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Lizard Combatant posted:Hello thread, newbie question but do Hobbyboss make good kits? I'm looking at some Soviet armoured train, but it's a little pricey so I thought I better check in with the experts first. Hobbyboss are part of Trumpeter, so most of the caveats that come with Trumpeter also go for Hobbyboss: shape can sometimes not be the most accurate, paint guides are often a complete guess at their end (so do your research and don't rely on what paints they suggest) and some of their kits are simplified versions of Trumpeter ones. That said, they usually go together pretty well, surface detail is nice and crisp and the instructions are pretty easy to follow too. It's more or less a case-by-case thing but I've never been disappointed by a Hobbyboss kit I've built. Their 'easy build' 1/72 aircraft kits are actually fantastic starter kits for folk new to the hobby, hands down better on every front than e.g. airfix starter kits, and I often grab one as a mojo build between big projects.
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Sep 5, 2021 09:51
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The thing about Revell is that they're not all bad kits - you just have to do your research (i.e. check Scalemates) beforehand. This is because there could be almost anything inside the box. If you're unlucky, it could be ancient US Revell, or it could be Monogram (although some folk are nostalgic for these kits). Anything made by Revell of Germany is likely to be decent, especially from the 90s where they seemed to be on a run of extremely nice aircraft kits with super fine engraved panel lines etc. These days p much everything Revell release (with some exceptions like their upcoming 1/48 SR71) is reboxed from other manufacturers - Special Hobby, Academy, ICM, Hasegawa, Dragon etc. These are usually slightly cheaper than the original boxing, sometimes with better decals sheets too. Their instructions from the last decade or so are much improved now from those awful b&w ones that looked like they'd been photocopied one hundred times too. So as usual it always pays to check a kit's provenance on Scalemates!
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Oct 7, 2021 09:07
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Ensign Expendable posted:Are they cheaper? My local shop has Revell reboxes of Zvezda kits on the same shelf as the original kits, but priced $10-30 higher. I guess it just depends - I can only speak from my experience in the UK. I noticed that ICM's recently tooled 1/72 Mig-25 foxbat was selling for about £24 whereas Revell's reboxing of it was less than £20. Great kit by the way!    
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Oct 7, 2021 22:00
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I'm usually an aircraft man but this year I've been dabbling in ship modelling and I'm definitely into it now - it's nice having all that detail work on show rather than being hidden away like when you close up the fuselage of an aircraft. My latest build is Tamiya/PitRoad's 1/700 USS Bogue CVE-9, painted with Sovereign Hobbies' Colourcoats enamels and Mr Color lacquers, and using the Tom's Modelworks photoetch set. I've sat it on a Coastal Kits 2D display base and it fits pretty nicely!         
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Oct 10, 2021 16:29
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upsidedown posted:That looks great and having it staged like that adds another dimension. Just under 20cm - I've put a couple of objects next to it for scale.  Escort carriers were much smaller than their big cousins like the Lexington and Essex-class carriers as they were mostly hastily converted merchant ships with a carrier deck bunged onto the top. What I always do with ships to see their relative sizes is check out their dimensions on wikipedia then divide by 700 to get the scale size - it sounds obvious but it's really handy.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:14
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:A clay wash is basically colored clay, held in a suspension of water and a few other minor liquids, all non-toxic. You basically slop it on, and then when it "dries", you just use a damp cloth to wipe off the excess wash. The remaining clay stays in the panel lines, and it's a dead simple way of doing panel lines on larger surfaces. It's not any better or worse than oils, just another way to to do it. It's one real advantage is if you have to do a ton of panels lines, you can "slop" it on. Saves lots of time over using oils to run minute bits of paint down each panel line. I'm an absolute convert to using clay washes like Flory or UMP now. Speaking to Phil Flory about his washes at Telford a couple of years ago, I came up with the description that using them is like basically having the equivalent 'undo' button if you make a mistake or change your mind. It has no effect on the underlying paint or clear coat (as long as it's not super matte) and so when you try to remove it you don't need to use thinners or chemicals or anything. Great for the permanently unsure modeller like myself, as I would previously get nervous about ruining months of work by trying to remove a wash that didn't suit. Great work on the Star Destroyer!
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Oct 24, 2021 10:42
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Arquinsiel posted:Wait, people don't colourmix? I generally don't try and mix my own colours since I'm colourblind and so it's just a recipe for disaster. I used to hunt out suggested Tamiya mixing formulas online for the multitude of aircraft standard colours they don't produce but eventually just switched to Mr Color lacquers for aircraft as their range is pretty comprehensive, and Sovereign Hobbies enamels for naval subjects.
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Nov 2, 2021 00:46
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SkunkDuster posted:With cockpit and other detailed parts, I paint first, then glue. CA is what you want for this. It beats scraping paint off of surfaces to be glued on tiny parts. I've found for non-structural detail parts post-painting, and photo-etch etc I have mostly moved away from using CA and now use strong PVA like Ammo Mig's Ultra Glue. You get a lot more work-time than CA, it dries more flexibly and less brittle than CA and of course you don't run the risk of the CA 'blooming' and leaving a nasty white frost on your finished surface.
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Dec 31, 2021 12:11
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Luke Towan's videos are brilliant, and almost meditative. I love to stick one on and just chill out when I don't have the energy to work at the bench.
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Jan 9, 2022 02:05
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Gewehr 43 posted:General question: how many models did you finish last year? 3. I finished 3. My new years resolution is to finish at least 8 kits/projects this year. Wish me luck. For whatever it's worth, I work in in 35th and 1/32 scale almost exclusively. I managed 9 completed builds last year, but i did move house in the spring and then constructed a whole new build area/workbench, so I'm hoping to get through a bit more of my stash than that in 2022. In (roughly) chronological order: Trumpeter 1/72 RA5C Vigilante  Tamiya 1/72 Kawanishi Shiden  PitRoad/Skywave 1/700 JMSDF Onami destroyer (and Toyoshima minesweeper)  Revell 1/72 Spitfire MkIIa, P7982 416 Sqdn RCAF, built for the RAF Peterhead Museum. The aircraft skidded into a snowbank on 6th February 1942 and was subsequently destroyed by a Short Stirling, N6086, which crashed into it the following day. It now lives next to a Stirling another member of my local IPMS club built for the museum.  Hasegawa 1/72 Jaguar GR1 (with aftermarket decals and a bunch of stores and ordnance from the Italeri kit and Revell Tornado GR1)  Hobbyboss 1/72 Grumman Bearcat  MPM/Special Hobby 1/72 X-15A-2  Tamiya 1/700 USS Bogue (with Tom's Modelworks PE)  Tamiya 1/72 Mosquito Mk VI (my grandad was navigator in this specific aircraft over the North Sea during the war attacking German shipping so I had to do a bit of research to get all the markings and codes right) 
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Jan 14, 2022 18:01
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Phy posted:Dude, a Mosquito would be cool enough on its own, but building your grandpa's exact plane is a hell of a flex Nah unfortunately he died before I was born, but I got hold of all of 143 sqdn's operations records books and his flight logs so I got a good sense of the aircraft and its history. grassy gnoll posted:These are all quite enjoyable. Yeah typically straightforward Tamiya - it needed a little bit of filler at the back of the engine nacelles where they meet the top of the wing but aside from that it was great. Only downside was the decals kept silvering badly and needed a lot of work. I've read that Japanese decals like Tamiya, Hasegawa, Fujimi etc only really respond well to Tamiya or Gunze setting/softener solutions, rather than Microset/sol, so I've ordered some Mr Mark Setter & Softer and hopefully they'll be a bit easier in future...
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Jan 14, 2022 20:54
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I used to use one of those small generic fold-up portable spray booth extractors (that are all over amazon/ebay) which was fine for a few years but eventually began falling apart. After I started spraying lacquers and enamels regularly I decided to upgrade to something with a bit more oomph so went with a Benchvent BV300S-D which has been fantastic - albeit it wasn't cheap. According to the specs it can suck around 6m³ air/min through it.
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Jan 26, 2022 01:26
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It's probably worth noting that even if you're using an extractor and only spraying acrylics you should still always wear a respirator because even if it's not a smelly solvent-based paint you really don't want to be inhaling particles of aerosolised paint. You only get one set of lungs!
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Jan 26, 2022 11:08
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It's pretty much just the ones that looks like these which will fall apart after a few years: although for the time I was using it I didn't have much space in my flat so it was definitely useful that it folded away. The other options are either professional grade ones, like Benchvent (I'm sure there are US equivalents), or building your own. If you're going down the home-built route make sure that the fans you use have brushless motors as otherwise sucking lots of flammable vapours through it could be a fire hazard.
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Jan 26, 2022 16:21
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:Not Australian, but as far as I know the big daddy of model shops there is BNA Model World. I've actually ordered from them to ship over here to Canada, because they've often got better prices and shipping than local stores here. I've ordered decals from BNA to the UK and can recommend their service! I don't know if anyone else listens to the On The Bench scale modelling podcast, but they're all based in Melbourne and apparently there's around a dozen thriving brick & mortar hobby shops within Melbourne alone! I can't even imagine that, my mind is blown.
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Jan 27, 2022 10:52
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Nice work! That's a v similar process I followed when researching my grandad's Mosquito I built from the Tamiya kit. As there weren't any existing photographs of it I had to just guess at what colour the prop spinners were, as his squadron all seemed to have different colours for each aircraft and there were no references to his specifically. It was interesting reading several months of record books and following their various anti-shipping missions, seeing when they got damaged by flak and then having to switch out to other aircraft while theirs got repaired etc.
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Jan 30, 2022 12:56
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Ensign Expendable posted:How does it model the two most common parts of model building: buying kits you will never have time to build and complaining on the internet that your airplane didn't come with swastika decals? And of course moaning that the newly announced kit by [manufacturer x] is in the 'wrong scale' and declaring it 'fatally flawed' after peering at some CAD renders and that if they had any sense they'd kit some obscure 1930s prototype aircraft that never flew because it would 'make them millions' instead of yet another spitfire. We joke that the model building is really two distinct hobbies - building kits, and collecting kits. I'd suggest it's actually three, the third being 'complaining on the internet about kits'.
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Feb 9, 2022 11:12
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Dr. Garbanzo posted:And yet there’s another group of modelers out there filling forums with posts about how they’re converting an italeri wessex Westland in 1/72 scale into an accurate representation of the aircraft that flew using nothing but plasticard and materials found in the home. Then there's the masochists who willingly choose to do vacform kits when there's perfectly respectable injection moulded alternatives of the subject, just because they can. And for that, I have nothing but respect.
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Feb 9, 2022 13:01
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You'll be pleased to know that spirit still runs strong in Airfix, as their latest 1/72 Mosquito B.XVI was based off lidar-scanning a museum piece that at some point later in life had been converted into a target tug, and so the kit unwittingly duplicates the raised features on the bomb bay doors of a TT.35 - much to the gnashing of teeth and declarations of 'fatally flawed!' by certain corners of the internet.
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Feb 10, 2022 00:51
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Just finished IBG's 1/700 HMS Ilex, a really nice wee kit. I can definitely recommend their range of destroyers as they have good references, clear instructions, come with a decent fret of photoetch and only cost about £12. IBG seem like a manufacturer to look out for as they broaden their scope, I think just now they mainly focus on Polish 72nd aircraft, 72nd armour and 1/700 British/Polish destroyers. I took this as an opportunity to have my first go at making a sea base from tin foil and pva glue and I'm more or less pretty happy with how it turned out. I think the wake is maybe a bit overdone and in future I might tone it down a bit, or try a different method, but it was a good experience experimenting with different techniques and seeing what worked and what didn't. It was a lot easier than I expected though, and I didn't have to fart around pouring resin.       
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Feb 10, 2022 18:48
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FrozenVent posted:That base looks pretty good, do you have a tutorial or something you used? I followed the basic steps in this video, but I didn't bother buying stuff like acrylic medium or anything I didn't already have lying around, so it's a bit more simple than what he did. I used Woodland Scenics 'Water Effects', which is effectively just a pva glue that stays in place and can be 'sculpted' to a certain extent, so I used that to build up some of the waves around the hull. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuntDtSWizY There's some incredible sea diorama videos out there that just blow my mind, though - especially Studio Blue Ocean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkBhu655BGk
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Feb 10, 2022 19:05
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The wikipedia list of railway modelling scales is a good read if you want to go insane.
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Feb 12, 2022 19:48
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IncredibleIgloo posted:
I remember seeing Wingnut Wings' original test shots of this kit on display at ScaleModelWorld Telford 2019 and it was incredible, absolutely unreal amount of detail. It's a real shame Peter Jackson closed the company down (amidst some possibly dodgy tax stuff they were getting upto in NZ) but I'd believe the rumours that the development of this kit was what really ended up breaking the back of WnW, which never really broke even afaik. It's fantastic to see it finally being released though, albeit by Border. Hopefully the rest of WnW's tools get bought by other companies and don't get stuck in legal limbo or sat on by Peter Jackson for the rest of time.
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Feb 20, 2022 01:58
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I think in the UK/EU we get a bit luckier with Revell kits than folks across the pond, as it's very very rare for any of the old Revell USA/Monogram/Revellogram ancient kits to get sold over here (and there's little to no market for american muscle car kits etc too), and so what we tend to get is the Revell Germany stuff, which was a separate company from Revell USA using the same brand but they had a long convoluted history and is now the only Revell left standing and I believe owns its US cousin's assets. Revell Germany produced some brilliant 1/72 aircraft kits in the 90s and into the 00s but after they started hitting financial issues began reboxing other manufacturers' kits and so there's a good chance anything released by them in the last 15 years is actually Academy, Hasegawa, ICM, Special Hobby, Zvezda etc and so Scalemates is essential to check before you buy one of their kits. Their decals these days are pretty great though, I think they use Cartograf, so I will often choose them over a Zvezda or ICM boxing if the price isn't too dissimilar. Another thing to bear in mind w/r/t Revell is that they are essentially a budget manufacturer - they don't attempt to compete with Tamiya because they have to shoot for a lower price point to sit on non-model retailers' shelves, and so this is reflected in the amount of QA they can afford and so you see more flash/short shots and so on. Also - Revell boxes are end-opening, and legendarily terrible and flimsy, so if you stack them flat in your stash you're liable to bend all the sprues inside them.
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Feb 20, 2022 19:48
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Lavinia Spenlow posted:It even has raised panel lines for roundels... That's something that really annoys me on ship kits. They often used to have deck markings on carriers or helicopter pads moulded raised (presumably to make it easier to hand paint them), when decals would have been far more appropriate. Revell's (ex-Dragon's) HMS Invincible is one of the worst offenders for this - at scale these would like about 2ft tall barriers all over the deck! 
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Feb 21, 2022 10:35
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I've been slowly working my way through this set of AMT Enterprise kits, which are allegedly snap-together but the only way to get anything to actually fit is to remove all the locator pins and treat them like short-run kits in terms of test-fitting, gluing, filling and clean-up. I can't even imagine that they were any good when the tools were brand new either.
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Mar 4, 2022 13:31
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They're certainly not unbuildable if you've got a few kits under your belt, and it's nice having them all in a constant scale rather than completely random sizes like most SF kits come in. WIP: 
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Mar 4, 2022 13:41
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Lavinia Spenlow posted:You just haven't found the right paint yet. This is how I felt until I discovered airbrushing Mr Color lacquers mixed with Hataka lacquer thinner - and controversially not 'unicorn tears' aka Mr Levelling Thinner. However, Tamiya mixed with MLT is a close second, tied with Colourcoats enamels thinned with MLT. Water-based acrylics are all a real pain though.
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Mar 9, 2022 02:20
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MrUnderbridge posted:That scene is going to be on every contest table in every model show for years! In a similar vein, Mig 29 kits and Ukrainian digital camo masking sets are now sold out across the web as every aircraft modeler out there is now building a Ghost of Kiev model. I spotted this mock-up of a Zvezda Ghost of Kiev kit that's been doing the rounds on fb. 
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Mar 9, 2022 10:25
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I'm sure if Zvezda actually tried to make that kit they'd all be put on a one way train to Siberia. That photoshop is fooling a lot of folk at the moment though.
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Mar 9, 2022 10:57
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SkunkDuster posted:I've only used unicorn tears and grey poupon for thinning my paints. What is it about Hataka that you prefer over MCLT? It seems to give a, for want of a better word, 'softer' finish and at least in my experience is far more forgiving in terms of dilution ratios. I guess the paint comes out a bit more matte using it than MLT which is supposed to give a glossier finish but if I don't get it right turns out a bit pebbly. I'm awful at spraying clear/gloss coats so that's probably a big factor. I've got a bottle of Mr Rapid Thinner which I've not tried yet but is supposed to be good stuff.
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Mar 9, 2022 19:15
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Nice work! Revell's 1/72 armour range is actually pretty good, far less variable than their aircraft.
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Mar 12, 2022 23:34
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I got a Badger Xtreme Patriot (lol) 105 as my first 'proper' airbrush after using the cheapo one that came with my compressor for a few months. I do like the tall trigger it has which sets it apart from the rest of my airbrushes now, but one downside is that Badger needles can only be removed from the back due to the wee plastic ball on the end of them - usually I prefer pulling the needle out from the front so it doesn't drag paint through the whole mechanism. I recently got a Mr Hobby Procon Boy PS-270 (which I believe is made in the same factory as Iwatas) and it's wonderful to use. Great handfeel.
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Mar 16, 2022 18:59
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Bill Posters posted:I have the same pair and love them both. The PS-290 in particular does 90% of what I need while being extremely sturdy and easy to clean/maintain. Do you find you get much paint build-up on the needle and in the area immediately behind the cup? I've found this takes the longest to clean on my PS-270, and I'm not sure if that means the needle packing seal needs replaced (although it's supposed to be solvent-proof) or if there's a bit of a gap between the cup and the needle packing mechanism that paint gathers in. This image indicates the latter is possibly the case:  I think with my Badger the seal is immediately behind the cup and so it doesn't take as much wiggling the the needle back and forth to clean the paint from there.
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Mar 18, 2022 15:56
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That's the kind of model that's both inspiring and utterly dispiriting. Fantastic stuff.
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Mar 20, 2022 12:51
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grassy gnoll posted:Anybody have any strong opinions on 1/72 TBM/F Avengers? I'm trying to decide between one of the Hobby 2000 spruced-up Hasegawas or a Sword kit. Depends what you're after really, Sword has loads of boxings of Avenger variants in service in different countries so they're fairly comprehensive, including the Guppy. The Hobby 2000 choices are a bit more limited, mostly US but I think the most recent kit is French and Royal Navy schemes. If you've not built a Sword kit before, they're short run but not 'difficult' - just needs a bit more time, test-fitting and clean-up than a mainstream manufacturer. There's no locator pins and moulding can be a bit chunky, but the surface detail is usually fantastic. The Hobby 2000/Hasegawa kit will likely be an easier build, and comes with a canopy masking set and Cartograf decals (I think, would need to check my box but it's deep in the stash). Sword tend to use Techmod for their decals which are beautifully printed but can be very fragile and are a little more difficult to work with. I'll be building the Sword kit in Japanese post-war markings at some point.
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Mar 21, 2022 16:07
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I've just finished Hobbyboss's 1/72 Dassault Rafale M, which I embarked on as a bit of a quick OOB build (but ended up taking ages regardless). For this reason I didn't fix the inaccurate nose or the other 'fatal flaws' the kit may be accused of having. I enjoyed trying to replicate the heavily faded markings visible on in-service naval Rafale's by airbrushing very thin coats of the base colour over all the decals, and used AK weathering pencils to try and break up the otherwise fairly dull grey scheme. The base is one of Coastal Kits' pre-printed display bases.     
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Mar 24, 2022 01:26
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Grumio posted:What a beaut, fantastic work Vorenus posted:That fairly dull grey scheme has no business looking that good. Thanks! I came across this the other day which has inspired me to try and do a more dynamic sea diorama on my next ship build, using a full-hull kit this time. 
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Mar 26, 2022 01:46
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grassy gnoll posted:Tamiya 1/72 Zero 22, I think. Got away from me pretty much exactly once I hit the wash phase - paint just started to come off, the wash was staying where it shouldn't, I started to realize how boring the thing looks as a "clean" model, I start to realize how surprisingly 70s the whole thing looks, but hey, I tore myself away from Elden Ring long enough to start and finish a kit this month. That's really great - looks like a 'What if a Zero took part in the Reno Air Races?'
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Mar 30, 2022 10:14
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Just a quick one off my work bench this week, Italeri's Bell H-13 Sioux in 1/72. It's a pretty straightforward build, and nice not to have to do any sanding/filling/rescribing on a fuselage for once. The lattice framing is a bit overscale but it looks alright to my eyes, although I've seen folk replace the whole lot with PE...     
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Apr 9, 2022 13:13
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