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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On This Episode of "It's Only Plastic, What's The Worse That Can Happen?" - Episode Two

 I've been putting off building the Challenger. Haven't been in the frame of mind to build, but the show in a month away. I realized today, with all the ideas, tests, tooling and work, I'm still only on step 5 of the instructions.

I'm doing things to this, I've never done before. So there is a bit of custom scratch building, testing different set ups, etc.. You can check out this post for some of the after market parts I bought for this. I bought a few more not pictured.

Initial mock up.

 I did decide to go convertible, which means that my interior needs to be detailed like crazy.

 I decided to carry over the purple scheme to the interior. With the dash being two parts, this allowed me to play with ideas for the dash.  What i didn't see a head of time or after the primer was the divot in the dash to the left of the ashtray.

Depending on how the dash will present when put together, i might leave it. The interior is primed with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black out of the can. Testors Semi-Gloss black was used for the vinyl and Tamiya X16 Purple was used for the color. Testors Wood was used for the base of the wood grain while a light coat of Tamiya X26 Clear Orange gave it more a darker wood tone.

There is still the chrome door trim that needs to be done. I will use the Metal Foil for that. My hands aren't as steady any more and it is apparent in the reworks I've had to do to fix my paint scheme. 

 

The motor has taken a lot of my time. It's a simple stock build with some add-ons. But the placing the add-ons has been tricky.  Not to mention most kits contain minimal engine details. 

So I've added the plug wires, however, the distributor would fit the boots, so I opted for the pre-wired.  Then there is the heater hoses and replacement of the radiator hose. I drilled holes into the firewall for the heater hoses. However, locating a spot on the engine to connect them was tricky. Especially for the lower heater hose. 

 

Technically, there should be a part that sits behind the oil filter that the lower hose connects to. It's not part of this kit and I didn't really feel like trying to scratch one. So the lower heater hose will connect to the lower side of the water pump behind the fuel pump.

I am also having an issue with the orange paint. New bottle, Testors Gloss Orange. Even thinned and putting on multiple light coats, it wants to pool and thicken. I think I've put on maybe 6 or 7 coats. I still need to tidy up the trim on the air cleaner and I'm thinking of adding a few nuts from a StuG tank to act as the wing nuts on the cleaner.

I drilled the hole for the upper radiator hose.  And used a jewelry beads guards cut in half to help make a stable connection for the hoses. Then to that, I added hose clamps.

 

Clamp on the radiator hose with bead guard inserted. Toothpick for scale.

 All in all, there's a bit more work to do on the motor as well as the interior. I haven't even bothered with the body yet, but it is primed. 

 I also noticed that there were no fan blades on the sprues, so I am going to have to dig into my parts boxes and find one. I was going to use the metal fan that came in the dress up kit, but once together, it's as big as the tires. 

 

 As for an update on my brothers build, he hasn't started it yet. He says he'll be done this weekend to start on it. This gonna be fun!!

 

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AMT 1970 Challenger R/T - USPS Tin Boxing

 This is the car I am going to build for the '26 model show. I bought it, mainly because it was the last tin boxed kit HL had, plus the fact I kept passing it buy when I would go to the store. The more I thought about it, I wanted to build it out. After persuading (bribing) my brother to try to build one for the show, I decided I'm going well outside my comfort zone for a auto build.

I did settle on Purple. So it will be painted with a combination of Createx's Pearlized Plum Purple and a few drops of Candy Blood Red. After some thought, I decided to go black and purple for decals and highlights. Mixed with the red, the purple is actually dark, with a tiny tint of green, depending on the light. Almost a natural color shift.

I mixed up a bit of paint, one just the purple and the other the purple and red. Sprayed a few spoons. Two with Mr. Surfacer Black and the other two gray.

 The top one is the purple and red over black (car color), second one is purple and red over gray. Where as the third one is straight purple over black and the last is purple over gray. 

 But it isn't just about the painting, I've decided with building the armor and using PE, that I need to really build out. I ended up picking up from the Model Garage, a set of PE challenger upgrades, along with some battery cables and pre-wired distributor from Hobbylinc.

 

    Oddly, this kit didn't come with a convertible cover, just the detached hardtop. Thankfully, a fellow modeler on the book of face had a spare or two that has sent me free. There's still a few things I am trying to find or figure out building. But I figure with the battery wires, extra heater hoses, plug wires and photo etch, I should have a great start on a show build.

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On This Episode of "It's Only Plastic, What's The Worse That Can Happen?"

 This has been a really messed up year. With losing my wife in early summer, going through changes at work and trying to find myself. It's had a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of thinking and wondering and many nights of not caring. But through everything, I tried to stay building something to keep from going truly insane.

I did spend a bit of cash back in June at the model show, so I have some things to build. Spending time at Eric's working on my first ever plane to building at my kitchen table, I've slowly stayed going.

Finished up a pair of siblings to a bit ago. 

AMT '25 Ford T 

AMT '25 Ford T Chopped

I stopped by HL a few weeks ago to what they had. Ended up grabbing the '70 Challenger R/T USPS Tin box. Kind of think I really bought it because I like the packaging. Looking through the paint, I decided on Createx's Pearl Plum. 

This will be my auto build for the 2026 model show. I have a few more pieces I need to pick up, but I think I will start with testing the paints. I've learned a lot working on armor and other things. I want to try to level up my builds beyond box stock.

Which leads me to the second art of this post. Back in the late 80's early 90's, my brother and I built a lot. Mainly NASCAR but the occasional monster truck or classic car. At one point, we had so many cars we built replica tracks in the basement using a slot car tracks and cereal box fences, signs, stands, etc.. 

I talked (bribed more like it) him into doing another build. I even bought him the kit he wanted. He has until January to complete it for the show. The rules are simple;

- He has to build it himself, no help from anyone.

- Show up and register at the show.

I did give him a list of steps to do, a few tools I had extras of.  Thing is, he doesn't have the patience. I told him I would give him $100 if his build placed. There's five chances at this. Best in Show, Best in Class, Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Things have come along way since we built kits back in the day and building for a show is a whole lot different than a weekend slap paint on it and call it done build. SO, Is he up for the challenge? Will his patience wear thin and plastic flies across the room? Will he give up?

Stay tuned for the next episode of "It's Only Plastic, What's The Worse That Can Happen?"

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