70' Chalenger R/T - Update

 After getting colors laid down on the Gundam this morning, I decided to break out the Challenger. There's too much wrong with it I missed during prep that it won't make a show model. But it will look really damn nice in my display case. 

I mixed up the Createx Pearlized Plum with a 20% mixture of Createx's Candy Blood Red. I think I should have gone about 25%, but I still love the color I got.

 I put down 4-5 coats initially and let it sit. The one thing I like about Createx is it's quite forgiving and it dries to the touch relatively fast. This has allowed me to do a bit more here and there. 

 I thought at first, that i off sprayed it. Parts look thicker than others as seen above. However, when if a flat light, the color is even. The lights above are coming from the spray booth.

After about 2 hrs, I went ahead and added 4 more coats. I wanted to make sure it was thick enough because after the first round, a few areas rubbed off when it shouldn't have.

 After Letting these dry for about an hour, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to do a test fit. So i gently put the interior tub in and put the body over the frame. The engine wires made it tricky, because I haven't cut them yet. 

The interior really has me grumpy. There's two injection marks on the back arm rests. Despite sanding the hell out of them and using a tad bit of putty, you can't feel them, catch them with a blade, but you can see them. 

Another thing that pisses me off about some of these older kits is the ill fitting dash into the tub. According to them, the steering wheel should be flat on the driver seat. Anything else and it off sets. I have it tilted literally a hair upward, so you can see the dash and in looks too high. 

 In the original Challenger, the dash was wood grain. Or at least an option. The decals for this are solid black with minimal gauge details. I want the wood grain. So there are no gauges.

I still need to redo the air cleaner. The Testors Gloss Orange, despite thinning it seven ways from Sunday, just would flow right so it looks a mess.  

 

Currently, I have just laid down 4 coats of Createx  UVLS Gloss Clear. I will let it sit over night and in the morning I will wet sand it and do about 4 to 5 more coats. I did a few coats on the convertible top, but I think it's too shiny. We'll see in the morning. If it is, then I will brush on some Vallejo Satin Clear.

 

Once the clear has been polished, I need to start on the PE which I am scared of. it comes down to very shaky hands and trying to keep glue from getting everywhere.  

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RX-78-2

 I had some issues with the initial painting. I picked up some Mr.Hobby Aqueous Gundam Colors from Hobby Lobby. Never used them before so there's always a learning curve. After a few days of letting them set, I went back over all the colors with about 4-5 more coats to get a deeper and shinier color. The white was almost a pinkish white. 

The AK Chipping Fluid seems to be real active under these paints. Just a slight brush and some of the original paint rubbed off before i got the remaining coats on. I will have to be careful when snipping and assembly, but there will be a lot of touch ups. Let's just hope this paint brushes well.

 Yellow, like always was a pain. I believe I have around 8 coats of yellow to get to where it's at now. The red was the second color with fade issues. I only put 4 more cots on those parts and they look good. 

I'll let them sit for a day or two before I do anything further.  

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What In The Gunpla?

So my son in law has been at me for awhile to do a Gundam. I kept telling him to buy me one and I'd do it. Whelp... I got this from him for Christmas.

 

Guess I will stay to my word. I pulled it out of the stash closet today and started looking at it. This is going to be very interesting. The instructions, I'm not so sure on. I think because everything is designed to cut parts off the tree's and glue together, they are nothing like any of the other instructions from other genres or companies. I may even be keen to some older Dragon instructions at this point. 

 

Currently, I've washed the parts in warm water with some dawn soap. Now they're laying out to dry so nothing will really be done for a few days. 

I had to Google how to paint a Gundam. Or at least, best practices. Everything I read was kinda like every other kit, cut parts from sprues, prime, paint, assemble. But with this?  I think I'm going to leave the parts on the sprues and prime and paint them there. Mainly because I'm not familiar with Gundams and some of these parts look like others.  

 

 

I did however put the head together, without glue. It feels almost like a snap tight. I ended up taking it apart for the most part, gluing it to toothpicks so it can paint it. The aim is to air brush as much as possible. Hand paint very little with the exception of battle damage, shading and line accents.

I've seen a lot of these at the model con, however, they all seem to the be the same thing. Paint color to match the plastic part color. Only on a few have I seen any actual "work" done.  So since this is technically armor, I'm going to approach it like I would a tank.

Once it's been primed, I plan on laying down a layer of AK Interactive Chipping Fluid. Then I will use Createx's basic colors in Opaque. Once the paint is on, then I will begin to chip away some paint for a battle worn look. 

I have no idea what I am doing, but this should be interesting to say the least. It has a good selection of weapons to choose from. That said, I think I am going to stick with the shield and the morning star. Simple, effective and it will give me some retail space off the armor to play with.  

Maybe, I'll just paint this in an Ardennes Forest, German camo pattern and pretend it was a secret weapon they had. And if you tell me there is a story line like that in the comics or series, I'll slap you! So help the modeling gods. 

 

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New Diorama - The Dear Johns (WIP)

 Having completed the German 20mm FLAKVIERLING gun last year, it just sat in a display case. I decided to try and build a diorama for it. Ran off to Hobby Lobby to see what they had. I ended picking up a pair of trees, some ground cover, fallen tree parts and a wood base. Actually spent more on this stuff than I have most kits. 

After the heart attack and going back into the ER this past Wed, I needed something to focus on other than worrying about my heart. So I started to finish this up today.

 

 Began by cutting the bases off the trees and drilling holes into the wood base. Then I had to use a combination of Elmer's clear glue and nail gel glue. Neither alone wanted to hold the tree's in place. After making a mixture, the tree's held their position. 

Then i added the ground cover by brushing clear glue on the base in sections. This stuff is plump. Tried to make it thin, but the stuff clumped a bit. In the end, I like it, because it allowed for me to add tire tracks and "foot traffic" around the gun. The ground cover was misted with some diorama glue I purchased at HL. This stuff is sticky as hell. 

 

 I added a few of the fallen logs to fill in a bit of the empty space. Once the gun was in the position I wanted, I glued that into place with the clear glue. 

 I picked up a set of Trumpeter German Anti-Aircraft figures over at hobbylinc. These figures suck. The plastic is overly thick, I had to break out the big clippers to get parts off the sprues. The mold lines were in places where sanding them off, you sanded away a lot of details, with the exception of the leg pieces. 

 

The heads were attached to the sprues via the neck. Yet they had an extra "nub" on top of the head. This caused sanding away a lot of hair lines and other details. Fitting these, even after a lot of sanding was going to require some putty. 

 Once I was able to get the figures together and primed, I followed up with Vallejo paints. After the initial few coats of grey, I realized I used the wrong color grey. I intended to use Field Grey but used German Grey which is a lot darker. 

After this dried, I started in with the Field Grey. The underlying darker grey actually helped with shadows.  The skin tone was done in Vallejo Medium Skin with a little highlight of Vallejo's Light Skin. Black was thinned to water and all cloth creases, outlines, etc were done.

Sand Yellow, mixed with a drop of Mahogany Brown was used for hair and Mahogany Brown by itself was used for other hair. Refractive green was used to paint the shoulder insignias. 

Once all this was dried, I used an Burn Umber oil wash on them. I over did it, but I like the worn, dirty, tired look they have. I finished them off with two coats of Tamiya XF86 Flat Clear. However they're still shiny.  The gun was done in the same manor, and it's a flat tone. I'll let the figures sit for a few days and see how they look.

I bought some AV metal cases from hobbylinc as well. These fill in more empty space, but give the crew something to sit on and lean against. These were painted in Field Grey and finished with an oil wash and flat clear. 

 

 I need to add the "letters" to the figures and paint the field cup. I added two helmets and binoculars from the Tamiya kit I used for the Lost Soldier diorama.

If after a few days the figures still have a glossiness to them, I will need to figure out what I can use to dull them to match the tone of the gun. 

 

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Tamiya KS600 German Motorcycle

 After the model-con, there wasn't a whole lot I wanted to do while I recover from my heart attack. But I needed to do something, so I grabbed this KS600 from my stash and began working on it.

 

 This is the hardest kit I've 

done so far. Mainly because it is smaller than my other builds. Some of the pieces reminded me of PE, thankfully there was none used on this.

It was a great kit and a blast to build. Only real complaint are the instructions and paint colors. You had to look carefully at each section to see what colors were to be used versus the part numbers. I really didn't want to go German Grey, so I opted for the Dark Yellow. 

 

 Weathering was pretty simple. I just used one of my sanding sticks to rub away the yellow paint. Once the weathering was done, I finished it off with an oil wash. 

The figures were pretty standard. They were well molded, little flash and seam lines were minimal. 

 

 After some Vallejo paints, little bit of Tamiya paints, this little bugger is complete.

 

While waiting for this winter storm to come through, I decided to take it outside for a few photos. Doesn't look too bad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chattanooga Modelcon 2026

 Squadron Hobbies out of Ringgold, GA was at the show like always! They did a very nice walk around video. You can see my tank at 20 minute mark  and you can see my soldier diorama at 58:48. 

 

 

 

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Here's to 2026!

 2025 was a shit year. Between losing my wife early in the year, setting in of depression then ending it with a massive heart attack that led to having a pacemaker installed, I just want to move forward. 

I was in the process of building a 70's Challenger for this years model show. However that got set aside as I recover. 

Yesterday was the 2026 Modelcon here in Chattanooga. From what they said it was a very large turn out. Something like over 300 kits on display. My friend had a booth set up at the request of his friends sister, who had passed late last year. She wanted to sell off his kits and what not. She is a sweet lady. And i expressed my condolences as I had met her brother and he helped me quite a bit in building my first tank as well as the Stoumont Panther. 

I also got my brother to go to the show and he was overwhelmed. He didn't realize the size of the show, for it being a local show, the kits, vendors, etc. I may have gotten him bitten to start building as we did when we were younger.

I took my Lost Soldiers diorama as well as the Stoumont tank.  Last year the dio took gold, this year it took silver. The judges stated a solider was missing a helmet, yet the "solider" was wearing a soft cap. No one understood that one. The tank took silver last year, this time around it took bronze. I had an idea I would get hit for points on the wheels, but both judges came back with the same thing. Not enough track sag and no weathering on the tracks.

I'm not upset, nor could I care less. I just wanted something to display and since I'm not building right now, I just took a few pieces of what I've already finished.  

 

I spent about $200 in total and ended up with a hand full of free gifts thanks to the lady who was working with Eric. My little stash closet is running out of room. And despite me being adamant about not wanting to build a ship, I now have a ship to build. 

2026 haul from the show.

 

I didn't take as many photos as normal due to me being sore and hanging with my brother and nephew. But the builds this year were phenomenal.  Here's a link to my drive of this years photo's.

 I won't be building as much as I have in the past, going forward. But I will be building bigger and better. More time and effort will be put into learning new techniques and making my builds better than previous builds. 

I will still build things in between, kind of like weekend rush builds. As this helps with my techniques but gives me an opportunity to try things that I may want on the more important builds.  I do want to concentrate a lot more on figure painting. I see some from people online on the social media platforms I'm on, and it's like, damn I wish i could paint like that. Now I get to work on it. 

 To wrap, I want to leave a bad year behind and move on to a better and bigger year ahead. And to everyone who follows me, here's to a good, healthy and safe 2026 and may your builds be bigger and better. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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