Hi guys,

I'm slowly going forward with my builds. The Dinah is on hold for now as i'm short on supplies and, as it turned out, i have to refresh my soldering abbilities which at the moment are crap. However th Val is going ok and already has paint on it. Even though it is a Hasegawa mould it was fighting me all the time throughout the build. Nasty seams appeared here and there and on top of that they were hard to fill and sand. After priming and painting the model i realised that i forgot to put the pitot tubein the wing so, as you will see in the pics, i had to glue the base in the painted wing, fiil, sand and drill and than repaint. With my luck the paint /Tamiya acrillic/ reacted strangely - instead of flat finish it turned out glossy and didn't want to dry for more than a day.

As for the paint itself, i did a lot of head scratching and finally desided to paint the Val IJN grey. I'm not sure for the supoosed "caramel" colour and were not ready to experiment after all the fight that the model was giving me in construction. I primed the model with Alclad grey primer which was slightly polished before puting the paint on. I've preshaded the Val with Tamiya black and then put on two light coats of IJN grey. Then i started postshading. On the upper surfaces i mixed IJN grey with a bit of japanese cockpit green as i wanted not to lighten the paint but alter the shade. I was satisfied with the result. On the downside surfaces i went with lightening the grey with white. the whole idea is to represent an used and abused Val somwhere in the spring of 1942. But enough writing, it's time for pics, just don't expect much from a crappy photographer .

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I forgot to mention that the blue black on the cowl is Agama enamel which in my oppinion is the best enamel paint i have ever encountered.

Congo: very nice job pre-shading there! The engine doesn't look half bad either!

Hey guys, great updates there.

I think the current accepted shade for the IJN of WWII is close to the Luftwaffe's RLM 02 - or is at least used as a starting point?

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Johnsan - thanks for the approval on the trainer I had recently completed.

regards,

Jack

Very nice Val there, Congo!

Great work on the Val Congo 

Please use the "direct link" from photobucket and paste in the image button option during the posting to show pictures in the thread :)

All primed ready for paint, final assembly and weathering.

Looking good Jibber, can't wait to see more

Very cool, Jibber!

A slight update - still working fit issues on the tail section but will finish that up tonight so I can start making some semblance of a cockpit. Put the bang seat together so that I know how much room I have to work with. I will be pretty much copying the Hasegawa cockpit with sheet styrene and have good Intrument Panel & Console decals to use.

Looking great guys...won't be too long and I'll finally be able to get my zero on the bench for more than a couple minutes.

Terry: Looking forward to seeing her all painted up.

WW: Looking forward to seeing what you're coming up with too. Never really modified a kit much myself. Added some PE here and there but that's about it.

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I made a mix of Tamiya JA Green XF13 at about 60% and Desert Yellow XF59 at 40% for my base coat. What didn't come through very well, was the pre shading I did with straight up JA Green along panel lines but I it wasn't dark enough to show through. There are so many JA colors out there so I chose a combo of two KaMi's and another tank for the base coat shading.  Still a lot to do.    

Nice! Even if the pre-shading doesn't show though a wash should pick out all that detail!

I was going to try again with some dark on the panel lines then a light coat to tie it together?  

Terry, that tank is really coming along!

I will not be doing anything fancy in the Starfighter cockpit - pretty much just putting something in there to support the IP & console decals and have a floorboard! 

WW: Ah, sorry I thought you meant you were adding a little more- my mistake!

Wow.... some fabulous work in here all around! I had not checked in on daily progress for awhile. So I just went back and scrolled thru the whole GB up until now. Stunning work all around! I obviously need to keep up to date daily in here...

Yeah, the guys have been kicking tail and taking names- reminds me that I really need to get my stuff done!

A poor update :( just a layer of thinned 147 as primer and 147+78 humbrol  on the bottom.. not easy to see the differencies from pictures with flash 

At the next!

Gamera

Yeah, the guys have been kicking tail and taking names- reminds me that I really need to get my stuff done!

get it done? I still need to get started....

Very nice work guys! Not too much of an update. Did finally get SOMETHING of a cockpit into the Starfighter and some primer paint on it. Initially, there was NOTHING but a poorly-molded fetal-position guy in the area that the cockpit was to occupy! The Super Sabre & Mig-21 are two other on-line separate builds. LOL 

WW: Ohhh nice work on all of them! And good idea on using wooden sticks to hold the ejection seats while painting.

Simpilot: That should be fine, this is a fun GB and I've never been very strict on the rules. You're more than welcome to hop in if you'd like!

Cheers, will hop in and hopefully get her done. Thanks heaps!

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I finally got some bench time so I started finishing this tank off with a pin wash over a light dark brown oil wash. I worked in some dusting around the bottom and sides of the vehicle with a little overspray on the front pontoon.  The wheels articulate that works into a beach/jungle themed base I have planned at a later time.  I found this one a bit more challenging because if you think about a vehicle coming ashore it would be relatively clean, so I'm trying to show a tank thats been on the beach and had a time to dry, then I tried to paint the tank slightly different than the pontoons. Still have a ways to go. Terry 

That looks great man! I've always been a lil timid trying that wash technique for some reason, the results I keep seeing makes me want to take the plunge and give it a go.

Well here are a couple pics of the 'Alf", and the box. this is basically how it sits now just with a primer coat, will of course post more pics when there is visual progress. By the way, does anybody have a good technique to add ribbed fabric look back, sanded a bit off when filling the join on a part for the fuse, Was think thin sprue with a mr. surfacer filler maybe?

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Guys, great updates

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simpilot34 - plastic strips would be the way to go to replace the area below the rear cockpit, looks like it might be even corrugated metal?  The rest of the fuselage is less angular, so a good brushing of surfacer on some more plastic strips and light sanding should do it.

regards,

Jack

Cheers Jack! Yeah that's what I was thinking. No not corrugated there. More like a bread box sliding cover for the rearmost cockpit. Definitely fabric over frame aft and below them.

Terry: That looks fantastic! I've looked over mine a few times but had no idea how to get the thing to look right, I really like how yours is shaping up.

Simpilot: Looks like the typical quality Hasegawa kit there. Looking forward to seeing how she comes out. Sounds like some good advice there from Jack on replacing the detailing.

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Gamera I'm calling my Ka Mi completed, I have additional pics if we need them. Thanks for hosting this GB. Terry