Tamiya makes the best models available and have over 50 years. Let me show you two vintage kits I’ve built. The first is the A6M2 Zero which comes from the early 70s. Those kits caught the beautiful shape of the Zero perfectly. I did one inspired by the very neat movie
“Eternal Zero.” That explains the extreme weathering. I rarely use after market parts, but I did put a 500 lb bomb slung underneath the plane for a “Special Attack.” (The movie ends with the hero diving his plane into an American aircraft carrier. The movie is fiction, but Kamikaze aircraft striking USN carriers was very true.)
The second is Tamiya’s Panzer IV D. This particular variant comes from 1985, but Tamiya’s first Panzer IV came out in the mid 70’s. As you can see I modeled it as being “knocked out” somewhere in the Russian front. Another model backed by history - you can bet there were hundreds of knocked out PzIVDs laying around dead in Russia during the winter of 1941=42.
Might add that the early Tamiya kits - still available - are dirt cheap (the Zero is available for under $20 and the PzIV for under $25. All the early Tamiya products terrific kits for beginners.
In any case, I’m all in for this Group Build. I think I’ll start off with Tamiya’s recent BF-109 G-6.
Yesterday was lots of fine tuning (wash in the wheel wells, add the pitot tube, sand then touch up paint), plus some other detail painting, then the final flat coat.
Tomorrow I should be able to do do final assembly and get it all wrapped up.
Tamiya makes the best models available and have over 50 years. Let me show you two vintage kits I’ve built. The first is the A6M2 Zero which comes from the early 70s. Those kits caught the beautiful shape of the Zero perfectly. I did one inspired by the very neat movie
“Eternal Zero.” That explains the extreme weathering. I rarely use after market parts, but I did put a 500 lb bomb slung underneath the plane for a “Special Attack.” (The movie ends with the hero diving his plane into an American aircraft carrier. The movie is fiction, but Kamikaze aircraft striking USN carriers was very true.)
The second is Tamiya’s Panzer IV D. This particular variant comes from 1985, but Tamiya’s first Panzer IV came out in the mid 70’s. As you can see I modeled it as being “knocked out” somewhere in the Russian front. Another model backed by history - you can bet there were hundreds of knocked out PzIVDs laying around dead in Russia during the winter of 1941=42.
Might add that the early Tamiya kits - still available - are dirt cheap (the Zero is available for under $20 and the PzIV for under $25. All the early Tamiya products terrific kits for beginners.
In any case, I’m all in for this Group Build. I think I’ll start off with Tamiya’s recent BF-109 G-6.
I think that assessment applies to many of us here
Well, I finally got this beast all wrapped up now just a short while ago. It’s definitely nowhere near contest quality, but will join the rest of my shelf sitters nicely enough
I’ll get a proper multi angle batch of photos up tomorrow or Monday.
Ehhmm…. I might have bitten off more then I can chew for this campaign…. with the dinosaur dioramas. They are getting quite big… and quite a bit out of control. No idea if I’ll manage to get even one of them done.
So in the meantime I started a small sideshow tinker-kit-kind of thing; a Flakvierling with US infantry.
The main idea is a hastily abandonned gun, being disabled before being overrun and it is mostly just to tinker, test & try and work on figurepainting, but Tamiya nonetheless.
Barrels straightened and drilled out, made an exitchute for the spent cartridges. This however does compromize the structural integrity and I had to cut and carve away the required opening. I also had to fill numerous ejectormarks. For the Sd.Ah. I had in mind that it should be damaged by a nearby explosion or grenade, thus making it logical for it to be abandonned in haste. So one tire had to be flat by softening it over a flame, pressing it down in the right angle and carving in a new threadpattern. The lid of the box on the same side was to be blow open, so I tried to carefully cut if off, but it still deformed. These stowageboxes had no bottom, so had to add so plastic strip.
A number of items will be strewn around, such as magazines and boxes. I cut these boxes apart, sanded them out and gave them new sides.
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