War in the Desert - African campaign GB - 12/9/07 to 5/13/08

Good looking Spit, Greg.  Nice work.

Regards,  Rick

it looks like the campaign is speeding up

Here is a little update on my Spitfire from 145 RAF flown by Stanislaw Skalski  

EEEEEKK!!! 

Did somone say 13 days left?  I thought we had to the end of May.   I've been putting in overtime at work and there's been little time for the bench lately.  I'll try to get cracking this weekend though.

Ahh! 13 days left and I havn't even started my BMW yet! Thank god it's small! I really need to stop putting these things off...

I'm hopin to try and finish it by next week, I'll keep you all posted.

Chris,

Thanks Jmart.

Regards,  Rick

Dave - very nice start, look forward to the rest!

Cruzr - Very nice Sherman!

Rick - congrats and well deserved!

Thanks for the congrats Guys, appreciate them.

Regards,  Rick

Nice job on the Sherman Cruzr! 

Congrats Rick on your 2nd place win! 

Nicely done Cliff.  Good looking Sherman.

Regards,  Rick

congrats Rick, well deserved

Well i can now call the Sherman Done. Finished it up last night and heres the pics for you guys

cheers

Cliff

Congrats, rjkplascticmod!!!!!! Very cool!!!!! That's an awesome looking PzIII!!!!!!!!!

Also in the news: I've made some progress on my zugkraftwagen, and should have some good pics this week (I know I've said that before, but...) the zugkraftwagen is going into a dio, clanking past a burned-out 251 Ausf. C. Should turn out well.

~J

Looking good Cliff.

Thought I'd share this with you guys.  I entered the Panzer III Ausf.N, that I built for this GB, in last weekends IPMS Region 4 Model Show.  Competition was pretty stiff, but I managed to eke out a second place in 1/48 AFV.

Thanks to all who offered helpful tips, advice & references.

Regards,  Rick

Mark: love the preshading on the kittyhawk, it looks great. what color did you use for the pre shading anyway

Dave: looks good, what else is planned for the dio?

here's an update for you. the final basse coat is on.. I sprayed it with Tamiya Olive Drab first, then went over the top sides with Khaki drab, going for the sunbleached look ( i think). Next up is the acc and detail painting, then weathering

cheers

Cliff

Looking good Dave.  Should be a cool piece in a diorama.

Regards,  Rick

Arki, Steve Cruzr, Mark (did I miss anyone?)  I havn't been able to keep up with this group (and other) group builds so sorry I've missed commenting on so many great builds.  I just love those desert RAF colours which begs the question of why am I not building one.

What I did sign up for was an Italeri 1/72 scale Morris Quad and 25 pdr which I have finally started.  I have the 25 pdr assembled and parts of the ammo trailer.  I seem to be spending a lot of time cleaning up the parts as this is an old esci mold and there are many ejector pin marks and molding lines that need to be cleaned up.  Anyway, I intend to do a diorama with this kit and want to have some fun with it so I am not being too anal about the cleanup and accuracy.  I have found some errors since the gun was assembled (note to self, research first and then assemble ) so I will go back and fix those but for now here are some progress pics.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments on my Hurricane....er, Kittyhawk.

Jmart:  I initially preshaded the panel lines with White Ensign Models Tyre Black enamel, then applied a Burnt Umber oil wash after the colors were one.  By this time, however, some of the preshading wasn't too apparent so I went over all the panel lines with a thinned mixture of Tamiya Flat Black/Red Brown.  I picked this latter trick up from Brett Green of Hyperscale, and really like the look.

Mark

Nice job on the P-40 Mark!  Very well done! 

Very nice Mark.  Great work on the Warhawk .

Regards,  Rick

Steve:  Nice job on the diorama!

Cliff:  The Sherman is really coming along.  Too bad about the armor, but I agree that in the long run you'll appreciate making it as realistic as possible.

Finally finished my Kittyhawk Mk.III, flown by Wing Commander "Stocky" Edwards of 260 Sqn.  FR350 was his assigned aircraft around January, 1943:

Mark

Brews wrote:

Applique' armour is a little out of place, isn't it? I didn't think that applique' was applied until Italy at least ... maybe France.

Brews: Thanks for pointing that out, i was just going by the kit instructions. I went over to afrikakorps.org and took a closer look at some of the pics and did notice that the applique armour was not there, so off it came ....

 of course now i have some filling to do thanks to the glue marks left behind. oh well i would rather have it correct for N.A.

Steve - Really nice work! Love the pics...

Cruzr - nice start... Looking forward to the rest~!

Hermesminiatures - I will (if possible and allowed) change my build. No way I will have time to finish the Tamiya 1:48 Bf 109 E4/7 TROP properly. I did a lot of research for that a/c and wanted to do a good job (to the best of my meager abilities!). Darson posted a gorgeous example of that plane, wanted to get mine to look a quarter as good :)   I  decided to stick with a/c and switch to the 1:48 Hasegawa Hurricane Mk.II Trop "Croix De Lorraine", flown by Free French forces in Egypt, 1942. Less details and easier camo pattern. Will start in 2 weeks or so, once this drasted semester ends and the whinny students stop asking for my time and grades ;)

Another update for you guys. There were more parts for the interior of my dragon 251 then there was to put the entire sherman together. this thing was almost snap-tite fast. Nice molded detail but far to few parts. Mind you this is a kitbashers dream kit, so many options to super detail. But thats not my route or skill level yet. so before i attached the track and wheels i gave the kit a light dusting coat of Tamiya olive drab. The rubber on the wheels were done with a black sharpie marker, which works fine as long as you weather it because it does look to shiny. i built it hatches down because i didn't like the figures that came with the kit and there wasn't enough detail inside to leave the hatches open ( again perfect for a super detail job). so next up after it sits for a few days is a thicker coat of the base olive drab, then start weathering and adding all the small extra's

Cheers

Cliff

Steve:  Very cool dio.  The B&W pics look like clips from the movie.  Well done .

Cruzr:  Glad you like the Spit.  It's a Mk.VB with the wings clipped for improved low level performance.  Nice start on the Sherman BTW, a real classic kit.

Regards,  Rick