Hello & 1/35 Armor
Hello All, this is my first article here. I'm a longtime lurker and finally joined about a month ago. Greg Fabian's P-51B Shangri-La made me jump in. For a short bio please click on my name if you wanna know me a little better.
This site has always appealed to me, nice people sharing nice models.
These armor models are easier to introduce, all 1/35 and so far, all Tamiya. Any additions you might spot are scratchbuilt, no crazy aftermarket, yet. I've also added two pictures of my basement workbench because that's where my armor models live so I can see them.
As you can see there's more shelf space to fill and I fully plan to do so. Armor is something I dabble in, along with 1/72 aircraft, my main interest being 1/48 aircraft. On the bench in these photos is a Monogram Fw-190 finished in 2008. Also included are a few pics of where I left off in this hobby about a decade ago with a Monogram P-51B.
Glad to be here, so far I've experienced nothing but warm welcomes. Trying to get the mojo back and this site is helping. I've never lost interest, just ambition!
Welcome John! Some really cool models you've assembled there. I'm relatively new here also, and enjoy all the great models and info. (Manitowoc is my hometown...though I have moved from there recently)
Love the maritime museum in Manitowoc, what a great day trip, nice town too. Welcome to you too Curt! I clicked on your articles, nice stuff.
Thanks John, yes the Maritime Museum in Manitowoc is very nice. I always take a walk down to the USS Cobia on my visits to Manty.
What a wonderful collection, John! Love them all!
Your workspace looks super, too, ready to tackle your new modeling projects!
Your brush painting skills are truly excellent.
Looking forward to see more of your articles here.
Welcome aboard!
Thank you Spiros, love your work too. I'm glad you folks don't mind seeing some older builds around here. Hope you can have some modeling time with your boys, I've had that with my two, it's just so wonderful even if they don't stick with it. So far one of them has, and the other may come back around yet!
Very nice first post, John. Excellent models, all painted so well. That’s a nice work space you’ve got there !
Thanks Jay. The bench gets cleaned between projects and that Monogram Fw-190 had just come back to the bench from the shelf of doom to get finished.
Welcome, John. @krukowskijohn
You entered this great community with some beautiful builds.
Looking forward to the builds which will be filling up your shelf.
Hello John and thanks. I checked out your work too. Really impressive.
Your collection brings back memories of my 1/35 armor collection that went into the trash bin years ago shortly after I got married, though mine didn’t have any horses (I wasn’t that brave). Really nice work!
If you ever get the itch to dive into armor again I highly recommend these old-tool Tamiya kits. Simple, cheap, great molded-in detail and everything fits. Very low parts count. They're like training wheels for armor modelers.
Welcome, Nice looking models.
Thanks, I looked at your work too, really neat stuff. I like the subjects you choose and your (what I consider healthy) sense of history.
Cool models! Especially like the U.S. M.P. taking a smoke break.
Brian Riedel
Hi Brian, thanks! I drilled a hole between his fingers, stuck a fine wire through it and painted it white. I remember eyeballing a cigarette in my own hand to make sure he was holding it like an American. It looks a little thick once I put the white paint on it so thinner wire next time to allow for the paint.
I really admire your work. All of it. Really like your P-51's.
Welcome to iModeler John! Although you have some nice dioramas with figures there, I say being in those 1/48 planes 😉 looking forward for more of your posts in the future
Thanks Pedro, 1/72 next, then 1/48. 1/48's gonna be a long one. I may end up splitting it a little into subject matter or kit brands, I dunno, still gonna try and do it all in one posting though.
Welcome, John.
Can I give you a tip? When you're doing NMF models like the Mustang, it's a good idea to do all the non-NMF colors first, then mask them off - the idea being those paints are less likely to lift under masking. Also, the best tape to use for masking is low-tack drafting tape, available at office supply and artist's supply stores.
Thank you Tom. For airbrushing I'd say you're right but with brushes & spray cans we end up with a paint ridge when we pull the masking off, and if that paint ridge is silver-colored it looks like a silver rope, much better if the ridge is any other color. I've learned over time so I do it this way instead. The NMF on this one is Testors 1290 Chrome from the can, pretty tough stuff, especially when it's had eleven years to dry!
I try not to mask at all but I'll probably have to mask the anti-glare panel. The wings were done your way, yellow sprayed first over white, then masked for the stripes and sprayed silver. I usually use Tamiya tape but I WILL look into the drafting tape, thanks! The thinner the tape the thinner the paint ridges.
This will be a redtail, hoping I can still freehand the red edges like I've been planning to, it's been awhile. Like riding a bike right?
Let's hear it for the Maritime Museum in Manitowoc! Great place. Oh, and welcome to the page. Your bench looks spectacular and now I have to make my bench AND my models look as good as yours.
I took the bench pictures because it was clean for a change! I clean between projects and the Monogram Fw-190 had just arrived from the shelf of doom to the bench again to get itself finished up.
I'm in Milwaukee, whereabouts are you?
The city of Elgin, Illinois. 30 miles from downtown Chicago and along the mighty Fox River.
Nice Body of work, and welcome! That old P-51 still looks good! I remember doing a Monogram blue box of the same kit.
Thanks Robert, I've been admiring your work here for a long time.
Thank you John.
🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
Welcome to this forum, I trust you will have a good time here and make new friends.
Very nice model collection, seeing them brings back memories of some of those I built
back in the day.
Hope to see more of your work.
Thanks, I like it here, nice laid-back bunch of good people.
Welcome John! That's a nice line-up of builds, and I look forward to seeing more - especially the aircraft, which is my subject of choice. Ever since I returned to the hobby in my late 20's, I had been a brush painter too, and most of what you see in my iModeler blog was brush painted. That changed about 2 years ago when I finally bit the bullet. I agree that the "act" of brush painting/freehand work is more pleasing to me than all the prep/masking/clean-up required of airbrushing, but I am developing a taste for it, if not quite yet the skill I hope to some day achieve! That said, great results can be achieved via brush (and the occasional rattle-can)!
I checked out your work too, I like it all, old and new. Now that MM enamels are disappearing I'll have to go back to mixing colors from the little square bottles again. The little bottles brush better anyway.
Thank you Greg, and Everyone!