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I wanted to see if I could build a broken relic into something presentable. I learned about the P-38 when I build this kit as a child and I would fly it around outside shooting down me109s and what have you. The copy I had at that time was molded in glossy OD plastic. I decided to find a copy and I did. I found some busted up kits for sale on eBay. The P-38 was one of them and is molded in metallic blue. It was missing the tail plane, props and spinners and balance weights. I asked for parts from the club membership and a member sent me a complete Monogram P-38 kit for parts. So here are photos showing the progress. It is one of Aurora's more accurate 1/48 models and I wanted a simple stand build; but, there was lots and lots of sanding and filling. To my surprise the Monogram replacement parts fit perfectly. I carefully removed the yellowed canopy and polished it. There is no cockpit just a molded on pilot, and rudimentary instrument panel and radio. The canopy is more like a helmet in that it sits atop the cockpit and is oversized. The only thing I could do at this point was adding putty and sanding down the sides so that it fitted properly. I glued the canopy with clear Gorilla Glue and it made a good bond without crazing the plastic. The clear canopy is missing some frame lines so I used decal strips to create those missing frames. None of the intakes are open so I just used a large sharpie to paint them black. I painted the model with Tamiya Green Drab and Mission Models Neutral Gray. The markings are from an Aeromaster sheet on OD P-38s. The props are held in place with blue-tac putty. Thanks for looking. 12 additional images. Click to enlarge.

"the objective is to accumulate as many kits as humanly possible" True words.

Marcin, I would never have thought this was a scratch built effort! What stunning work! The finish is pure perfection! You are one truly masterful modeler!

In a word; AWESOME! Do you have any in-progress pics, or can you describe the methods you used to scratch build this beauty? Thanks for sharing! Gil

Marcin, That looks like A LOT of work. The paint job is the best I’ve ever seen. Flawless! The propeller looks amazing as well. Oh, and scratch built to. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Chris

Wondeful kit and build Dave

You need to change your screen name to Rumplestiltskin, because you just spun that old kit of straw into gold with your rebuild. Excellent work David!👍🏼👍🏼

Alas, poor Yoric has not joined IPMS yet! Welcome to the world of competitive, argumentative model making! LOL. Er, isn't this supposed to be a relaxing, fun hobby to unwind to? Me, I'm just a serious modeller who does not take himself too seriously.

To research — to buy. To build — perchance to enter: ay, there’s the rub! For in that toil of construct, what dreams may come When we have shuffled off to the Nats, BKB must give us pause. Hey, this is fun. It is so fun, I demand a Shakespearean category ... which will have a BKB option. One can enter Shakespeare's original remains as BKB ... or embellish them with shrouds and pointy shoes and pen and quill, resin or PE ... as a regular entry. If you add Anne Hathaway, then it's a vignette. Include the Globe and its a diorama.

Ay, there’s the rub!

Well done, sir, well done. Now get you to the contest table, and tell the judges, let the PE be an inch thick, to this finish it must come; make them laugh at that seat belt.

For Highlamder: Alas poor OOB! I knew him well, David. A category of infinite problems, of most excellent confusion It hath borne me on the contest table a thousand times; and now, How grand in my imagination it is. Apologies to Sir William Pat D

With all due respect I think if more IPMS members READ the rules carefully and the preamble to the rules defining BKB much of this self-inflicted confusion and frustration would go away. The rules are written in the King's English and are pretty cut and dried, trying to parse the meaning and find loopholes that are not there is a waste of time. If anything, the new BKB rules are much clearer than the OOB rules ever were. Basically, if it ain't there or on the instruction sheet you can't add it. Provisions were made for certain cases like some armor or motorcycle models where non-plastic media is used to support the structure or are needed to assemble it (screws & bolts, metal chassis). No offence intended to anyone, but this is not that hard to build and compete within these rules if one desires to do so. Pat D

JPG's model is 1:72 scale and comes in 16 well casted white resin parts. The only real hiccup I had was the landing gear. They are at an angle, but to my eyes the angle was so slight I couldn't really make it out. trying to fix one, I snapped it, but thankfully my little collection of styrene rod had the correct size. Giving the build a break, I wanted to make a little vignette representing the alien planet or Goblin Valley UT. I had generic "science" looking figures. But when it came time to find them, they were no where to be seen. 😞 So my vignette will just be the ship. The base was some carved foam, the base was a Michaels 6" round plaque with some torn cork sheet on it, and then some Vallejo Ground paste (or whatever it's called). 😉 Next up was painting the windows. I saw a tutorial about painting windows once and it involved creating a gradient where the darkest color was up top and it got lighter toward the bottom I airbrushed some MIG NASA blue after a bit of masking, and then added a few drops of the darkest blue I had to the cup, and just shot the upper left corner. It worked out pretty well. Then came the decals. They looked pretty poor as they weren't solid. But once down on the craft, they looked fine. And just like that I was finished. Thanks for looking.

What were they chanting? Grok? LOL! That is a great build and scene!

Thanks Duke! The idea actually came from the mini modelers who do the vehicles. Almost 100% of them have solid windows, so there are a few ideas how to create that reflection that it *may* be a transparent window. The one technique I chose was sorta like how they paint jewels - I also liked this idea too, with a simple light up top - -