Starfighter

More progress on the Reedoak figurines. The show is approaching fast... They are still in progress, lots of detail painting is still missing. I'll use decal stripes for the reflectors, as usual.

Brilliant work mate, can't wait to see it in the flesh in two weeks time!

Thanks Zac and special thanks to Maru for your great ideas! I have continued painting and weathering the hull and deck. As usual, the masks for the hull numbers were cut on my Silhouette Portrait. During the drying time, I have started painting the figurines using acrylic paints from Andrea and Vallejo.

Thanks geedubelyer and Maru! Geedubelyer, you are right about the nets. I have tried to make the sag more using a hair dryer but to no effect. They get back into their initial shape once the cool down. I guess I'll have to live with that. The fun part has started. After priming the base with Mr Surfacer 1500 black (and breaking the nets I had to fix countless times)... ... I started painting the deck. Deck markings add life and interest. I have also started to figure out what will be going on on the base (see what I did there?). The guy looking at the rotor already had some hand surgery done. I am not super happy with the guy looking on as he does not look in the right direction (he should look up a bit) - but that will be pretty hard to modify. Not sure what I am going to do about that. ## The guy kneeling will check the plug of something I drew up yesterday - a Tesla GPU. I will have to slightly modify his hands as well. That thing should add a touch of colour and a bit of interest. Looking forward to seeing the printed parts. The handles will be made of wire. A good friend of mine is currently printing it on his Sonic Mini 8K along with some other goodies like die towns and Pitot tubes.

Thank you! Fred definitely made a great discovery . The only problem is to get enough of it. Nobody can eat so many onions to get enough of that netting... The other frames are ready, so I fitted them temporarily to the hull to check the overall look. In the end, the frames will be held in porition by a thin wire; I am currently waiting for the turnbuckles and clevises to fit them. I hope painting will start within this week. BSMC at Putte is approaching very fast...

Absolutely brilliant, Anthony!

Thanks a lot Maru and Pete! Well, building the frames was already super annoying, but it's easily topped by webbing the nets onto the frames. It's super tedious, boring and takes way longer than it look. I have spent the whole evening doing it while watching a replay of this year's Le Mans 24 hour race (which I was not able to finish either :D) and I only manage to finish five of them. That's less than half of the nets I have to build. And I am not even taking into account the nets I need for my two elevators and the diorama for the AH-1Z... anyway. The nets are actually bags containing onions my good friend Fred aka @stusbke has discovered and was kind enough to provide me with. Thanks a lot, mate!

That'S absolutely stunning to say the least, my friend!

Absolutely love it - great work as usual, mate!

Progress has slowed down significantly - as has the photo quality! Anyway, I am currently trying to spend every available minute working on the model and the only possibility is to work in the kitchen whilst the kids are playing in the living room. So, without any further explanation, here comes the progress. This has to be in my personal top three of the most annoying tasks in scale modeling - building the nets. The curved parts are 3D printed, the golden parts are obviously brass tubes (2mm diameter). The initial idea was to print the entire frames, but 1) they are not *that* easy to print and 2) my experience with 3D printed parts tells me that long, thin parts tend to deform over time. Let's hope that won't happen with the ones I have printed this time. Some of the finished frames. The wider ones are slightly less high than the ones at the bottom as they aren't fitted to the hull at the same height (see reference pics a few post earlier). And in situ. The frames will be held in place by a 1mm axis.

Mate, try with ONE fuselage part first - and use thicker supports! Looking forward to seeing the ugly bird in the flesh!

After some additional sanding, it doesn't look too bad I'd say. A tiny bit more of sanding and I'll be ready to fit the nets and start painting.

I can totally understand your disappoint that it's required to spend additional money to get usable parts for a kit you have already paid for... on the other hand, I am sure either an Orion or Electra yould look great in in-flight mode. Now: BTT!

Kev, what about robbing a Hasegawa Kit to get the landing gear for your 72nd scale Electra? They appear cheap(ish) from time to time...

Now we're talking - awesome project! Can't wait to see this one come together. Reminds me of the printed 32nd scale one sitting on my shelf...