104 articles · 3.6K karma · 13 friends · active 2 days, 14 hours ago

Building models since age 7 (except for a short respite in my military years). Enjoying it now more than ever. I build across the spectrum but am biased towards towards historical miniatures and military vehicles.

Big Sandy

A classic. Tamiya's 1:35 M60A1 with reactive armor. The kit built up nice but showed its age. This was a kit that could have been motorized so the rear end needed lots of filling and sanding. The biggest challenge was the weathering. [...]

Airfix 1/72 Hurricane stirs a rivalry

Note that this article is the next episode of a friendly rivalry between myself and my good friend Scott Nelson (see Painting a Spitfire on March 8) centered around new Airfix 1/72 kits. These are great models that stand up to kits twice [...]

Something for everyone at SilverCon 2016

The 2016 IPMS- Sacramento Model Club had a great turnout and something impressive to suit everyone.

IAF Fouga Magister Airfix 1:72

This was inspired by an episode described by Steven Pressfield in The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War in which newly minted IAF pilots were dispatched on close support missions in Fouga trainers. Compared to newer [...]

3ft P-51

1:72 Hasagawa P-51 Mk. III. Did this kit to try out low tech techniques. All bush painted. The outside camo was done by painting on multiple coats of thinned acrylics with two wide flat brushes. No extra detailing, PE or resin [...]

Thank You from January Random Winner

Thank you Martin for the great prize. I don't have a good track record of winning random drawings. So, this was a special surprise and a really beautiful kit. Haven't built a plane bigger than 72 scale for a long while. But I have [...]

JS-2 1:48 Tamiya

Great kit. Builds up nice, but cries our for detailing and a lot of roughing up.

Virtual Vignette

I used some digital image editing apps to place my Love Resin piece from an earlier post (Cutting Edge Figure for a Cutting Edge Soldier) into the Afghanistan countryside. Starting with an image of the figure, I used Photo Shop to overlay [...]

ESCI 1/72 M-113

This is an oldie picked this up from an estate sale. Despite the kit's age, it built up pretty well. I thought it would be a quick little project until I dawned on me that the interior would be visible and require painting and [...]

1/35 FT-17

Great kit from Meng! "the world's first modern tank." Was the precursor for modern standard tank design--– crew compartment in the front, engine in the back, and main armament in a fully revolving turret on top. Great kit from [...]