Moments of Zen

[DogfighterZen]

And here it is, the BT is finally finished!!! 



I'll try to have a beauty pic session of it tomorrow so i'll share a few better pics when they're ready. It's my first model of 2022 and i hope it's not the only one. Last year i only managed to finish the Academy 1/72 F/A-50 but i'm hoping that this year i can do a bit more... The Blue Thunder was on the bench for around a year and a half and that was way too long.
Now i have the RF-5E and the F-16W on the bench so i have work to do...

[kerick]

BT looks great! I'll be looking for more pics. Looking forward to the RF-5 and the F-16W too.

[DogfighterZen]

BT looks great! I'll be looking for more pics. Looking forward to the RF-5 and the F-16W too.

Thanks, Ken! I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow.

[su27rules]

 

[Old Wombat]

Awesome!

It can be a real b!tch when the mojo goes on holidays!

Glad you got yours back, DfZ!

[zenrat]

Cool.  More pics.

[NARSES2]

That does look good 

[DogfighterZen]

Thank you, gents! 

Awesome!

It can be a real b!tch when the mojo goes on holidays!

Glad you got yours back, DfZ!

Sure is... Mine had been on holidays for almost a year now. I started stuff during this past year but i'd been struggling to get anything done.
Now i feel like i'm getting it all back again...

And to keep it going, i've just finished using oil paints for the first time to try some fading of the colors on my RF-5E. Being a Moroccan bird, i believe that the paint jobs don't hold too long on the jets parked outside under the sun.
I took it easy and tried to keep it light and simple, just to give it a sort of uneven look, like it had been in service for some time.
The pic doesn't show much but i went over several areas with a few dots of white oil paint and just randomly blended them in with the other colors.



I know that the effect is barely visible on the pic but i'm quite happy with that, that's exactly what i wanted, just a bird in service with light fading of the paint, not a graveyard carcass. I think that it will look good when the rest is done.
There's a few more things i wanna do to it like a panel line wash and some pigments so it'll be a little bit more dirty in the end.

[DogfighterZen]

Ok, time for an update...

Lots has happened in the last few months, including a change of job... I was getting sick of the shift work because the supervisors were always dumping nights on me and my workmate who's also a modeller... as we were some of the most recent in the company... Then it just wasn't paying enough for the hours and the responsibility forced onto the operators so, when a good opportunity to earn more, spend less gas and have less responsibility came up, i took it.
The career progression in the water job also wasn't something worth waiting for because there were guys there for over 6 years who never had a raise... And the worst part is that they deserved a good one!:banghead:

So i'm now a farm manager, at a yoga resort over 10kms closer to home. The Cocoon is a nice place for people to relax. I have different tasks and responsibilities everyday so it's never routine, always something different happening.
It's a better place for me in every way so things have been going pretty smooth in this first month.

So, that was the reason why these last few months i've been drained of almost all mojo... these decisions cannot be made lightly, with a mortgage to pay for and everything else... But i've been feeling much lighter, now that the transition has been done and i'm quickly getting settled in at my new work place, and that has released some of the mojo that was trapped in my head.

So, to refresh the situation on the bench, the F-16W and RF-5E have been stalled but i have been slowly working on the LHC GB build of the Portuguese Hunter.
Fuselage is closed up and the nose and exhaust are glued in place so it's on to the wings and stabs now.

Also, i've finally decided to start a project that i've been playing around with for a while now. It's just a P-51H with a Griffon engine. Nothing very original but i want to build my own so that's also on the bench as off today.

[NARSES2]

That's great news mate 

.. these decisions cannot be made lightly, with a mortgage to pay for and everything else...

Absolutely right, they need to be made after careful consideration, but they do NEED to BE Made one way or the other, and to many put them off. Well done 

I'm intrigued though. A farm manager on a Yoga resort ? Now I'll shelve the image that I have in my brain of you herding all the "guests" around the resort with a cattle prod and simply say that I assume you are in charge of the resort gardens etc ?

Whatever sounds interesting.

[Old Wombat]

That's great news mate 

.. these decisions cannot be made lightly, with a mortgage to pay for and everything else...

Absolutely right, they need to be made after careful consideration, but they do NEED to BE Made one way or the other, and to many put them off. Well done 

I'm intrigued though. A farm manager on a Yoga resort ? Now I'll shelve the image that I have in my brain of you herding all the "guests" around the resort with a cattle prod and simply say that I assume you are in charge of the resort gardens etc ?

Whatever sounds interesting.

I would hazard that they grow (at least some of) their own organic produce for consumption by the guests.

Good decision to move to a less stressful job!

What's the pay like in comparison, better I hope?

[Pellson]

Better hours, better tasks and closer to home. Looks to me as a good move! Congratulations! 

Your mojo will return as soon as you stop actively chasing it, but then it'll get back with a vengeance. I'm happy to wait a bit for a better result.

[DogfighterZen]

That's great news mate 

.. these decisions cannot be made lightly, with a mortgage to pay for and everything else...

Absolutely right, they need to be made after careful consideration, but they do NEED to BE Made one way or the other, and to many put them off. Well done 

I'm intrigued though. A farm manager on a Yoga resort ? Now I'll shelve the image that I have in my brain of you herding all the "guests" around the resort with a cattle prod and simply say that I assume you are in charge of the resort gardens etc ?

Whatever sounds interesting.

Thanks, Chris! 
Indeed, i had to think very well cause the job i had at the water company is not the best ever but it's not easy to find much better in this area. Not many opportunities available, but this time, i got a good tip from my sister-in-law and when i met the owners and discussed responsibilities and conditions, i knew i had a better situation at hand so, i just had to let my current boss know i was leaving and give them a month before i was free to sign a contract with another employer, which was done on the first day of work.
No room for messing about when my home and basically the rest of my life is at stake. I'm not rich and i need every paycheck so stability is something important.
Jumping from job to job, especially when you're over 40, is not very safe,  so i had to think about this very well.
But it seems to have been a good move, so far everything is going well.

Now, you made me laugh my but off with the "herding guests" mental image...  i imagined them running about like this...



Poor guests would have a back problem at the end of the week...

I would hazard that they grow (at least some of) their own organic produce for consumption by the guests.

Good decision to move to a less stressful job!

What's the pay like in comparison, better I hope?

Regarding the work, i'm responsible for the goats and chickens and peacocks, the gardens, although i don't do the heavier work, there's a private company for that. I mostly look after the irrigation system. Also do the drinking water treatment system, the veggie garden and all the general maintenance of the house and property. When there's something i can't do myself, i just hire an expert(mostly stuff related to electricity or electrical installations) but most of the stuff is just normal maintenance.
I'm also responsible for orders that are delivered and ordering new equipments and some household appliances.
I'm also one of the pizza night team as i'm in charge of the fire in the brick oven(carry wood, stack and light and light up, control and maintain for the cooking, and i'm the one who puts them in and gets them out of the oven so, i'm also going back to my second job ever which was as a garlic bread baker in a pizza restaurant.

Better hours, better tasks and closer to home. Looks to me as a good move! Congratulations! 

Your mojo will return as soon as you stop actively chasing it, but then it'll get back with a vengeance. I'm happy to wait a bit for a better result.

And better salary, too! Add that to less gas spending and the weekly tips, i can say i'm getting a good amount at the end of the month. 
Less stress, day time work(except for pizza night in which i work from 2 to 10 p.m.), flexible hours, full weekend off. I think it's a good improvement...

Regarding the mojo, yes, you're right. It's like inspiration to create music, can't force it and if you do, it will show.
With that said, i'm not in the best physical condition for modelling today. Yesterday i was herding the goats into a different section of the property which has some green pasture left for them to eat and i got stung in my left arm by some bug near the arm pit.
All well during the rest of the day but when i was having coffee with a couple of friends after dinner, i noticed my elbow was a bit swollen but i thought it would go down during the night as it should with a bee sting, which was what i thought it was, at first.
Turns out i woke up today with an elbow twice the size and a severe burning sensation all over the back of my upper arm, which runs down all the way to my fingers, two of which are a bit numb.



I'm not alergic to bee or wasp stings and never had this result from the several i've had during my life. The place where the sting or bite was has a small bubble with liquid so i'm beginning to think this might have been from something like a wolf spider or some other bug. I've had wolf spiders crawling over my body before so it wouldn't surprise me that one may have caught a lift when i was running in the middle of the bushes.
I'm just waiting to see if some ice will bring it under control but if not, i'll have to go to the doc cause it's hurting and not fun at all.

[PR19_Kit]

That looks horrendous! I hope it's not as serious as it looks. 

[DogfighterZen]

That looks horrendous! I hope it's not as serious as it looks. 

Thanks, Kit.  Let's hope not... but the ice had minimum effect and the burning sensation is becoming a bit too much for comfort so i'm heading to the doc in a few minutes. Lets see what he says...