My Current Projects

[SebastianP]

OK, so it's kind of a stretch to call these whiffy, but since the kit decals are inaccurate... (not to mention the kits themselves!)

I'm posting these here because while I've gotten more than a hundred views on ARC, I haven't gotten a single comment, and I'm too polite to come out and say "please comment, damnit!" even if I really, really want to.

And mostly I just want to show that I don't only *talk* a good model, I actually do build them, sometimes.

Note that these are my first major attempts at serious sculpting, and I'm seriously interested in whatever hints you lot have to give - as well as sharing those techniques I've discovered myself. Some of it may be practical for those of you on a tight budget (like me), especially my materials choices...



This started out as an OOB build that stalled since I didn't really want to work on the cockpit - to me, that's usually the most boring bit of the model, lots and lots of tiny parts to clean up and paint and probably lose before they're installed. So it sat in my window for six months, until I saw a photo of an armed example... so out came the kit, since I was going to put some guns in.

Problem was, the interior of the kit is basically just a shell, and when looking for images of how the guns are mounted inside the cabin, I couldn't help but notice that the interior walls on the real thing are pretty thick, and clad in soundproofing that's pretty obvious.

I had a big package of Green Stuff left over from my very brief Warhammer phase, and decided that this might do for an interior material. So I beefed up the walls and tried impressing a pattern. Big mistake - it looked awful, and filling the pattern with putty and trying to sand it down looked worse. Just when I'd decided the kit was botched beyond repair, I spotted one of those thermoformed packages you get electronic gizmoes in that don't warrant a cardboard box - in this case, it was a desktop mike, I think. It had a big, flat, clear front, and a big, flat, clear back, and it was thick enough to be stiff but not enough to be unwieldy.

So I cut a big rectangle out, trimmed it a little, and superglued it to the inside of the helicopter... The corrections kind of kept coming after that, with a new full-cabin roof, then a further lowered roof, and then the overhead paneling along the sides, until thw whole thing looked like this:



That's as far as I've gotten, and the project is again stalled while I figure out whether I want to remove the windows I've already installed and replace them with pieces of OH film applied from the outside to represent the flush windows of the real thing, and while I work on a tool to make the cabin lights.

This is kind of obviously a long term project, and it involves lots of research and waiting for stuff to dry before moving on. One such period of waiting for the putty to dry led to this:



I bought this kit in order to update it, then got scared off from that due to the sheer amount of work involved, then I decided to build it OOB but it was just too silly-looking for that and I couldn't do it. So it sat half-assembled in the window next to a bunch of other kits, until I found myself sitting there with a big glob of putty in my hand, and no place to put it on the Merlin. By the time I turned off the lights, I'd mixed more putty twice to continue working on it, and it's pretty much ascended to my top priority build (since I've entered it in an ARC GB that closes in three weeks... o.O)

A similar situation with premixed putty on hand and no place to put it resulted in the top part of this last pic:



I drilled a quick hole, sawed out the offending piece of plastic, and backed the hole from inside with a piece of some package or other. It may have been a pair of headphones this time, can't remember exactly. Another piece was added inside the hole, and the leftover putty filled it in pretty well.

The rest of that image is pretty self-explanatory - it's the new wings for the helicopter, and the fuselage sides. After several attempts to shape the cheek fairings freehand, I cut a pair of square pieces of plastic to serve as guides for where the dispensers are mounted. The dispensers themselves will be made from ÓH film cut to shape and holed in the right places with a hot needle -  far cheaper and easier than trying to do it with photoetched brass...

So where's the wiffyness? Well, I like to think of it as "what if the real thing looked like my model"...

Please do comment - I've got more techniques to share once I've tested them that may be useful to someone...

SP

[AeroplaneDriver]

I can make 2 suggestions for the interior of your Merlin.

1.  Do a search for "Rotodyne" with "Leigh" as the member name.  he did a great Airfix Rotodyne as an RAF bird with a scratchbuilt interior, and in typical Leigh fashion he posted a lot of great detail during the build.

2.  Do a search for "Jetstream".  One of our number (sorry, cant remember who!) did an Airfix Jetstream as a USAF Vietnam-era gunship not too long ago.  Again, he added a lot of interior detail, including scratchbuilt miniguns.

The Merlin has got to be one of the coolest helos in operation today.  Cant wait to see yours progressing!

[B777LR]

Attack helicopter of some sort + V-22 wings = Super cool USMC fast attack helicopter/plane!  

[SebastianP]

You wish! No, these three are my graduation projects from OOB to superdetailing - as my art teacher back in junior high used to say, once you've mastered the basics, only then can you start creating "art". So for me, it's JMN time, while I master the techniques I'll need for real whiffing!

I haven't gotten any modeling done today worth showing off, since I've been out shopping for supplies. I can tell you this - I haven't entered a hobby shop today, but I blew nearly a hundred dollars on modelling supplies. Also, take a look at my new secondary hobby area:



The paper roll on the right side contains six A3-size sheets of OH film, useful for thin windows and as a flat surfacing material. Not included in the pic is the tool that made the pic possible - a power supply for my very hungry digital camera.

As for where I got the money and the space - well, I sold my couch back to Dad, since I only used it to pile model kit boxes on.  :dum:

Cheers!

SP

[Captain Canada]

That's alot of goodies, Sebas ! Looks like you could build toyrself a nice popsicle stick bridge if you wanted to as well !

I was thinking the same thing about the Cobra with the osprey wings...how cool would the be !

 

[SebastianP]

Tilt rotors are impractical for gunships, you know - ducted fans are the way to go:

http://battlefield2.filefront.com/screensh...ots/News/28924/

Some day, when I find the right shapes to start from, I'll build one of these.

In the mean time, these are going to end up as an MV-22B and its AH-1Z escort. Assuming, of course, that I can manage to ever get the rotor done up properly - there's a special place in that place deep downstairs for people who engineer bad kits, and when I get to St Peter, I'm going to ask to apprentice as a torturer for that area. Whoever designed the rotor hub on the kit needs to be cursed with immortality and a heightened sense of pain, and then tortured for all eternity...

Why the vehemence, you ask? Because the rotor head can't support the weight of the blades out of the box, and trying to modify them to look like the real thing caused them to break off at the root. All of them. I had to break out the *exotic* materials, which are in very short supply:



Those ice cream sticks in the loot shot are for making my own sanding sticks - I buy sandpaper in an auto paint shop, down to 2500-grit, and cut strips of it and glue them to the sticks. Cheap and easy, and if I want an angled stick of some kind, I glue several of them together and sand to shape before adding the sandpaper...

SP