Roktman

This kit is based on the new trilogy of the Planet of the Apes, and it is an excellent story for how it all began. This is a simple kit of two parts the bust and the base. It is expertly sculpted by Mark Van Tine and casted by Paul Gill. It all starts with a black primer. The base looks like it's brickwork covered in stucco, so that the way I went. Thanks for looking.

This project has been an on again, off again on the desk for a while now. The kit comes from Zabravka Workshop. It comes in 6 parts. Looking around for a link to share, I can find none. (?) So I have no idea how to find them again... sorry. The parts are very nicely done in gray resin, and shows little signs of seam lines or flash. Ignore the little Medusa to the left. ;) A closeup of the base show a sandy base that reminds me of the volcanic sand that is actually tiny rocks. There are also a number of rocks added to the base which further expresses that volcanic feel. There are two spots for added parts - one is an assumed stone hand holding a spear, and the other being a torso of a stone Hoplite (?) holding a broken sword. I used the V. Metallics steel for the armor, and red to add color. Later on I would add some rust to make it seems like he's been there for quite a while. I decided on this Medusa to give her a regular skin color and natural tail colors. The chest and hip armor was painted gloss black in prep for the V. Brass, and the bow is V's Gold. To add a little snake to her face I gave her the slit pupils in the eyes. The weak point of the kit was the arrow. I was about to replace the shaft with something a bit more sturdy, but then realized I could lean the arrow into the bow and with a dot of glue at the point. This will straighten the shaft. Here she is with my ever present can of soda to give a size comparison. I added the diamonds that are seen on some constrictor snakes, and that completed the figure painting. As mentioned I added a few different rust colors from V's Rust Set to the armor of the soldier and spear. The base was painted in a Black Gray, and then washed with Citadel's Nuln Oil. When that was dry I added 2 highlight dry brushings of a medium and light gray. With that I was done. Thanks for looking.

King Brian is a character from the 1959 Disney movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People. From IMDB.com : The kit was sculpted Joe Laudati and came in 4 parts - His head, body, cape and base. While the figure is cast in resin, the base was cast in plaster. My guess is to give the base some weight, and the figure is dancing, and all the weight is on one foot. Looking at King Brian's costume, the main colors are 3 different shades of green, and then an orange tan for the vest. The shoes looked black, but I thought a very dark brown worked as well. The coins (and crown) were painted gloss black in prep for painting them with Vallejo Metallics Gold. The face was next, and it was impossible for me to find out the actors eye color, so I just defaulted for brown. Most all the colors were painted and when I went to glue on the cape, there was some filling needed. So I broke out the Aves and blended it in. To attach Brian to the base I added a rod thru his heel into the base. To save some weight the cater made part of the base hollow. No worries - the rod will still hold. Thanks Joe for autographing this. For safety, I added a rare earth magnet to his sole and the base. A few tries and it worked fine... until I added the cape. With the cape in place, the balance was lost and wanted to tip over backward. I figured I needed another rod, and to play it safe I thought that I should fill the void in the base with resin, and then add that rod. Check back for the conclusion. Thanks for looking.

Thanks!

Very cool job. Nice vignette too.

I nice package came from Gillman Productions. In it was Caesar from the newest rendition of Planet of the Apes, The Sand Worm from Dune, and a GK producer is starting (a hopefully long) run of celebs from Hollywood's heyday. The first one is Gary cooper as seen in Beau Geste. It comes with the mini movie poster. Then my collection of Medusas grew by 2, with Atlantis Miniatures, and Zabavka Models entries.

Thanks guys! Gil: Stubo is short for Sturzbomber or dive-bomber . I would have been used to carry one 1000kg bomb. There was a stubbier one - Stubo I - that would have carried a 500kg bomb.

This was a model I've wanted to get out of my stack for a while. The Stubo II is a Fantastic Plastic offering, that comes back in stock every once in a while. It's another one of the German WW2 planes that never made it off the drawing board. I *really* like this genre! 🙂 The kit comes in 14 parts including a seat and stick, which you'll never see, and I left out. The canopy is clear but following the directions, the majority of it gets painted. Being cast by Anigrand, you know you are getting a good kit. As usual, the parts went together with minimal effort. One thing I noticed with this kit is if the fuselage holes don't match the pins in the wings - swap the wings, don't clip the pins. They are made to fit only to one side. Cool idea! A lil seam filling. The process continued effortlessly, and a coat of white paint, for the fuselage, and V. Game Color Gory Red, was the shade of red I chose. Then it was time for the decals. The decals went on just as effortless as the rest of the build. After a short wait the Micro-Sol went on and suck the decals into all the panel lines perfectly. It was here that I noticed that there was no decal for the gun placement. It wasn't sculpted into the fuselage, so I thought it was a decal. Looking closely at the instruction sheet, it says the model was created after the original which didn't have guns. So if I wanted I could carve wells into the fuselage (THAT wasn't going to happen) or I could create a decals for it. Umm, didn't the FP guy create decals for his? Why couldn't his design be added to the decals sheet? Even if it added another $1 to the price of the kit, I'd pay it. Having no ability to create a drawing for a decal, mine will do without. Hard to see - the skid also went in place with no problems. Looking back one thing I should have done that I didn't was paint the inside of the canopy. With the white paint on the outside and the light tan resin showing on the inside, the windows almost disappear. I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time. While I was waiting for the clear coat covering the decals to dry I went apart creating a base for it. It consists of a square of foam that it coated in DAPs Plastic Wood. I started out using a spatula, but it seemed to go on faster and smoother with just a wet finger. Being the craft just has one landing skid, I created a mini sawhorse to level the plane for display. All done. Thanks for looking. I used Chinchilla Dust for the dirt. Is much more in scale than regular sand.

WOW! Bravo. Excellent!

Another terrific looking result! Your friend will be very happy!

Thanks! I was nervous about the PE too, but when I started working with it - it was some really beefy stuff. The thickest PE I ever worked with, but was still easy to bend and shape.

This LLRV is a 1:72 model from 3 Stooges Productions. The kit comes with a fret of photo etch, and a bag of about 10 resin pieces, and detailed instructions. It was sold through Tag Team Hobbies, and went through 2 editions, before I heard it went Out of Production. I guess the kit can be found on eBay, if you keep a look out. Having been intimidated with the PE, I was hesitant to start this one. But once started the metal was fairly thick so folding was fairly simple. After assembling all the parts, it was evident the craft looked rather sparse. It was time to do some additional investigating. Looking through the images it seems there was more than one vehicle. It turns out that there was a least four versions, with four vehicles made for each version. Clear images were hard to find, and it was difficult to determine which vehicle you are actually looking at. I'm pretty sure that mine ended up turning into some sort of hybrid. But thats ok, I was glad I finished. Quite a bit of styrene wire and basswood was used to make the craft as accurate as I could. Looking toward the cockpit section, again each variation had different features. I "think" I'm still close to the example I'm using. here the pilot is in his seat. There was a wide variation of what they wore - from a flame proof suit, to the orange "suit". I found a few with the pilot wearing a sort of light colored olive, that's the one I chose. In the pic it also looks like he was wearing regular brown leather work gloves. So I added that even tho the color makes it looks like he's got bare hands. Between his knees you can barely make out the yellow and black of the ejector seat ring. There was a few images where there was foot pedals - so with some bent wire, I included them. In the rear, additional wiring and plumbing were added. I added drips of super glue where needed to get rid of the wood grain that came thru the paint. These boxes are supposed to be metal, not wood. 😉 One oops is that I added glue to the 4 stubs where the engine attaches to the ring. As I pushed the engine into place the glue stuck before I got the whole thing in. The engine is supposed to be below that top frame work. Oh well. I made a little base looking like where they used at Edwards out of foam sheet, Free Form Air clay, and some balsa as a frame. Thanks for looking.

Cool! FWIW, Lou Dalmasso (the Aztek Dummy masks guy) also did a build. But instead, this guy went all out. Starts here -

Very nice job! I too had them all growing up. But at one point Dad thought I should "too old for toys", and they all went...

😂😂😁👍

That is a good idea. Most of my kits are garage kits, and are bubble wrapped parts in a box. I rely on the post mark on the box, to tell how old it is. As far as saving, I really don't have any. I was nervous about ruining some of the more elaborate and expensive garage kits. But a bunch of years ago I remember someone writing (in The Clubhouse), that it's only a thin layer of paint. Get half way thru it and don't like it? It's just another thin layer of primer and start over... Since then I've always just dived right in.

Picked up a few things over the past few weeks. Even tho I continually complain about Unicraft, I'm an addict for their odd ball Luft '46 places. Here's the latest - Then Fantastic Plastic came out with their latest (#6) in their "Classic Rocketship" series. Was to be a 1920's suborbital passenger craft taking people from Berlin to NYC in 1 hour. Then whats a Star Wars collection without Yoda - Moving to the garage kit side, I got the latest from John Dennett. It's the star of The Reptile - And finally, I picked up Fr. Karras from The Exorcist. He is part 2 of the trilogy. Regan was the 1st one, but all these years later wifey is still creeped out - so Regan was out... 😉 Karras is a little more benign looking. Thanks for looking.

Thanks, guys.

This mini has been in my pile so long, I don't remember where it came from, or even why I bought this. Hmm... :? He comes in two parts the dragon and the egg. I scratch built the base and rocks with foam, and extra long static grass for the nest. Thanks for looking.

Nice. I never even saw that T3 before. And Happy birthday!

Haha yeah! Thanks!

I found this little reissue kit while at Yay Monsters looking for something else. Not many Close encounters kits around, and being small I figured it filled a little niche. The kit comes in 4 resin parts a length of wire and a length of clear rod - Being I want the mother-ship metallic, I primed the ship parts in gloss black. Devils Tower got a black primer and increasingly lighter drybrushing of gray. The ground area got the same treatment with brown. I added some green turf to imitate the surround trees and then, I felt to make it a little more accurate, I pulled up some trees and added that runway. I also cut a few tiny pieces a square stock and added them as buildings. The kit gives you a length of wire for all the antenna, but I felt that wire too thick. I happened to have some thin styrene rod, so I used that instead. One thing I discovered thankfully before it was to late, that if looking at the photo on the instructions, it shows one part sitting into the next, and the next. But no! The middle part sits back to back with the smallest part. This gives you the little alcove for the "city" part. If you build this kit watch for that. Looking at the ship you see zillions of lights all over it including what looks like city lights on certain parts. So I went into zen mode and painted in zillions of dots in blue and white. The dots are way out of scale but - - whadda ya going to do? 😉 Thanks for looking. Closeup Size comparison

Hehe thanks. It holds the record as my smallest. LMAO 😉

Thanks Duke! 🙂 Posting it around I got a lot of comments on the size, so I took this pic -

Created by Rob Schorry, and casted by Real Space Models, the kit are 1/24 models of Vanguard and Explorer1. Sometimes 1/24 will get you a giant vehicle and sometimes the tiniest thing. I think this is the smallest model I ever built. ;) LOL Doing Vanguard first, the kit comes in 2 parts of resin and 6 pieces of wire. All that needs to be done is sand down the sphere halves a little (I guess I could have gone a little further but didn't want to ruin it). After sanding, the parts were glued together, and then it was ready for paint. I didn't have any gloss primer so I used regular black. When that was dry, I applied some gloss, getting it ready for the Molotow chrome Paint Pen. The chrome is terrific!! Instructions say to leave the solar cells black, so the next and final thing is to glue the 6 pieces of wire in place. And that's that. Explorer 1 next... It's an excellent addition to my early 1/24 set of probes. Thanks for looking. You can find a pic of it here: