August 2021 – Håkan Ekberg Music, tarot

29 August, 2021

Mirage IIIE and Lighting progress.

I’ve assembled all the weapons and tanks for the Mirage.

For some reason I can’t find anything on how to paint any of them in the instructions, and I also need to figure out the loadouts for the Argentinian AF during the Falklands conflict.

The instructions doesn’t say anything about weight or how much, so I just threw in as much as I could in the nose cone, and then glued it in place.

This kit is fighting quite a bit and there are things that could have been done better and in a slightly different way to avoid some issues. I have some steps on panels that needs to be taken care of.

On the Lightning I decided to go with an aluminium cover instead of chrome. Here the area is masked.

I think it turned out ok, but forgot to take a pic, so after a while I masked the entire bottom area, making it ready for the next step, black basing. So I painted black to cover all areas that should be painted with squiggles later.

As I never done black basing before, I needed something to practice on, and as the Harrier should have the same colours, I thought it would be a fitting subject.

I sure need some practice to get the squiggles right, and I will add a few other grey nuances before I start painting the camo colours.

26 August, 202126 August, 2021

Lightning paint progress.

I decided to try and paint different shades of metallic on the wings and the underside, as they vary quite a bit in reality.

Masking and painting in sections.

Right now it looks like this!

I might paint some smaller panels in different shades as well, otherwise I’m ready to start masking for the topside camo, now that I got the colours I need.

26 August, 202126 August, 2021

New hobby supplies bought and arrived.

Yesterday I was at the local hoppy shop and bought a few canvases and some clay.

I intend to use the canvases as bases for mini dios for two of my models, the Warrior and the M3A1 Scout. I might need a somewhat larger canvas for the Warrior as the soldiers might need a larger area to be placed on.
The clay is for shaping the ground on the canvases. I think it should be quite easy to do tracks in the clay, and then paint when the clay has dried.

Today I got a parcel with the colours I’ve ordered.

I ordered a few of Vallejos new metal colours as I wanted to try them out. Rumours say they are quite good! I’ll have to try them as soon as possible.
Black is always needed and the other colour are for my Lightning, so now I can start masking and painting the top side camo.

23 August, 2021

Quick Mirage update

I’ve painted the landing gears and some other parts.

The front gear should have lights that I’ll paint and add later. I also need ot sort the tires and add a few brake lines.

23 August, 2021

M3A1 Scout car finished, well almost!

I decided to put all the figures in place, and build wise that finishes the kit.
I still want to put it on a small base, but I still need to buy materials to do that.
So for now I consider this build finished!

Next will be creating the small dio.

20 August, 2021

M3A1 decals and weathering

There are decals for 3 versions in this kit, one american and two russian. As there are russian soldier provided with this kit I decided to go with one of the russian options.
Only three decals and the set I thought looked the coolest, but also turned out to be the most difficult.as one is quite large and covers the rear side of the vehicle.
I actually broke the decals when sliding it on to the surface and then had a lot of problems moving the pieces around. I managed to get it right in the end and after some micro sol it sits quite nicely.

I assembled and painted some ammo boxes to put in the car.

I did a new test fit with the figures and guns.

Looks pretty ok to me. I still need to get the driver in place, but first some weathering. I sealed the decals yesterday, and today I used black oil colour to make a pin wash.
I also painted exhaust pipe and some other spots on the underside with rust.
Then I started working with Tamiyas weathering sets, adding mud and rust to certain areas.

I think I’ll need to do some additional weathering later. I’ll do some weathering on the figures, get the driver in place, and start to plan for a small dio. Might add some more mud once the base is done.

19 August, 2021

The russian figures painted.

I consider the figures to the scout car done. I still need to do some weathering that’ll go hand in hand with the weathering of the car, and perhaps a small base.

I also did a little test placement of the figures.

I prepared to apply the decals, and then I will see if I can get the driver in place.

Then guns and stuff needs to be placed and the figures put into position, and some weathering done. That’s more or less it! 🙂

18 August, 2021

Mirage fit issues and other updates.

Normally joining the body halves should bring no bigger problems, but for some reason the halves woudn’t go together as they should in the middle of the body. After some checking I figurered that the intake seemed to be the problem. By gluing the body halves to the intake, it pulled them in, and thus created a gap in the top.
As the underside is open as long as the wings are not on, it was no greater problem to loosen the sides anad then glue the seam.

I then glued the intake again, which as it turned out I shouldn’t have done, cause when I tried to fit the wings, it looked like this.

There was quite a large gap to deal with and no matter how much I tried to press the wings closer, it wouldn’t work. I checked the net for a build review, and found one that said that I shouldn’t have glued the rear end of the intake at all. I also shouldn’t have glued teh outer intake covers until after the wings was in place. Something I’ll try to keep in mind as I have one more Kinetic Mirage kit.
I cut open the intake/fuselage bond again and also added a piece of sprue to widen the fuselage a bit.

Now the wings fit against the fuselage looked like this.

I glued the wings and added a bit of plastic on each side to take away some of the gaps.

After cutting them and filling the rest with some putty, it looked like this!

I’ll sand that later and might have to fill more putty to make it look nice. The hardest will be to rescribe missing panel lines.

Next up on my work bench was the figures to the Scout car, which after some shadows and dry brushing looked like this.

Getting closed to be done! The driver still need to be painted. All black uniform doesn’t make it easier. I might also sort a base of some sort.

It doesn’t show very good, but I repainted the belly of the lightning.

I’ll repaint the wings as well, and then do some panels in different colours to break it up a bit.

While painting black a while ago, I also painted the hood and interior roof black on my sons Mustang.

That’s all for now!

16 August, 202116 August, 2021

Mirage IIIE Argentinian AF – Kinetic 1/48 progress

I started this kit pre corona pre brexit. It’s been laying in the box since then.
I had started with the cockpit but that’s pretty much it. I added home made seat belts.

The instructions to these kits are a bit confusing and quite sparse when it comes to colour instructions. One pic shows that the intake should be white and the other silver. I did a bit of my own interpretation, but I might abandon that and paint aluminium all over.

While painting some other stuff black, I put some on the cokpit area of the fuselage.

The intake parts after removing the tape.

I glued the wheel well to the cockpit tub.

I used my Moltov chrome pen to paint the hub of the intake fan.

The last thing I’ve done so far is to glue the small round glass piece to the sight and the sight glass. I’ll carfully paint some black around the sigth later.

Forgot that I also did some painting in the wheel well to increase the interest.

It seems like I forgot to take pics on the exhaust parts. Will sort that later.

13 August, 2021

I want it painted black, and some figure painting.

I needed to check for seams that need more attention, and painted the entire Lightning black.

As can be seen in the pics, there are a few issues, at least on the underside. Everything else looks pretty good. One of the reasons to use black is that the underside should be in silver.
I’ll go over the seams with putty and carefully sand them down to look smooth and nice.
On the topside i think I’ll try some black basin.

The second part of this post will be about the russian soldiers for the M3A1 Scout car.

One thing I really did like about the figures in this kit is those tabs that help the parts to fit properly. Tamiya has done this very well I think.

Two more figures built.

Pretty soon all soldiers were built and some even got a little paint.

I started to paint their faces and hands with different skin tones. Some I painted and some I dry brushed. I think it turned out ok. I also started painting the uniform on one figure, but realized that I had to check if I used the right colour. It seems like I did. So now I only need to paint all the other figures except the driver who is dressed in black.

I also think I need to drill holes in the bottom of their boots and put them on sticks to make painting a bit easier.