Roktman

Oh yeah! Being partially disabled, and spending *way* too much time online, I saw this yesterday. As an occasional "not-so-good" scratch builder I appreciated the vid. I think it's good he showed how easy it really is, but he made it look too easy. LOL 😉 I like the idea about the bottom cut out of a diet soda can.

I'm sure he would accept it. The org might even get a mention on his page or YT channel. 😉

Honestly I would take the perfect box. But only for the reason that more than likely it would go into my "pile." I would think that the perfect box would stand up to other models stacked on top of it. Still wouldn't change my mind that when the model is done the box and instructions would go into the paper recycle bin.

Very cool Mark. I never saw that M992 before. But then again my son is much more versed in armor than I am. But I'm looking fwd to see what you do with them.

Besides the pack of missiles for the Avatar build (Sci_Fi Section) I scored a Bandai B Wing - Comic Con exclusive. Now I have to determine if I should keep it or build it... Nah, I'll build it. I also scored a Shore Trooper from the Rogue One movie. I liked the look of these guys. This kit was pretty tough to get - Next is a kit from sculptor Sean Kyle. It's a 1/4th bust of Bruce Spence, the Gyro Captain from Mad Max 2. Just odd enuff to interest me. Not shown is a propeller - the base is an engine - a cigar and the shades on top of his goggles. - Here's his pic in B&W just because it looks like it may have been the reference for the sculpt - Finally is Wand Wilson - Lady Deadpool. I thought originally that this was just another attempt at R rated models. For a while sculptors were just putting breasts on all sorts of figures, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Predator,etc... just a way to sell a sexy model. But no she really exists in the comics. This is what looks like a really nice 3D print...

Agreed. It's a shame they they sell stuff like that. But to give Fantastic Plastic a fair shot, they do say if you don't like a kit, for any reason, it can be returned for a full refund. I just wanted to see if I could muscle thru it. Warped parts I can handle, but short shots etc and even bubbles are a foul. With today's methods of degassing and pressure casting there's no need for any of that. Just tells me they guy is taking the cheap way out just for the $$ and NOT for the love of the hobby - cause none of these guys are sending kids to college on garage kit sales... Anyway, Part 5 I thought this session I would be done with the copter, and would start on the base/vignette. Nope, not to be. First thing I did was paint the gray stripe a light blue so at least you can see the guy in the cockpit. what I also did was the figure is made for a plane with both hands on controls. Since no one can really see in anyway, I took two pieces of stretched sprue and made two sticks - yep, I know that isn't accurate - just so the pilot is flying it with *some* controls. 😉 Then having glued the front and back of the canopy to hold it in place the other day, I did the sides today. Then I puttied and even painted it. But looking at the pic, it's really uneven and need to get in there with more putty. Even with the bright blue stripe and a few coats of Future, the vac form canopy isn't that clear... 😞 While I was waiting for the canopy to dry, I did a little more weathering. All of the vehicles in the movie were well looked after, so while I want them to looked used, I didn't want them all beat up. One last thing for the day is I got out the missiles from the 1/72 set, and SOB $#$&*@# they are gigantic compared to the missiles in the kit. All I can guess it that they used 1/144 scale missiles. From the looks of them they are sidewinders. So I found 1/144 Sidewinders on ebay. we'll see, if they don't fit, I guess I WILL have to make my own. But I'll be mad about it. Thanks for looking. I should really finish up next time.

Thanks Mark. Yes, it's all resin. A styrene one would be nice and a conversion would be fairly labor intensive. The hardest part would be converting a 2 seater Apache to the one seat Scorpion. You would also prolly have to get a Hind copter for the angled armament wings. Wouldn't have a clue about the rotors and rings. There are two rotors per assembly. Moving on with part 4 I needed to take a break from cleaning the bad castings and started to paint the few parts that I thought was ready to go. First up was the rotor blades, and ring assembly - Then moved on the to fuselage - The final for the day is I took one of the pilots from the 1/72 scale pilot and crew set and painted him up. The Avatar pilots had just a typical green jumpsuit. The main characters had helmets with no visors, but mine did so I just painted it gloss black. His shoes were left unpainted. In trying him out in the seat, he was too big. It was either dremel out under the cockpit or cut off with the feet... Bye bye feet - you don't really see them under the canopy anyway. 😉 Thanks for looking. Part 5 coming next.

Looks great!! Tho it's *way* too big for my ever shrinking shelf space in my model room. As a sidebar, I think it's a little unfair to compare a 10 year old garage kit to a modern styrene kit... 😉

Very nice job, Ron! Love the clean, crisp look.

WOW! Just WOW!

I agree that it's an issue, but I think it needs to be addressed at the local model club level. All you need do is read some of the posts in some of the other forums - sci-fi type forums (SSM to name one) and you hear time after time this "young-un" brings a Gundam or some other sci-fi model in and the "old guys" who are hovering around the seventh BF-109 on the table, look over and give a sneer or a "pfffft." So what happens? The kid goes home never to come back. What else? He goes online and complains convincing others to stay away. Going on SSM today, IPMS is almost a curse word. There are a few of us that try to change minds, but it's definitely like swimming against the tide. Now yes, maybe the "kid" is thin skinned, but IMHO these old guys need to lighten up and think it is "worthy" even if it's not a war plane or armor. Maybe even have a super broad theme for those little club contests. This way maybe a kid can bring in a model he has, rather than leaving all his home while looking at a table full of Shermans... At this point I'd like to give kudos to my club - BPMS (Bklyn, NY)- who is VERY inclusive of all genres and ages. Coming from another club that was less so, I was shocked at the acceptance; as I too build those Gundams and other sci-fi stuff. Sorry off my soap box now. 😉

Having no model shops near me, all my purchases have to be craft stores (what tiny stock they have) and online. I gotta be honest and say I can't remember the last time I got a box that was crushed or damaged in some way. Megahobby is my #1 go to place. It might be your local USPS or UPS. BTW, my father in law worked in UPS HQ. He said if you get a damaged box, call UPS and complain. UPS hates goods damaged in their hands. I did it once and complained. I was told "Sorry, that will never happen again." Next time UPS came there was a new driver... On ebay I have seen guys/stores that take the model out of the box, fold it and wrap it all up and mail it. It's a way to save $ on postage. But in general the box makes no difference to me. I barely have room for the models never mind keeping the boxes. They usually just get ripped up and put into paper recycling...

WOW! Looks great Tremendous work!!

Part 3 The torment continues. Moving on, I was up to tackling the missiles and their racks. Once again I had to dig the missiles and racks out of a lot of flash - I cleaned two of them, and noticed that, once again, the mold had slipped or something - the missiles had this wide seam down the side and was also twice as wide as it should have been. Ok, I'll have to make my own. I cut the tip off one of the missiles and took my trusty 1.2mm rod to make up the length of the missile. With the vanes were equally wonky, I took some flat styrene stock and cut out a rectangle. gluing it to the rod, it became quickly apparent this wasn't going to work. I had 8 missiles to do. Nope I was going to buy some aftermarket missiles. Heading to eBay I quickly found quite a few missile sets. The one I chose was this one - I noticed that while I needed 8 missiles - on the model they were all the same type - none of the aftermarket ones had 8 missiles. This meant that I would have to buy two boxes of them. Am I out of my mind?! I'm not paying an extra $10 for 2 missiles from the second box. So this AT-99 will have 4 of one kind and 4 of another. There was no way to pay for shipping (it was free) to get them here faster, so I'll have to wait for the 1st week of Sept. - when they arrive - to continue the missile part. Then I actually caught a break. I was watching the Sunday marathon of military aircraft on the Smithsonian Channel. One show was the story of the Apache helicopter. Then it hit me where the design for the Scorpion came from. It was so obvious, I don't know why I didn't see it right away. It also solved 2 problems I had. On the kit there was these 3 protuberances. I couldn't tell what they were as each of them had a big bubble hole on the side. The instruction images were also useless (more on that later). But seeing the show helped immensely. They ended up being two transmission gear boxes, and a light - Once again I cut the nubs off and for the gearboxes I found a styrene tubes of similar diameter, glued them on and then shaped it as close as I could get it to whats in the picture. For the light I took a .5mm (?) clear rod and matched it to the size of the nub. I left a little of the nub to act as a seat for the light. How could I make it a light? what I did was take out a micro drill bit and drilled out a hole as close to center as I could. Inside it looked a little rough, so having just Futured my canopy, I dipped the light into Future and it got rid of all the drill marks. 🙂 Images showed both a red light and a yellow light. I took some Vallejo transparent red and a tiny brush and put some red into the hole. I'll install this after the painting and weathering is complete. Enough for one day. More soon. Thanks for looking.

Work moves slowly with this kit. So slowly that I'm just taking pics at the end of a session to record what was done. This entry is the result of 3 sessions. In this session I cut off what was a pour plug on the tail. Because the kit is rough, I don't want to cut off anything that should remain. Next was to clean the horizontal tail plane and then the two vertical stabilizers. What I also did was to again take out the rivet maker for 1/72 and drew rivets all over. The next day I was back and the next step was to add the forward winglets to the front of the craft. On it are two gatling guns. The flash etc... for the winglets were *bad*. Looking at the guns, one of them had the mold slip and left a step. Repairing the barrels were just too difficult so I cut them off and added new barrels out of 1.2mm styrene rods. After cleaning them up, they looked rather weak so I decided that I would add them later to the craft to avoid them being constantly knocked off. For day 3, I turned to the large wings and also the rocket canisters. There are two different kinds. One set with a long "handle", and one with short ones. I should have 6 long ones, and 4 short. But no matter how I counted, I was one short of the long and one extra on the short. They were so badly cast, that there may have been a long one where and thought it short and cut what I thought was the pour plug ... But first the wings seemed fairly easy to clean up. After the cleanup I decided to add the rivets. I rolled along nicely until PLOP! I fell in a hole. It was a bubble just under the surface. OK, I'll have to fix that. Then a few minutes later - PLOP again. Another hole! I hold the piece up to the light, and there were 3 of them. One, luckily I missed. The other two got the Aves treatment. Now came the canisters. Most of them were bad. The rest of the session was taken up by cleaning these canisters. Even more time was spent drilling the small holes at the back of the canisters. There's nothing I can do about the little nubs in the front. More coming soon. Thanks for looking.

These helicopters drew my attention right away while watching Avatar. There was two types, the Scorpion and the Samson. The Scorpion is shown below. The Samson has a V shaped rear stabilizer. Fantastic Plastic really got into the movie and produced a number of kits based on the movie. I wanted the one Trudi flew for a vignette, but picked the wrong one. No matter the vignette will continue without Trudi. At a recent local model club meeting, one of the guys there said that he had this model and it was so difficult that it stopped him dead. Having the same model, I was interested in seeing what was going on with this kit, so I took it out of the stash. Upon opening it I saw immediately what he was talking about. What a mess! There is flash everywhere - not including the flash that keeps small parts together, which I think is good. But the other stuff. Every part is going to need attention. Then there are these big blobs where the mold had previously been ripped away, so the next pour fills these voids with resin. One such piece is shown - Even the flat pieces have this odd wrinkled look to them - This was really disappointing. I really like FP, but this has to be the worst kit I got from him. But having gotten in to garage kits in the mid 90's I am familiar with kits that were basically lumps of resin. Starting with the hull, which had that odd wrinkles what should be smooth parts there was a lot of shaving, dremeling, and sanding to be done. Then some of the panel lines were incomplete, and bubbles in some of the smaller protuberances. Additionally of of the boxy pieces that were molded on to the hull were very soft or misshapen. I cut them off and will replace them later on. This caster, MMI, has some nerve giving these parts to FP as "professional" work. After four hours of work I had 4 parts together - More soon. Stay tuned.

(whispering- Google translator) Good collection. Congratulations! 😉

I hear ya, it's not for everyone. Thanks for the kind words!

Very nice build and paint up! As I was reading about your decal adventure, I was thinking "Ooh use Future", and well, there you go. 😉 Very cool job!

Hey Mark, All excellent in my book!! The Gazelle really looks like it wanted to fight you to the bitter end. WOW look at those raised rivets! 😉 Glad you won. 😉

Unfortunately I'm surprised that that hasn't happened sooner. But in all honesty I was in the camp of staying local first - going to the hobby shop when I could. My last good model store just closed down, so my kits are coming from the Net, but for what I can the bases, plants, certain paints I still get at the craft stores etc... It's just something we're going to have to put up with.

IMHO, that was completely outrageous. I'd like to think that guys like that are in the extreme minority. Having gone to contests in Regions 1 & 2 I've usually seen that the judges go a little over the top the other way with encouragement. Which I think is good to promote the "kiddies." If he didn't know what he was looking at then he should not judge or at least be under the supervision of an experienced. judge. At least thats the way I was taught. I also have a kid who has gotten into building models. He's 16 now and prolly has been building since he was 8. It is a fine line sometimes between building a model and going on the computer. I would hate to see a kid think "Screw it, I'm playing a video game" because some dumbass acts like that.

WOW! Agreed Mark. I'll never b!tch about a crappy resin kit again. 🙂

Wow Mark! That’s some score. And ooh the B- Wing? I’m jealous! I have one on preorder from CultTVMan, but who knows when that’ll show. Good to know about the missle set too. I’m building Fantastic Plastic’s Avatar AT-99 and it’s TERRIBLE! Casting like you’d expect from an early 90s garage kit. Anyway the missiles were so bad I started scratching my own. After one, I was like no way. I’m just gonna buy some. Should have the AT99 in SciFi forum later this week. 😉

Agreed. IIRC I played the first TIE fighter game. Loved all the ships. I tried to get screen grabs with the hope of a clear view and maybe some scrathbuilding. Din't happen... 😉