So why now? Well about 4 months ago I decided I needed to pull my finger out and get back into it. I needed something "quick" and easy. I saw at my now closed LHS
an 1/72 Airfix F-51D with a Korean AF scheme that I'd always liked so I got it and took it home.Once I was safely in the model room I noticed that the other scheme, Kentuckey Air National Guard, looked cool as well. I thought bugger it, I'll do both. So I grabbed another F-51D from the vast stash and proceeded to start both as a bit of a production line. I wanted them done for expo. 4 weeks after that I got made redundant so there was a 6 week modelling hiatus till I found new employment. After finding a new job it was back into it.
One day whilst waiting for something to dry on them some idiot decided he liked this production line thing and started 2 1/144 Roden C-47's to be done as VH-MMA, best plane I ever worked on, in 2 different Airnorth schemes.
Long story short, I finished the C-47's for expo and the Mustangs are up to the decal stage. I also started an 1/48 High Planes Sharp DR-90 Nemisis racer that's getting there.
THE F&%$ING MOJO IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really enjoying my modelling again which is awesome. Went to expo for added inspo which certainly worked well. Great to see 23 airliners in the category blowing concerns about numbers out of the water. The civvie category was well entered as well. As usual the standard gets higher and higher each year. So what now? There are many plans for next expo and beyond. Firstly I need to finish the 1/72 Mustangs. As some of you know I did Clay Lacy's pink Mustang racer years ago. Well this aircraft was sold to his friend and aerobatics pilot Vicky Benzing who restored it, complete with custom but recognisable pink/purple paint scheme, which is now called Plum Crazy. I see a P-51 theme coming on. I love this plane and hatched yet another cunning plan.
I'm doing this aircraft in 1/32 for next expo
I bought a Hasegawa kit that I'd built as a kit to do OOB but that decided a big pink/purple Mustang would look cool on the expo table. After looking at the I thought that it would be better as a camo plane. I then had yet another cunning plan using my 1/24 P-51 kit. Even bigger and brighter on the table. After deliberating for about 2 weeks, and requiring about $200 worth of additional stuff to make it look right I settled on the Tamiya 1/32 kit. It has great detail including the wheel well that I want to detail the shit out of and would be less work within my time frame. My main issue was lack of wheel well and cockpit detail pics. I reached out to Vicky who was sooooo amazingly generous for the additional pics. She sent me heaps along with the paint code. She went out of her way to get me additional pics and videos of the areas I needed. The aircraft was painted by Steve Hinton Jr, son of legendary racer Steve Hinton and Vicky got an extra panel sprayed to make paint chips. This legend of a lady is sending me 1 of those paint chips of the actual paint on the aircraft. Stoked doesn't even cover it.
I sent the paint code to Proscale Paints in the UK to get some colour mixed up. It's a lacquer based paint that is bloody brilliant to use. If you have a paint code, they will mix it and put it on their website. They've mixed up Holden Spitfire Green for me in the past and their customer service is awesome. As for decals, Draw Decal do them along with many other racers. I'm getting them in 1/48 as well to suit my racer theme I have as well as 1/144 cos I need a decal from that sheet for inside the 1/32 cockpit. I have the paint already along with some photoetch for the kit and the decals are being printed as we speak. The only things left to get are some resin wheels with the correct tyres and some evergreen for scratch building the cockpit. I'd also like to do Plum Crazy in 1/72 and send it to Vicky as a thanks for all her generosity.
Other things planned include finishing to 2 bloody Airfix 737's, a Let L-200 Morava in Ansett colours and maybe a civvie Spitfire TR.8 among other military things I wanna do. A big ask and probably won't all get done but ya gotta have a plan.
Anyways that was a bit long winded but it is what it is. Now to go back and read all the posts I've missed in my absence. Model on peeps
