Lifting the Fog of War: Command and Control

Will this be ok for this build? I’m not sure I’ll do the crew, but I intend to do the motorcycle and the sidecar.

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Hull and main deck together (the sections that look messed up will be covered by other assemblies)


the superstructure decks masked and ready for their coat of INJ grey

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Now comes the tricky paint job, white upper surface…

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Quick start to weathering - raw umber oil. Rather difficult to see it all. Tomorrow I’ll put it on it’s other side and do some more. Then some dirt/soil, etc.

Red cutting matt is probably not the best background. :confused:

Mike

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Red is actually good for Olive Drab vehicles. It helps the digital processor balance the colour better. An old trick early digital photographers used was to put some thing red just inside the frame and edit/cut the border later.

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Superstructure assembled to the hull


The holes in the lower wood decking added for the supports for the upper decking

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Making some progress. My first Zvezda kit and I’m fairly pleased with it. They’ve done a good job of creating clear attachment points on pretty small parts and so everything lines up nicely. They’ve also done a good job of hiding sprue attachment points so some things that look difficult to clean up end up being invisible. The only downside which isn’t really Zvezda’s problem is that the frame bits are so small that the styrene doesn’t really provide a sturdy frame. Mine came out a little bent and I tried to bend it around into place so that it looks ok, but I’m not sure it will be all that straight when it’s done. Perhaps adding the side car will help with that? We’ll see.

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Looks good. What’s the detailing like on the wheel spokes and engine detail & handlebars ?

The wheel spokes are excellent. I think the engine detail is good, but I don’t really know motorcycle engines, so I can’t say for sure. I’ll try to get a close up of that when I’ve gone a little further, but my photography has a lameness to it. The handlebars look great too but they are still on the sprue. They offer two handlebars, one with a guy’s hands wrapped around the ends and one with no hands, so you can build it with and without crew, and with the hands will be nicely wrapped around it.

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What is wrong with Tamiya’s motorcycle figures? They all lost the tips of their thumbs due to frostbite and they are all just stretching out their fingers to relieve cramps… :rofl:

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Hi mates, congrats to you for such interesting models! :nerd_face:
Some more progress with my RC-135, the paint job went reasonably well…



Well, broke off the pitot tube on the fin, but saved it from the carpet monster :sweat_smile: and will fix it at the end.
I hope my ordered replacement decals (Caracal) will arrive from the dealer in time for our deadline here…
Cheers
Peter :raising_hand_man:

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That’s not a big plane! oh, wait.

That’s a really striking looking paint job!!

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I went to touch up the white paint on the generator and managed to drop the bottle on the genny’s cradle. OOps. Kind of messed things up some.

Repaired that and added a “shim” to the inside of the cradle to lift the generator up some. I also cut down the frame of generator to lower that. It currently sits much more “normal.”

Spare tracks were added too.

I think the next thing is to add the “hootch” poles, spade box, and fuel cans with a chain and two locks.

Mike

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Looks really cool! :sunglasses:




Mostly done now, a quite decent kit so far, needs a little work, but I’m happy with it. Put a few decals on, but the kit’s ones aren’t good. Partly out of register, prone to tear apart, at least the thin stripes (I will even strip the red lines on the engines) and resistent to decal softener. I’ve ordered better ones by Caracal Models (including red lines for the engine nacelles :sweat_smile:), but must wait patiently till they arrive. I hope still in time for this campaign…
Good luck and greetings
Peter :raising_hand_man:

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Gettin’ there!

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Here is another photo of the underside with all antennas and “warts” :wink:


While I’m waiting for the replacement decals, I’ve decided to paint over the cockpit windows and put decals on it. IMHO at this scale it’s looking more decent and there is nothing to see inside anyway…
Oh, and I found a photo of the real thing I took near Mildenhall, UK, about 10 years ago

Quality is like any “spy photo” as I was a few miles away and just got my telelens ready in time :grinning:

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Very impressive Peter… It is a cracking build and the paint looks very nice as well…super job.

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Many thanks, John! :pray:

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Howdy folks :slight_smile:
Nice progress here and there, @B-17-peter - RC135 looks superb!

The PZL-23 is now practically raedy for painting. I must admit it’s very good kit with … very crappy instructions.
I struggled and cursed like old sailor when assemblying hull parts and wings together. If I only knew that IBG changed assembly steps in next re-relaases of this same kit! It would save me a lot sedative pills . So if you want to avoid any problems - find instructions for newer versions (e.g. on scalemates), especially 2 elements:

  1. Cockpit elements pilot part and navigator/rear gunner seats. They should be separated and glued to hull side separately, not joined together first - it’s extremely hard to align them that way.
  2. Hull parts should be glued first before joining with wings. Original instructions call for joining hull parts with wings separately with also glueing interior parts in meantime. This was a heck of the fight to get them all aligned correctly

Hull/Wings alignent is pretty good after initial struggle and the looking of this huge cockpit area is quite… panoramic.

The only thing I had a problem with was that when the hull finally was aligned and glued I found that one panel line on top of plane is misaligned… even though all other parts were quite in line. It might be I did some error and … sanded it down.

Nevertheless hull is now glued together and there was and it now stands on it’s own wheels. Dang, I really like this silhouette, quite iconic to me :wink: .

So I’m off to paint booth :slight_smile:

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