I had a very hard time trying to do panel line and washing 😭😭😭dont know how to improve for the next time.
What I did: paint 1st layer -> top coat cover (water based) -> panel line with Tamiya panel black color -> washing with watered cotton swab -> scratch by small brushes -> top coat cover again.

I just bought some revell models after doing warhammer for years and the first thing I see on the painting advice for the 4/5 difficulty (don't hate I'm just cocky) model is to prime and paint certain parts on sprue .

Will this not just immediately get ruined when I cut the sprue?

This is the Revell 1/72 scale model of a Type VIIC U-boat. I removed the paint using Mr Leveling Thinner, and I am currently restoring the hull. Back then, I had carved into the plastic to give it an ‘oil canning’ effect, but the U-boat I’ve chosen – which will be depicted in a German harbour – only ever undertook a single patrol (the U-70). Each ‘hole’ has been filled with Tamiya two-component putty and sanded down with a nail file (I’ll leave you to imagine the dust). The model has been restored and enhanced with photo-etched parts from Eduard and RCZ Subs, as well as resin parts from Eduard and CMK (more details on Britmodeller).

My father in law is into his scale aircraft kits, I have previously thought it was good enough to find kits of planes he liked and didnt look further into it. I am now aware of my error, and starting this christmas have put more research in, found the nicest in my budget. But I know he would want to base it on one of the uk based aircraft, and I am having no luck finding the transfers to do this. I did find that the uk ospreys are part of the 7th Special Operations Group, but that didnt help me find a transfer sheet.

I am uk based if that matters.

Any chance anyone here can help me fix my previous faux par and help show me where I can buy the suitable transfers?

I finished 3 tiny Trumpeter 1/350 scale Curtiss SB2C Helldivers. Easy builds, with masking and airbrushing, enamel details, decals (almost all except the US markings were custom printed by MAV Decals), a wash and exhaust stains, and a matt coat. Each aircraft is a model of an actual, specific aircraft.

Iwo Jima: This is an SB2C-3 of VB-3 aboard USS Yorktown, covering the Iwo Jima landings in Feb 1945 with Task Force 58, doing close air support and dive-bombing. No. 110 was one of the few at that stage retaining the earlier three-colour camouflage scheme.

Atlantic Cover: The grey one, aircraft 51, of is an SB2C-4 of XVF-200 (Experimental Development Squadron 200) based at NAS Atlantic City in late 1945, painted in the "Atlantic" scheme of dark gull grey and white.

Rescue: The yellow-nosed SB2C-4 is an air/sea rescue aircraft based with the Air Sea Rescue Unit at NAS Kaneohe, Hawaii, in Dec 1945, doing search and spotting, supply drop, and direction of other aircraft and boats where needed. Original unit markings on tail and fuselage were painted over.

I'm just beginning to get into scale modeling in earnest, and I find myself gravitating towards aircraft in 1/48, and especially boats in 1/700. My painting and airbrush skills leave much to be desired. I was wondering if it was a common approach to forego painting altogether and just leave bare plastic that you polish to your desired gleam. Does anyone have any way to do this that preserves surface detail well? Polishing in tight spaces?

Hey everyone,

I’ve finally crossed the finish line on a massive, highly involved custom build: my 1/72 scale "SeaCheyenne" (AH-56A) tailored for the United States Marine Corps!
This project took a full week of intense desk sessions, a huge contrast to my previous standard Army Cheyenne build which took only three days. Because this Marine variant required quite a bit of heavy scratch-building, part-grafting, and seam-fighting, it was definitely a testing process, but I’m incredibly proud of how this hypothetical prototype turned out.

BTW - I’ve only just started modelling and painting as a hobby. This is my 3rd build and I have more kits which I’ve purchased that I will be building up to Christmas.

FWI - I don’t own an airbrush (yet!) this was all hand painted

The Inspiration & Lore
The conceptual idea behind this fleet is heavily inspired by the real-world F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. I wanted to treat the Cheyenne airframe as a universal multi-service air superiority attack platform.

Next up on my radar is an Air Force variant, completing the tri-service joint program idea!

The Scratch-Build & Custom Assembly
To transform a vintage Army design into an advanced, modern maritime attack platform, I raided my spares box and cross-kit components:
The Advanced Tail Fan: I completely cut away the standard tail rotor setup and grafted a heavy, multi-blade ducted pusher fan taken from my son's old Matchbox Skybusters drone toy. It gives the tail an advanced anti-torque profile.
Twin-Engine Housings & Details: I scavenged auxiliary engine exhausts, nacelle pieces, and weapon pylons from a Revell Snap-Tite F/A-18 Hornet and a Harrier GR9 kit to give the fuselage spine a heavily modified, beefier silhouette. I also managed to mount the Harrier's massive centerline gun pod right onto the underbelly for maximum firepower.
The Crew & Canopy Hack: The pilot and gunner figures, along with the custom-masked canopy frame, are secured down inside the cockpit tub using Magic-Tac repositionable glue. This allows me the flexibility to pop them out safely down the line if I want to re-use them for future projects!

Painting & Low-Vis Markings
Laying down a clean finish on light military greys is always a challenging hand-brushing process, but I stuck with a strict dry-palette setup using Revell 2-in-1 Thinner & Retarder alongside my Humbrol Gen 3 Acrylics to keep the brush strokes self-leveling and as thin as possible.
The Camouflage: The spine is finished in a bold Humbrol 164 Dark Sea Grey, contrasting cleanly against the lighter ghost-grey underbelly panels.
The Decals: Because I didn't want to use up my main waterslide sheets, I used the basic black-and-white stencils from the box (like the Jet Intake Danger arrows), and combined them with the pressure-sensitive peel-and-stick tactical markings from an Airfix Quickbuild F-35B kit. The "MARINES" and squadron labels are a perfect match since the real F-35B is a frontline Marine asset.
The Finishing Touch: The entire airframe was treated to an ultra-safe, water-based Humbrol Black and Smoke weathering powder wash mixed with a drop of water and a pin-prick of dish soap. It broke the surface tension on the intermediate gloss shield flawlessly, highlighting the engine grilles, rivet lines, and underbelly boxes. The whole model was sealed dead-flat using Humbrol Acrylic Clear Matt Varnish, leaving the canopy crystal clear while locking down the tactical look.

What’s Next on the Bench?
With the Marine variant in the books, I'm already planning my next two custom Cheyenne developments:
The sleek US Air Force Joint Fighter-inspired variant

A completely redesigned New-Generation US Army Variant. This one will be heavily inspired by modern compound programs like the Sikorsky Raider X and SB-1 Defiant—featuring a massive coaxial main rotor stack, a heavy rear pusher fan, and completely deleted stub wings for pure high-speed agility.

Let me know what you guys think of the custom mods, the payload, or the "What-If" concept! C&C is always welcome.

Finally finished painting the small version of my Essex-class flight deck base!

I designed the kit from scratch, combining laser-cut MDF parts with 3D printed tie-down rails. This one measures 25 × 20 cm (9.84 × 7.87 inches), and the 1/48 Wildcat belongs to a friend who kindly lent it for the photos.

I wanted the weathering to show some exposed wood and variation between the planks without overwhelming the aircraft. It was fun seeing everything come together after spending so much time designing the parts.

I also made a larger 30 × 25 cm (11.81 × 9.84 inches) version for models that need a little more room.

What do you think of the deck finish? Always happy to hear feedback from fellow modellers!

I'm interested in those kits that come with pre-painted parts, such as the Meng Model 1/14 Ford GT (http://www.meng-model.com/en/contents/189/439.html), the newly released Revell 1/20 McLaren MCL-39 (https://revell.com/en-eu/products/mclaren-mcl39-click-system?srsltid=AYCX9vLFsqZSlDsDg9aTKOTv3BbI3zR6Qj7tW82QPE51kiKxFwQFfviw), or those 1/144 aircraft models from TomyTec.

However, I noticed the parts in these kits are attached to sprues, just like your standard model kits where you have the paint the parts. The issue here is, when you use a sprue cutter to cut the part out of the sprue, you will need to sand away the excess plastic material from the sprue. By the time you fully sand it down, the paint on the part you sand would have been scrapped away, exposing the bare plastic. If you try to repaint over the bare plastic, there would highly likely be a colour mismatch and it will be quite obvious.

Just wondering if anyone has faced this issue, and how do you overcome it.

Heller 1/50 AMD-BA/Dornier Alpha Jet. This Heller kit is an odd scale, and not a great kit - colour inaccuracies, lots of fit issues, raised panel lines making correction harder, and detail was rather so-so. Still, it's an interesting and rare subject. I built it as a Dassault-Bréguet/Dornier Alpha Jet A flying for the Luftwaffe in the 1970s. There is an option for the Patrouille de France aerobatic team, but I didn't want to chance yellowing decals on a white finish. Not altogether happy with my work, but it is what it is.

New version plus a full weapons loadout.
Fix the anxiety of insufficient firepower.

Finished today and what a fun kit to assemble and paint. Full wingspan is about 63 cm, but luckily the wings stay articulated after assembly and the kit comes with both an extended and retracted set of landing gear that's super easy to swap out. So I'm currently finishing up a little sandy landing pad base so I can display the model with folded wings in a cabinet. Mainly painted using acrylics, with some enamel pin washes and oils for panel lining and weathering. For the sand weathering I experimented on some spare parts to see what I could get away with using the materials on hand and finally I settled on mixing a white and light brown ceramic wash from Flory Models to get a sand tone and mixed in some extra sand coloured pigments and it came out rather nicely evenifIdosaysomyself. I'll definitely take some more photos when I finish the landed configuration base.

Hope you enjoy it as well!

Tamiya 1/24 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34

Had some Tamiya paints lying around from a model that one of my cousins built and thought to give it a go. Paint job and model in general are a bit rough around the edges (one of the wheels doesn't even move 😬), but it's sure gonna sit proudly on one of my shelves. On to the next one!

Livin' and learnin' 🤙

I have made a mistake.

The airforce fight jet can't rust.

when I done this model, I find F35A cant have this kind of skin.....😂

I’ve been wanting to make a model of a certain building, and I’ve only found one measurement for it from 90 years ago (the building no longer exists). Given that I‘m not sure I even trust that measurement because of how exaggerated some things were back then, is it possible to get most of the measurements for this building from the average height of a person + numerous photographed angles, or is this just a waste of time?

I like the idea of just painting my car models based on how I feel versus following the paint code / plans.

Anyone else?

Creative liberty taken with this model, I used both sets of decals included in the box then decided to have fun with the paint scheme. Feedback welcome.

A modelling palette cleanser

Wanted to get some opinions on a model of a satellite I made out of random parts and pieces in my garage. Literally just for fun.

I’ve finished Academy’s Super Hornet! It has a few minor drawbacks, but it’s a truly great kit, so I highly recommend everyone give it a build.

Watch final episode 👉https://youtu.be/mJBaJvi6uXQ?si=mKR3w7Ta8lh49gld

playlist 👉https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfM5uoydNpzQ

Good day all,

I've recently started GWH's 1/48 scale SU-30MKM kit, and run into a bit of a snag. I'm painting the wheel bays and, while I can find reference photos of the cockpit of a Malaysian SU-30, I seem to be hitting a wall when it comes to the rearward wheel bays. The GWH instruction booklet calls for some fluid lines to be painted blue, yellow, or a sort of khaki color, but to attempt to get remotely close to the right shade, I need references, lol.

Anyone got a good source for some proper "walkaround" photos of the Flanker H?