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This is a kit by Good Fellas Resin, designed to pay tribute to an artwork by Max Dunbar. It's an adult, post apocalyptic, Charlie Brown and Snoopy - It was a well engineered kit, and a pleasure to build and paint. Thanks for looking.

Took this kit out of the pile as it's something different. I don't have any Mad Max on my shelves...until now. This is a 1/4 scale Gyro Captain from Sean Kyle Studios. It came signed and with a numbered certificate of authenticity. Mine is #6. It comes in about 5 parts. There are a bubble or two. But all in all a nicely done kit. One thing tho - there looks like a little blob of flash in the bag of parts. DON'T throw it out! It's actually his cigar!! LOL. If I have to find one thing to critique it would be the auto-gyro's propeller. It looks to be cut out of thin sheet styrene. The cutting was a little uneven, but the main problem was I couldn't straighten it out. It had a little bend it it that was there to stay. It was no problem at all to cut a new one out of slightly thicker styrene, making both blades the same. The sculpt is a very good likeness of the actor Bruce Spence. I started out by priming, and then started laying in the base coat. There were a few images online that I thought made him have a pasty appearance. So the paint went on a little light. Later on I saw other images that showed him with more "color." I'll address that later. While that was drying, I turned my attention to the propeller. As was said it was shaped a little wonky, but the big problem was the curve in the styrene. I was no problem to draw and cut out another. Turning back to the bust I added a little more depth to the colors, tanned him up and gave the engine base a metallic shine. Then I decided that the craft would have minimal care, and after seeing a how to about busted up metal I tried that on the engine. The other thing I was going to do was paint a nice wood grain on the propeller. But I found one image that showed it well, and no wood grain. It was colored black and a dark red. So that's the way I went. A little gloss to the goggles, and eyes and I was done. Thanks for looking.

This is another nice little bust I saw on the New Announcements group on FB. It's approximately 200mm and sculpted by Joaquin Palacios for Epica Tales. The model comes in three resin pieces - the bust, the arm, and the column base. You need to supply your own rod connecting the bust to the base. She also comes with her own sticker. It's an excellent sculpt and cast with no bubbles or seams apparent. Thinking Middle eastern I used a flesh that was a little darker than normal. I also gave her dark hair. One other thing is I goofed while drilled the hole for the rod. The bottom cut is a lot more steep than other busts, and in a Aves and a second try. It was right at this point of the build when one morning I heard a bang coming from the attic. I went up to investigate to find somehow a Starling had gotten in. Of course it flew around and landed on the desk knocking the model over and of course breaking the little knife she's holding off. A bird in the house must be bad luck as I don't know whether the bird or the carpet monster ate it, but it's never been seen again. I'll have a cut another out of sheet styrene. I've seen some that give her an almost completely transparent top. I wanted to try something close (never done it before), but maybe not as far as some others take it. I started out by covering all the surrounding skin with Silly Putty. Where the cloth pulled tight I only misted the off white color, and gave a little more coverage by her neck and waist. I added pure white at the tops of the wrinkles, and then lightly brushed on some of the pearlizing paint on the top and bottom for a little extra shine. The part that was the skirt got full coverage. On a different project I noticed that Green Stuff World's metallic paint behaved badly if put on top of a gloss black. But gave a terrific two tone metallic if painted over white. So I painted all the jewelry with white and then used a blue and red. The effect turned out pretty well. The parts that I wanted to be gold got the usual gloss black coating. I painted her lips with V's Cavalry Brown which is a dark red, added a highlight then to match up some of the metallic green I used elsewhere on the model, I gave her green eyes. A little eye shadow and blush from pastels finished off her face. Then I painted up the column base with V's Dark Sand, and pulled out my Mummy bust to remind myself of what I did with that base, then more of less copied it. The column looked a little thin so I found a 40mm plastic base. I glued the column on, and then filled around it with V's ground texture. A wash of Sepia on the sand, and painted the rim a black brown and I was done. Thanks for looking.

Dang that's looking great. Love the details on the engine!!

The 2020 Astronomical League Convention (ALCON) was also to be held in Albuquerque this summer. It has been moved to 2021. But that was relatively easy. First, there had been no bidder for a 2021 convention, so the Astronomical League was very happy to fill that gap. Second, the Embassy Suites was cooperative, especially in light of the force majeure clause in the contract. Our exposure was $76K, but the exposure was the League's, not the local club's. And third, our financial analysis indicated that we would loose our shirt, pants, and cowboy hats if we pressed on. Registrations had simply stopped; vendors refused to commit, and speakers were bailing out. HST, I was the Registrar for ALCON, but have bowed out for 2021. Although about 80% of our registration team's preparatory work had been done, I wasn't willing to add another year to the already year and a half's work (hundreds of hours) which had blown my 2020 summer to shreds. Our club bailed out over two months ago; and it has become clear that we made the correct decision.

The build of this kit is going well. With the cockpit assembled I installed into the fuselage. The fuselage fit together very well with only some minor putty in the seams. I then painted and detailed the engine. The photo etch set provides the ignition wiring so this was added. I mounted the engine, cowl, and the propeller hub. The hub is very large and hides most of the view of the engine. The wings were assembled and the landing gear added. I base coated the underside and then started work on the torpedo details. The plastic fins and propellers were replaced with the photo etch replacements. The torpedo was painted and then mounted with photo etch straps. I then painted the upper areas and added some more details like the ammo belt for the rear gun. I weathered the fuselage with some minor staining on the wings and exhaust. To finish up this week’s work I painted the canopy sections and used some EZ-line to run the antenna cable from the equipment thru the canopy to the top of the mast. This will run to the top of the rudder when installed. Next will be decals and final weathering. Check out more photos and details of this build from the start at https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-aichi-b7a2-grace-attack-aircraft/

Outstanding job. I'm working on the 1/48 P-38 Hasagawa kit now. No doubt the Tamiya kit is better, but the Hasagawa kit only cost me $12.50 back 1992! 🙂

Jim, I have waited to respond until I had a free few minutes, as you are obviously mad and I wanted to try an understand why. First this is a friendly conversation and no need to get ugly. Second you need to read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote. If you don't like it address it, but be better than accusing me of writing something I did not about character. What does concern me is a 6 figure contact being signed with no legal consultation, and the fact that no contract insurance was purchased. I would be willing to bet though, that if the committee did sat down for a meaningful discussion with the facility, that a deal could be worked out for rescheduling the event until 2023 with minimal if any additional costs, given the current world environment. Cancelling the event completely, or going forward with a very small event that looses money are not in either parties best interests. I guess I would feel better if NATS Committee had a conversation to explore possible rescheduling until 2023 vs acting like we have no way out. So far all we have been told is that the convention center has been receptive to re-negotiation if there is a problem. I say that such a problem is here right now. You all be safe< Gary

She is Nocturna, from appropriately Nocturna Models, a stunning 30mm model with excellent detail. Sadly, she's currently OOP. This resin model came in two parts - the figure/base and the top of the cross. Here's the model all primed up. Here I'm starting to work on some base coating. After numerous highlights in the skin, dress and hair. I'm just about done with this one. I bought a few plinths from GreenStuff World, so she'll be glued on to a simple one next session. I also used the smallest grass tufts I had to fill in the ground a bit. All finished with this little mini. It was highly detailed kit and really challenged my steady hands - even with my magnifiers. Thanks for looking. And... my obligatory soda can shot... :lol:

Well done, sir! I like the colors you used. The Deep Red brings out the greens very well. Bill

After recuperating from my surgery, I finally got to my hobby desk and the last figure I was working on was the Cary Cooper Beau Geste bust. the kit was produced by Norbert Ossner and sculpted by Alejandro Lopez Ramirez The kit is in 3 resin pieces - the bust, base, and frame for the movie poster. The movie poster printout is also added. Following the movie poster printout and a colorized photo, I added the base colors: During today's session, I put the finishing touches on Gary Cooper. For the base I put down some glue and then dusted it with Chinchilla Dust. This is stuff you can buy at a good pet store. Evidently Chinchillas don't use water so they take dust baths. This dust is incredible fine, and works well in many scales. I bought the 3lb jug, and it'll last more than a lifetime. When it's all dry I painted it with V's Dark Sand. To give a highlight I added a little Ivory to the Sand color. Then I thought it needed a little something, and made a few bullet holes with a drill bit. Filled in the divot with Vs Orange Brown, but that didn't stand out enough, so I added some black pastels to the holes. Don't know if that would ever happen, but... what the heck. From there I made the wooden frame for the movie poster looked bleached out and again added more glue and dust to make it look like sand blew onto the bottom of the frame. Then looking at the poster it seemed too new, so I mist coated it with matte clear coat to protect the ink, and then aged it with Citadel's Sepia. From there I added a few dust streaks with a pastel that matched the Dark Sand. I glued the poster to the frame, the frame to the wall and I was done. Thanks for looking.

This is another beauty kit from Gillman Productions. Any horror fan will recognize Fr. Merrin as Max Von Sidow, one of the two exorcists who came to help the possessed Regan. This is a 3 part, 1:4 kit, in flawless resin. There is a minor seam-line you can detect through the hair, that is done away with in no time at all. As usual I started out with black primer, and a highlight of light gray. When dry I added Beige Red for the first skin tone. Since the Holy Water bottle isn't quite correct (the one on the movie was made of glass) I decided to make this one gold. So to get that done, I added gloss black to the vial. My usual MO is to go from dark to light. With that I painted Merrin's hair a medium brown knowing it would be going to gray. Remembering back to, I think, part 2, the younger Merrin first encountered the demon in the desert dig site. So I turned the gray rocks brown with a number of lighter dry brushes. Merrin's clothes started out with V's Black Gray, with highlight's going to German Gray, and the shadows with Nuln Oil. It's here when the eyes were painted black. This session began with Merrin's hair getting it's first highlight. It was now time to paint the demon. I had to look it up. I haven't seen this movie in years and in doing a little reading I was surprised that the face was only seen momentarily. I also found out the the demon was played by a woman, Eileen Dietz. Also read that she was a little annoyed the four other actresses that also "played" Regan weren't credited. The producers wanted to viewers to believe it was all Linda Blair. Anyway, back to painting... To finish the model off Merrin got two more highlights in the hair - a gray and then an ivory color. The priest's stole was painted purple. It's received one highlight and one shadow color. The Holy Water vial needed a little something so I painted the cap and the cross white His eyes were painted, and then everything that needed to be glossed was done. With that I was done. Thanks for looking.

Another excellent sculpt from John Dennett and Moondevil Studios. The 1:5th bust was cast in a light green odorless resin. The kit comes in 2 parts - the bust and the base. After washing with warm soapy water, and giving it a coat of primer I wanted to make Jacob the ghost he was when seen in his scene of A Christmas Carol. I had used Citadel's Nihilakh Oxide on the Ghost Lighthouse Keeper and decided Jacob needed the same treatment. But first he needed his earthly colors. As this movie (1952 film) was in B&W, I was free to use whatever I want. So I decided on a white shirt, black jacket, and maroon tie, pale flesh and auburn hair. Ol' Ebenezer looking on favorably From there I started his ghostly change - The purple is masking fluid to protect painted eyes I went back and forth with Jacob adding and subtracting the green and white, until I got a look I liked. The base was painted, and I added a little snow. Done. Thanks for looking.