Roktman

I dn't have any info on this since 1/48 "aint my thing" but the place to keep watch is SAMI (Scale Aviation Modeler International) magazine. They have a large section of coming soons and other items to be on the look out for. Oh I hear you on that. Hanging with the resin crowd, when you got a resin kit in the 90s you could barely make out what the kit was supposed to represent. You couldn't tell the kit part from the pour plug - on and on. Now if there's a bubble or if the mould halves slightly slipped, Holy Mackerel it's like you insulted the guys mom. I have a hard time being part of the forums with these "younguns."

You're right re: the hair. When I took another look at the pic, I had added the blond strands but thought I got rid of the highlights and shadows. So I added some more GW Agrax Earthshade, which darkened it, then took the pic. Its been fixed. Ok, all done. But picking up from where we left off last it was just a matter of getting his head on his shoulders and then tackling his helmet. Finally the base was done. I was glad I checked as I was going to put the head on and then put the bubble helmet together and just simply slip it over his head. Nope won't fit. So, the head went on and then the back part of the helmet was fixed onto his shoulders. There has been talk of what to do with the seam line. Some have bought an aftermarket helmet. Others simply said they are not going to worry about it. I fell in the not worrying about it category. But what I did was put a black edge on the front part. I had previously taken a little piece of lead wire (from Bass Pro Shops, I think) and put a dot of PVA glue on the tip. This will mimic a microphone. I then attached the front piece to the back part. Looks good but there's no real support of the microphone. It just sorta sits there inside the helmet. The blackened edge didn't really show up as I had planned. I needed to do something else. In the end I too the simple route. I took another length of the solder wire - which is incredibly flexible - and curved it around the outside of the helmet from where the microphone was to where the helmet met the neck ring. A touch of superglue wicked the glue along the length of wire. I then took a file and VERY gently sand the tip so that it looks like it's angling into the helmet. Some black paint finished off the illusion. Next I turned my attention to the base. The one that comes with the kit is actually two small bases. One for Flash that has a large crater, and the Martian had a tiny one, with a tiny crater. I didn't like this. But I wanted to include the craters. I cut them off and arranged them on the base - Those other marks are just where I scored the wood so the Celluclay would lock down. The Celluclay was next - I made it a little uneven for variation, but had to keep it level enuff for the two figures to stand. Once the Celluclay was dry I added some sand around the base - Color was next. As It's Mars I added various orangy browns and oranges. Pics of Mars always show few rocks that look black - so I added them in as well - The next was how to get Flash to stand on his base. I didn't thing the wires thru the feet would do it - tho it worked for the Martian. Since Flash is pretty lightweight except for where I put the Aves in his feet, I ended up getting out some magnets and adding them to both the feet and the base. You can see some circles (magnets) in the base. Once all the magnet glue was dry I added him to the base. I took the supplied sign, chppoed off the feet, added wire legs and then after a black prime added two tone lettering. A coat of satin clear on the sign and the model is finished. Here's my Flash Gordon. Thanks for looking -

Almost done - Helmet Futured Face done except for gloss on the eyes The Martian - still not sure if I'm going to use him Uniform front - Uniform back - Thanks for looking

Thanks. I didn't do extensive reading on it but it had feathers. It didn't fly (wings are tiny) so I think it would have had feathers like modern day ostriches and/or emus.

Very nice job!

Diving right in to the kit I put all the major subassemblies together. The first thing I noticed was this huge piece of flash - Taking that off, it left a big hole in the shoulder of the model. Evidently, from looking at the other side, that big flipped up piece was part of the epaulet. So the next thing to do is break out the Aves and replace it - I'll smooth it down more when I get rid of the seam lines in the next step. While I had the Aves out, I added blobs of it to his feet as I plan on creating a new base for Flash. These blobs will let me anchor the figure to the base - Here he is so far. Thanks for looking.

My Flash Gordon arrived from CultTVMan this afternoon - So I'll be diving into the kit tonight. Since I'm actually on The Clubhouse more, I'll be putting my progress there.

Very nice job!! WOW! Altho I don't use it anymore, Alclad is good about not coming up if you have to tape over it. I started using the Vallejo Metallics, just as good (IMHO) and they're acrylic.

Sorry dude. The thought escaped out of my brain. I'll pick up a kit and see what I can do. ;)

Been a while since I did a prehistoric subject. First off was to clean the tiny seam lines. There was a place on its back that looked like it could benefit from some Aves. Primed and base coated I left it to dry, and turned my attention to the base. I didn't like the moulded in grass so I dremeled it off, and painted the base. I added weeds from the yard and glued them into the little craters I made. Back to the bird, its based on an image I saw on the Net. After some washes, pigments and highlighting, I screwed him to the base. I also added a little bit of green wash to the weeds - things were looking too brown. Thanks for looking.

Thanks. I guess they all are a little different because they sit in my stash for a while until I see something, or something else reminds me of one. Then I pull it out and have a go. ;)

Thanks!

Thanks guys. All in all it wasn't a terrible experience. But I will do a little extra studing the kit rather than just dive into a kit with 'just a couple of parts.' Absolutely WildBill, it certainly had me entertaining pulling some hair out. But I need all I have left. Haha ;) Ed, I gotta hand it to you. if I saw the pebbly coat over all the work you did I think I would have had a fit and thrown it across the room. I hope you make a good come back!

This time around I took Greenwell Studios Gorgon Sister out of the stash to work on. I tried looking for info about Greenwell, but apparently they have disappeared. Too bad, they had good kits. If I remember correctly, there was 3 or 4 different Gorgon busts. Anyway, after it's cleaning, I primed it in the usual way - At this point I actually left it for a few weeks. I kind of liked that way it looked in the black and white. But then I decided put put paint on it. Here it is base coated - As with a lot of my base coats, the colors never last. I always end up changing my mind. At first I started with a darker skin thinking Mediterranean, but then I always make busts paler. Here she is with the finished colors - My original idea for a dark Scorpion headress changed as too much detail would be lost. Then I've been seeing mini painters do a terrific job at painting lenses/gems etc... so I decided to make the large circle on the front a gem. I need work on doing them. ;) It was also my first time at trying a marble pattern. Turned out ok... Here she is from other angles. Thanks for looking -

... And then disaster struck! When we last left off I was ready to gloss the plane to put some weathering along the panel lines. I took some of the Vallejo gloss clear, put it in the airbrush and sprayed. I came out in a pebbly like pattern. I sprayed more thinking the dots of gloss would merge and form one uniform coat. Didn't happen. But my big mistake was thinking "Well, there's gloss on it, I'll move ahead with the weathering." I put some of Citadel's Nuln Oil on it and it acted as if you put a wash on any Flat paint. It was terrible. And not only that, since it was supposed to be gloss, I just sprayed over the canopy. Arrrgh! The canopy now looks frosted! Luckily I was able to take a Q-tip and some water and get most of it off. Cant be said for the rest of it. In some spots a scrubbed so hard I revealed the primer. I lightly sanded the pebbly coating off, and now it was time for a complete repaint. When repainting, I used V's Metallics Steel, instead of V's Model Color Steel. You would think it would be the same color, but no. The Metallics is a lot darker. Which in this case is good as it separates the two metallic colors. Do I care about color accuracy? Not at this point. I just want it done. So here it is - Taa Daa ;)

Thanks.

WOW! Nice

Very nice job. Excellent job painting the wood grain too!

Top notch. Looks terrific!

I don't want to sidetrack your build thread, I've been buying FP kits since he first opened his store. The kits are normally very good to terrific. This is prolly the first time that I thought an FP kit was crappy. The good thing is that when he pre-announces a kit on his site, he lists who the developer, the caster and the guy who does the decals. From now on, I'll make sure to check who is casting it, and/or wait until I see build reviews on SSM and other forums.

Thats the good thing about models and modeling - when a kit starts getting on your nerves - temporarily put it on the side and work on something else for a while. I do it quite often. But taking a step back and speaking of Materpiece I just received one of the newest kits from Fantastic Plastic casted by... you know who, and it';s gotta be the worst kit I've seen FP release. But thats for a different thread.

Thanks Gil, I'm coming down to the end. :P The first thing done this session was to mask off the areas to be metal and apply the metallic colors. The instructions call for 2 different metallics. They recommend a "polished" metal and a "natural" metal. They had "H" designations to the colors. Since I use Vallejo, I chose White Aluminum and Steel. To my eye, the colors still looked too close, so I will add a thinned layer of Smoke to the natural metal color. Pulling off the masking tape, I looked up the conversion for RLM 2 (I think I said it was 4 earlier, sorry) and it turns out to be V's Green Gray. After that I once again turn to my Metallics set and brushed on some burnt metal to the exhaust nozzle. While this model has it's problems and will definitely be a "2 footer"*, it's not looking too bad. Feeling ambitions, I took some of my 1.5mm tape and created seat belts. I did this because test fitting the canopy, you could see right in and it looked a little bland. The 1.5 is still too wide, but it will do for now. I didn't take a pic of it yet, but also during this session I added the canopy. I didn't fit correctly, but I just creatively painted it to make it blend in. Next time I should have it glossed and weathered a little bit since it never saw action. Then put the struts and wheels on and then I'm calling it done. In looking for markings that weren't included, I found none. But I did find the biggest error in the kit in that they basically have the fuselage with the landing gear up and retracted and then have you just glue the landing gear to the outside of the aircraft. If I ever do this again (prolly not) I'd cut out the landing gear cover and box out the wheel wells ... Thanks for looking. * A "2 footer" is a model that will look OK from 2 foot away, don't look closely. ;)

HTH -

Having attended Jersey Fest - a mini version of WonderFest in Louisville - this past weekend, I bought a few things. For those that don't know JerseyFest and WonderFest are to Sci-Fi and Horror what IPMS Nats are to aircraft, armor, ships etc... First thing I got from Gillman Productions was a reissue of David as the Wolf in the subway in American Werewolf in London. I comes with no base (but it does have a severed head) so I guess I'll have to create a subway station. Hehe - Next was a Frankenstein from John Dennett and Moon Devil Studios. What attracted me to this, as I'm not a big Frankenstein fan, was that John sculpted the figure according to Mary's Shelley's description in her book. So it's not the flat top Karloff look - since we've been friends a while he threw in one of his mini "fiends" busts - the Chluthu figure - Next up is a new monster created by SFX artist Sandy Collora. La Tiburonera (the Shark Hunter) looks like a cross between a Snapping Turtle and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I picked up the Bust of the Shark Hunter. He gave me a mini bust, and while we were talking - he also grew up on Staten Island - he drew his monster on the bag he gives for purchases. Pretty cool! Finally I found an awesome looking kit from Moreland Studios. It's Perseus holding up the head of Medusa to the Kraken (who looks like an alligator in the sculpt). Looking at the pic on the box, the amount of detail is amazing and it fooled me into thinking it was somewhere between 75 to 120mm figure. I didn't think to realize the box and contents was too light to be a larger figure and was surprised when a 28mm came out of the box!. The figure is amazingly detailed, just that it's small. I'll have to take out my Optivisors for this one - Sorry for the blurry pic and thanks for looking.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It's not a bad kit, but as you said, Gil, it reminds me of an older Anigrand or Unicraft resin kit where you know the seat goes in there... "somewhere." The other thing that was annoying is when I test fitted the fuselage parts together, the panel lines were off from each other by about 3mm or so. Grrr I still debating as to get rid of them and have none, or scribe new ones. Joseph, it does come with all those things - seat, stick pedals even PE for the footrest but not one indication of exactly where. I think I ended up a spot where the seat was glued onto the floor, stuck, the stick right in front and then the foot edals in front of that and then sliding the floor forwards and back until I thought I had the seat in the right spot. The pedals are completely invisible. They did look nice tho. Hehe This time around the tail planes and the wings went on. They had to be puttied on one side and then primed. I also got around to priming the canopy, but forgot to take a shot of it. Oh well. Next time we mask off for the metal bits and then a coat of RLM 4 and we're done. ..