2020 Year end, what a year!

 Well, it's December 2020; what a wild year it has been. I hope that you and your loved ones are well. Hang in there, better days are coming. I guess for most modellers, this stay home year has given us an excuse to build more models. Such is the case for me, and am happy to get a few finished this year. I'll post pictures soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share this link:

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/profile/18229-andy-moore/content/page/4/&type=forums_topic

It's a link to britmodeller forum listing topics from a very prolific and competent modeler named Andy Moore. I don't know him personally but heard about him from an episode of Plastic Posse Podcast. His repertoire of models exhibits a wide range of genre and all feature exquisite build and finish. Not to mention the excellent quality of photos to show off this craftsmanship. Bravo Andy! I find it all very inspiring.

Custom 1/64 Diecast!

 Matchbox, Hotwheels! I reckon almost everyone would have had some as a kid. I sure had my fair share. Strangely enough, these metal miniature replicas of civilian vehicles don't necessarily lead to scale modelling. At least I dont think it did for me. My scale modelling addiction was kicked off by a tamiya 1/35 sas jeep kit back when I was 14.

Fast forward to the present. I re-discovered some youtube channels on "hotwheels" racing and custom diecast which ignited an interest in doing some for myself. The culprit channels are:

3Dbotmaker

aki husodo 

Danny's Diecast Disasters

Jakarta Diecast Project

Model Farm Studio

SidewaysKing75

Sharon Tarshish

So as you can see, there is a large variety of subjects within this cultural toy genre that appeals to me. All directly related to my miniature bug affliction - a desire to create miniature versions of everyday and not so everyday things.

Hotwheels and Matchbox are generally scaled to 1/64, but obviously these toys are scaled to fit to the roughly 1" x 1" x 2.5" boxes, so scale accuracy is not a major concern. These toys are also designed to be played with by young kids and therefore you won't get small fine parts that can snap off and potentially hurt children. Not your typical scale modelling subject for sure. For me, this presents an opportunity to break away from being bogged down by endless hours of research and trying to add an infinite number of details. It's also a chance to model civilian topics in a smaller scale rather than the industry standard of 1/24 for cars and trucks. There will be very little need to spend time assembling and painting, instead, I can skip straight to weathering and adding extra details like stowage. I'm planning to make some small diorama scenes as well, but will need to source for figures and accessories, I suspect 3d printing will play a big part.

Here's my first project, a matchbox crop master tractor:

First, I drilled out the "rivets" that hold the parts together. This allowed me to paint the silver plastic piece red (Tamiya Acrylics). I added a couple of 3d printed headlights. I cut off the molded disk steering wheel and replaced it with white metal steering wheel. I also stuck 3 strips of thing copper tape to each front wheel to represent tire threads. Everything was reassembled and the rivet wholes were covered with epoxy putty. Weathering consists of Tamiya black panel liner wash and dust from the Tamiya weathering master set (makeup for modellers). Next step is to make a small base to set this into a farm scene and hoping to get a figure to go with it.

throwback modelling

    So what's caught my eye recently is Spencer Pollard, an editor from ADH publishing. ADH publishes several model magazines including Tamiya Model Magazine. On Mr. Pollards facebook page are progress posts on several diorama builds intended to go into a book. These dioramas are intentionally inspired by Francois Verlinden's works from back in the days! Spencer does a better job of explaining this in his photos and videos on facebook. He also has a youtube page, but these contents are not as up to date as those in his FB.
    I started building models back in the 80's. Anyone modelling during that era would no doubt have been exposed to Shepherd Paine and Francois Verlinden works. These appeared in numerous publications and were a highlight for military modellers looking at Tamiya Catalogs in 1983.
Shepherd Paine has since passed away, and Francois Verlinden seems to have retired from modelling; but the legacy of their works live on.
    I would love to hear your Shep or Verlinden stories in the comments.

scale modelling podcasts

Wow, it's been more than 2 years since my last post here. I have been continuously active on my facebook page and that's where you'll see my latest builds and projects. But I haven't forgotten about this blog, I have forgotten what it was like to post, and now that I'm posting again, I remember why I dont post here more often. It's a lot more work to post here specially since the blogger app stopped being supported. But, enough excuses!

I've recently discovered this: Mitko Nikitov Youtube channel
and have been listening to several modelling podcasts:
Australia - https://otbmodellerspodcast.libsyn.com/
Canada - https://scalemodelpodcast.com/
USA - http://www.plasticmodelmojo.com/
United Kingdom - https://scalemodelshed.libsyn.com/

It's more than a month of lockdown now here in BC. Hope you all are staying safe and sane.

Braille scale jeep

I'm joining a jeep group build on Armorama. I've decided to build the Italeri fast assembly jeep kit in 1/72 scale. I'll adding snow chains from the O3D Miniatures PE set. I also have some 3d printed stretchers, radio, antenna and ammo boxes that I want to add. Still uncertain if this will be a radio jeep or ambulance jeep. 

Assembly sequence for the snow chains. From right to left - 1.) detach chains from fret 2.) super glue the bigger piece to outward face of the tire. 3.) once the glue dries, turn the tire over and bend each chain around the tire. 4.) apply glue to the ends of each chain and secure the final piece on top.

I assembled the other bits that came with the PE set. 

O3D Miniatures store closed

Hello,
We've closed our online store for now. The page was hacked and we are working with our network admins on fixing this.
We will probably revamp the store since we have sold out most our PE products with no plans of restocking them in the near future.
Our shapeways store is un-affected by this and remains open.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this disruption.

"Surprise Attack" the figures

 As promised, I'm posting in progress pics of the "Surprise Attack" 1/72 WW1 trench diorama. This post deals with the work done on the figures. Most of the figures started off as Preiser WW2 German soldiers. I was afraid I would run out as these were hard to come by, so I made resin copies of one of the sets. They appear as brown color in the photos. The grey ones are the actual Preiser figures in plastic.