I've started working again on the Black Hog Down dio. I've put the GATO aside for a while and will start another quicky project to fill the time between paint drying on the Dio.
Once I get the two done I'll tackle the Gato again. It's going to be ton of air brushing, drybrushing, filters and washes. And it's a very large canvas.
My wonderful wife gave me a Portable Photo Studio for my birthday. It has reflectors, two lights, diffusers and four backdrops (white, grey, green, blue). It will be difficult to resist re-doing all my older photos.
It will be best for small dios and single models. I'll need to use natural outdoor light for larger models and Dios.
I won't be doing any building till the new year most likely with family activities ramping up this week. I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope you all have a great time and that Santa trays you all well!
With the Gato build into the painting/weathering stage I'm thinking of building the Stuka. Either this one or the Panther I posted previously. I have built a British, American and Japanese aircraft but not a German one yet.
I could also work on my "Black Hog Down" dio that's been sitting idle for a year...
Have made some layout changes to the site. I've removed the Links section and moved the Blog Summary there. I will return the links to thier own page at a later date.
I've also added a link on the right hand side to Facebook. It includes a list of current activity and a like/share button.
I used to have an automatic feed from here to facebook. Its why I wrote the RSS feed (little orange button above in the Title Image). Well, turns out Facebook nixed the automatic import.
So now I have to share each entry manually. Kinda sucks.
What is any geek to do... add the facebook share button to his sight... So today I added it and its on the individual Blog/Project/Gallery pages. Feel free to share it on your own accounts.
I've also added a Facebook recent activity block and like button! Kinda neat.
As I get older and learn more about this hobby I realize that how little I really know (isn't that true with life?).
When I first started building models I used the little square bottles of testors paints and gel glue. As I moved from models in the 25mm fantasy figures (to compliment my D&D days) I switched to Polly S paints. Not sure when that brand disappeared but I finally tossed out the last bottle I had about 5 years ago.
Anyways... when I got back into building scale models in my mid-late teens I started using Model Master paints and a little Tamiya. Then I got an airbrush and found that I really liked the way Tamiya flowed and it was so easy to clean up. It also didn't stink as bad at MM. Around this time I switched to using CA glue almost exclusively though I keep some solvent based glue for those seams that need to be extra strong (the neck of the NCC-1701 in 1/35 will probably be one of those uses).
I played around with Citadel paints during my Warhammer Phase. Never really liked them. Their inks and washes were interesting though.
Ive used Oils for washes for years. I tried painting figure faces with oils but never got the hang of it. I've started using oils for filters and weathering now too.
I've been using Pastels for weathering since the late 80's but I've now started to us it for mud and other uses as well.
I've recently read a few articles on using prismacolor pencils for weathering. I'm going to give that a try. I've also started using using CA accelerator to make filling and seams much easier.
I picked up this kit a few years ago. It's part of a collection that my local hobbystore purchased. As an added bonus it contained two complete kits. I'll finish one as a stock F9F-5P Recon Panther. The other I may convert back to a standard Panther.