash on the tow cable seen to the left!

I cemented a few of the turret parts together to see how they fit and you can see the gaps and uneven seams that will have to be fixed. Of the two parts you see here, the one closest to the turret is what you are suppose to use, but it has a tab on it that looks as if it should fit into a slot, but there is no slot in the turret. The "not for use" part on the right would fit better but that pin on the back of the turret will need to be trimmed away. I don't know why it's there.

The other complaints I would have is the fact that instructions leave out attaching several parts that allow the gun to be attached to the front of the turret, and they don't tell NOT to cement these unless you want the gun to be stationary, instead of allowing it to pivot up and down. You could pose the hatches open, but this one didn't include the breach like the KT, so all you would see is an empty hull if you peered inside. The other oddity is the finishing instructions tell you to lay down a base coat of half and half grey (enamel) and clear (lacquer). Seems odd to mix enamel and lacquer together and I hate to think how that would turn out. Not sure if I want this challenge or if I should go back to the EF-18G.

One last thing is a view of the turret to show how the dot filter actually worked when I did it. Don't know if the camera will show this very well:

You see I used some white here and it just looks faded, not white washed like when I did the hull.

Well, i better be off to bed. Just realized I've been up for almost 22 hours.....

He Guys!

Here is a few pics of my dot filter on the Lee...

...and the results...

I`m going for a weary, dusty look  because I`m thinking about mounting the tank on a desert base. I dusted the entire tank with a sandy -yellow pastel chalk that I ground up....that I will have to redo because I forgot to do the dang decals again....arrrgh!!

I`m keeping all the hatches open so I was thinking I`ll have to depict the tank as abandoned, unless I can find a crew for it. I don`t do figures very well so I`m leaning heavily to abandonment...

Will post more pics after decaling and more weathering...

Len 

Gamera

Well, here goes the dot filter on the Churchill. As I said I'm a bit of a wuss, using just earth tones and nothing with really bright contrast. Hopefully it will turn out ok. 

Before you guys started talking about this "dot filtering", I had never heard of it.  Very interesting stuff!  I am taking notes.   

Ken

Jim: The turret on the KT looks great to me, too bad the hull didn't turn out as well.

The Churchill is a dark green, the gloss makes her look darker and sorry, kinda bad lighting and a cell phone camera.

And Dragon does seem to have a tendency to reuse sprues from old kits in the new boxings. So some sprues might be twenty years old with new parts added to make a 'new' kit. 

Lem: Nice job there, I think she may have turned out better than the filtering on my Churchill.

Anyway here's the result after drying, again not the greatest photos but I don't feel like dragging out the camera and finding the tripod.

Gamera

Jim: The turret on the KT looks great to me, too bad the hull didn't turn out as well.

The Churchill is a dark green, the gloss makes her look darker and sorry, kinda bad lighting and a cell phone camera.

And Dragon does seem to have a tendency to reuse sprues from old kits in the new boxings. So some sprues might be twenty years old with new parts added to make a 'new' kit. 

Lem: Nice job there, I think she may have turned out better than the filtering on my Churchill.

Anyway here's the result after drying, again not the greatest photos but I don't feel like dragging out the camera and finding the tripod.

Now I can see the dark green in this photo.

I finally got the hull repainted to my satisfaction, and now it's time to do that thing that always seems to take forever: waiting for paint to dry. I try to get a photo later, but I just jumped in here quick whilst dinner is cooking.

I've thought about the Tiger kit, and if I decide that I really want a Tiger I, I might switch for another Dragon kit:

Tiger I

Looking at the photos on the Hobby link site, it appears to have a reworked turret and detail parts. Even the instructions show greater detail, including a breach and positionable hatches.  I found a review on line for the version I have and it does mention the mismatched seams and "soft" moldings on the details. I'm just so picky, aren't I? Just got to wait for a better payday as this week it is a bit tight....

SB still has them in stock, so don't you guys rush out and buy them up before I can!

Just Kidding!

I don't know jack about their 1/72nd scale kits, but it looks good from the link and if it's anywhere as good as their 1/35th kits you should love it.

troublemaker66

He Guys!

Here is a few pics of my dot filter on the Lee...

...and the results...

I`m going for a weary, dusty look  because I`m thinking about mounting the tank on a desert base. I dusted the entire tank with a sandy -yellow pastel chalk that I ground up....that I will have to redo because I forgot to do the dang decals again....arrrgh!!

I`m keeping all the hatches open so I was thinking I`ll have to depict the tank as abandoned, unless I can find a crew for it. I don`t do figures very well so I`m leaning heavily to abandonment...

Will post more pics after decaling and more weathering...

Len 

Hey Len,

That looks great!  Sorry to hear that you have to redo it for the decals.  Can you put a clear gloss coat over it, put the decals on, then put a clear dull coat on?  Or will that detract from the effect?

Ken

Gamera

Jim: The turret on the KT looks great to me, too bad the hull didn't turn out as well.

The Churchill is a dark green, the gloss makes her look darker and sorry, kinda bad lighting and a cell phone camera.

And Dragon does seem to have a tendency to reuse sprues from old kits in the new boxings. So some sprues might be twenty years old with new parts added to make a 'new' kit. 

Lem: Nice job there, I think she may have turned out better than the filtering on my Churchill.

Anyway here's the result after drying, again not the greatest photos but I don't feel like dragging out the camera and finding the tripod.

Hey Cliff,

That looks pretty cool too!  Nice job!

Ken

Hi Everyone,

Today was a good day.  A B-17G flew into the local airport last Thursday and stayed for the weekend.  It was giving rides if you could afford them (way out of my price range of over $400 a ticket), but for $10 you could tour the inside.

Here are some of the pictures I took: