I have had my eye on this product for a while but it hasn't been available here in Aus anywhere and is rather expensive, finally bit the bullet and grabbed it from sunny England. 40 bucks for the product, 40 bucks for shipping and 30 bucks for signature post...and it turned up with a sticker on it saying 'no signature required'












So a clay based wash over the oils i have been using which i hope will be awesome, meaning less work for better results and much easier clean up. Everything i have read about them over the last couple of years seems stellar so really looking forward to to giving them a go. I have also had some new clears sitting here for a month or so awaiting the arrrival of the Flory product and hoping this VMS product is better than the floor polish i have been using. It also has good reviews.





Also excited about finally doing a G6, i've always liked the cowl gun bulges on the G6, gives off a muscle car look. She's a cheap as chips Hobby Boss kit from my last model kit buying spree so i'm not expecting too much detail, mainly grabbed it so i can spend some time with the paint scheme. The included version of the scheme is a bit bland looking and hard edged







I'll be looking to get it as close to this as i can, just need to do a bit more research regards the darker RLM colour.





Once again this will be a slow build so i'll add here once i get cracking.

Hartmann is a really good subject.

All the BS about this aces score vs this other guy's is kinda confusing. But, one has to think a really good sniping pilot in a B&Z a/c like Hartmann, would certainly have had a "target rich" environment in the east.

Is there a study of his kills? Just wondering did he seriously pick and choose the "noobs" or did he dive into any threatening Russki formation with serious bad intent?

Gregs airplanes on YT did a decent vid on his kill score just recently. At it basic it was sorties v kills and Hartmann was in the middle of most high scoring aces, about one every 4.5 flights whereas there was plenty with a better kill v sortie ratio so it doesn't seem outlandish in any way.

Plenty of factors to go into it of course, never seriously wounded, not taken off the flight line to train other pilots like the American vets where, fighting in the East etc. Decent channel if you haven't already stumbled on it Nixer, mainly aircraft engineering, engines, turbo and supercharging and fuel types. The dude knows his stuff.

Interesting subject I will be watching your build

Don't take what he says at face value.

His engine speak or his recent kills video? I'm not fussed about his observations in the kills vid if that's what you're referring to, and then you have the other end of the scale like Dimitri Khazanovs paper. It's an interesting subject with a lot of differing views on a matter that may never really be settled imo. Regards his engine and performance vids, i find it super interesting and backed with the naca reports and such and real world flying he has under his belt he seems to know his stuff and get it across nicely


Got some glue to plastic. Some close ups of the kit, decent detail, some imperfections in some areas like sinking in the plastic and some trimming needed on pieces like the prop spinner.













Cockpit is basic but she'll do.






Wing rads. I do have some left over photoetch rads from the Eduard kit, but nobody is ever looking in that tiny opening anyway so they'll more than do the job.










Lots of sinky plastic in both wingtips which means putty work and sanding, rescribing and rivet work. If i can be a bit more precise with my putty work i can hopefully make it easy on my myself.0

As always Ajay great to read your progress reports

Ditto, and thanks for the info on that channel. Will check it out.

Some baby steps on Friday night after work. Chilled outside for a quick hour before it got to cold and one had to hide indoors for the rest of the evening.






Got some primer down and rlm66 colour for the cockpit so i can join the fuselage and wings. Where the wing trailing edge meets the fuselage will need work, the lower fuselage/wing join is blech, the wing to fuselage upper gaps don't look so crash hot either.



















The cockpit will turn out ok once she is spruced up, wouldn't win any awards though that's for sure. Extreme basics all done and i should be able to have a fuselage plus wings joining session next time.

A lot of over spray, on the fingers.

Looking good.

Yeah i was going pretty quick, temp was dropping and i don't function very well under 15c

Got a quick session in so i could button her up and get cranking on some putty work next time. Seat belts are just painted tape, they work well enough i think.

That cockpit triggers lots of IL-2 memories, so you're obviously putting in the relevant details

Mouse mat to work on?

Helps parts not fall into the table gaps and into the great beyond

Underneath she didn't end up too bad





on top requires basically all of the work. Red means bad.





The prop, average, i'll try and use it because i don't want to fork any money for an aftermarket job (and because i'm cheap)





The spinner base is all outta wack and by the looks of it the spinner is just too large for the nose. Annoying.





Had to scrape and sand away the engine cover in a few areas to get it to fit, both sides had uneven large gaps off the sprue.




Surprisingly the gun bulges fit fairly neatly, the other side is slightly off but with some pressure they will work.




Yuk, all of this.






Luckily... my weekend has now gone from a fun bbq and drinks lunch and dinner with a few people over to CANCEL IT ALL!!! for a couple of weekends to accommodate for one guy who is currently working weekends. Thanks RYAN. So i can do some work on the above instead, as well as mow the lawn. Yay?

Lots of body work huh Ajay.

Darn slave labor!

She's a bit of a junker tbh. All bogged up and sanded, coat of primer done and now she needs rescribing and riveting. It's inspired me to look at 1/32. I'm finding the 1/48 scale just a bit finicky so after this one i'll move up.

Hoping between some yard work, covid shots, shopping, some Icarus beta weekend gameplay and some other exciting chores this weekend i'll be able to get some pics up

Question: why the don't the pieces fit properly?

How old are the molds? Modern molds designed with CAD/CAM should be a perfect fit.

I just pulled out an unfinished Ki-84 and can understand what you say about 1/48 models. Ajay. they are small.

2015/16 kit going by Scalemates. New moulds apparently. I've read through another build of this kit and the guy found the nose covers to be 'oversized' which is weird as mine were definitely undersized. The instrument panel is also too large and pushes the canopy up, easy fix.

Got a good session in today and last night, three day weekends are the bomb Rescribed and riveted, shaded and most of the paint work done. Fuselage splotching needs some fine work, couple of splotches that went awry. The first layer of the exhaust staining is down, going to build it up a bit darker yet.

I worked out by using messenger lite that my pics are not resized, it's when using standard messenger that they are compressed terribly and resized. This has been bothering me for a while so i'm glad i stumbled on the issue. Some of the following are lite and some normal so i just threw them all in frame for now and hopefully won't forget to only use lite mode next time.














Yes the lawn needs mowing...i just couldn't bring myself to do it today.

Looking Gooooood Ajay!

Getting there mate

Starting to look a bit more 109ish with the prop on and played around a bit with the splotches and some other little touch ups that needed doing.

Looking very nice.

I always admire your work.

Thanks Grog

I agree with that.Always the work of a master modeller !!

Nice, as always, to see you in here Watson I'm thinking to turn this into a wheels up build and trying out that motion blur ground effect underneath. Looking to find a nice top down aerial shot of the Russian Steppe, non winter, that i can edit and print and then place the plane above it on some thin rod.

That sounds like a good idea, different than the usual wheels down and welded anyway.

Or you could really do something different and do it at takeoff with the gear partially retracted in that uneven way they retract.

I did think of that as well Grog, i may have a play around with that idea a bit.

Skipped a bunch of pic taking to get to this stage. The new VMS clear i have is nice but i feel she needs some thinning down. It's very thick and has to be sprayed at around 30 psi and laid on very wet although it does level really well as it sets, but, it has taken some getting used to. I did an initial coat which was a bit all over the shop regards laying it down wet, got a bit of tip dry mid spray as i was scared of giving it the full juice and ended up with a scattery result. I let her sit for a couple of days and then blasted another one making sure it was really wet this time around, full open air and spray and hoped for the best. Seemed to be how she works although it just doesn't feel right after always spraying at low psi and working delicately mostly. Followed that with some of the Florys wash to get into the rivets and panels lines, played around a bit more with the exhaust weathering and then another full blast coat of the clear.

I've a bottle of VMS thinner coming si can knock the thickness a tad, and make me feel more comfortable.


This is pre wash





Post wash but before the next pre decal clear





Decals on and settling with some decal softener before i put a final clear coat on. Once all of the decals are on i'll let her sit for until the weekend before do that. They are starting to settle very nicely so hoping for good results with them.







A quick and dodgy-but-does-the-job box i wacked up so i can move my paints around easily into a cool place during the day as summer and it's filthy beer drinking heat and rum sipping humidity slowly creeps in.





I have another project sitting on the bench immediately to follow this one...and i'm trying not to rush this one to completion, but i'm a bit excited, i'll drop a teaser pic in the next catch up

Really nice sprayjob.

Was it you I remember, back then working with spray cans on tanks? You certainly went far since then.

July 2018 i started with a Tiger and a bunch of spray cans, been a learning curve since then

Decals settled nicely.




Starting to look the goods. A final clear coat to sort the decals out later on tonight.






Quick teaser of the next one, a lot more surface area to work on which will be absolutely lovely.

Genuine LOL! (Starts Googling 1/144 Mustangs...)

Hartmann's bird is really looking good man.

and I really LOL at the Goonstang.

I bet that Goonstang has custom made cockpit gauge decals...

Nearly there Luckily for me there was a spare two piece cockpit included in the kit, the one piece unit was a slight dodgy/gappy fit and i oversanded one edge of it making it far worse so she was kaput. The two piece one has a teeny gap at the top where the front section meets the rear, to fix that i needed to do a smidge of sanding to square it up but couldn't, unless i wanted to respray the forward section of the fuselage...which i didn't. The same goes for the right rear ..she'll have to do as is.

The wheels worked out nicely up, the undercarriage legs were shaved within a mil of their lives and fitted to the wheels with the doors, also sanded to flush with the wing, fitting neatly on top. Hartmann in the cockpit looks like a drunken nightmare, as does most of my attempted figure painting, so i can't promise a close up pic once finished, only if y'all promise you will squint when looking.

I feel i worked out the new clear on the final coat as i ended up purchasing the VMS thinners and knocked down the thickness a bit when spraying, goes on and sprays much nicer, and definitely feels more natural. Even in these average shots you can see the clear is a very thick finish which makes some areas of paint look a bit sludgey.

Still to do, antenna wire, fit aileron balancers and some small tidy up. After that i have my background idea to print, shape to suit, mount the plane to it then i can knock out some decent shots.

Nice job

I truly enjoy reading this forum! I think it is my favorite of all SimHQ.

The more the merrier Brit


First wip for my background, nothing to fancy as this one is a 'coming up with it on the fly wip throwaway' that i can poke holes through to work out how to and where to attach things. I ended up with clouds for the background, they are a bit arty but also decently realistic without being too sharp, colours are nice as well. Dropped the whole idea of the background being ..the ground, couldn't really find a shot i liked and..it's a plane, she needs the upper environment. I also thought a curved background may work better than a flat one, i actually haven't seen a curved one done in my internet searching.











Playing around with angles, i really like the frontal 3/4 view. I will probably have to mount the wire into the wing closest to the clouds and then put it through the pic and mount it solidly at the rear of the base. Obviously the final print will need to be a tad larger to fill out the A3 size.

Beautiful work Ajay as always.!!

That frontal aspect shot (last one) really looks the part. Great idea for a display.

Spot on

BeeeUtufullll M8!

Thanks chaps


Don't ever let Fidd in here now that i have posted my frame #2 wip, not a ruler or measurometer of any sort in sight, unless you count a dinner plate for circles as a technical tool.

Splashed out and bought a ruler, 79 cents The box will need some obvious trimming and a covering for the rear, i'll come up with something. A piece of brass tubing i have had laying around since the Warspite build to hold the model aloft which I'll paint it once i get the position of the plane worked out. All up with the A3 card, the foam mount board, ruler and printed sky pic i am out of pocket about 10 bucks.

Feeling pretty crafty though, brings back memories of making silly stuff with the kids..except the cat doesn't have something stuck to it, and i only glued my fingers yogether once. Getting better as i age apparently.







At the moment she can swivel on the rod so i can place it in many positions, need to get the angle right to capture the look.






A shot to give some perspective.

That is going to be a really great display.

I also admire your off table tape storage system.

Really elegant way for the backdrop... light and "airy". You're getting great at this type of thing.

This is going to look great. I notice the prop and spinner are off, are you going to use prop blurs on it? (I can’t recommend them enough, they are very effective.)

I'm looking into it

Mucking around with a transparent prop idea, still some more practice until i get the right blade shape as well as get my mix and spraying right.








Not sold on it yet but it may work out. I need to invest in a circle cutter and hunt down some better plastic sheet, this piece came of some random packaging at home and is a bit thick. The prop will have to be darker as well i think, needs a drop of black.

I’m liking it

Might look better when the spinner if fitted.

I do like how it looks though.

Keep up the good work.

Andy

Another vote for the blur. Loving the backdrop so far.

Sadly the prop idea did not pull through. The final version i did looked decent from front on but any other angle and it was just fairly...meh. It was the plastic i was using, i really struggled to find something hard but thin and clear enough and didn't streak when even looked at sideways. Idea filed for future reference The backdrop is similar i think, looks far better at a distance than blown up in camera shots, i did come up with a better idea for the support, less chunkier and more minimal basically, once again, filed. Still, it was a fun little project even if the end result didn't really match totally what i had in my head.


The visitor decided to make himself comfortable once again. The whole house and umpteen comfortable places to chill out..but none of them good enough apparently




It could be the light...i think he looks more busted than anything...





Sans cat




































Hope you liked the build, it was slightly long for something so basic and a few hurdles for such a small and fairly new kit, cannot wait for the 1/32 build Cheers all, appreciate all the kind words as always.

It doesn't seem to photograph well. I bet it looks great in the flesh. Super work as always.

I think it's the lighting, more the bulb types themselves. Depending on which light and where it is really affects the colours. My phone does this sneaky thing of reverting to HDR mode every update as well so i always have to check that.

I may make a new improved and larger photo box for the next build, the foam card was cheap as chips and large sized.

Looks great Ajay.

That cat needs more SA and watch his six!

Another intriguing and good build mate.....a little ripper! (My wife watches a lot of 'Aussie Gold Hunters' and the like, the bludger )