plasticprime

Thank you!

Terrific job on the camera! It was a monochrome, single tube, image-orthicon camera. Misty moons ago when I was in production, we had color Ikegami HL-79As which were 3-tube plumbicons. Even after we had transitioned to 3-chip Sony cameras, some clients preferred the old Ikegamis for their rendering of flesh tones.

Just curious as to what scale this is and what year the kit was manufactured.

I think the crews of the British Lancaster and our B-29 Superfortress might disagree.

Super nice!

Beautiful build! Very nicely done! MPC kits always seem to be a hassle, so you've displayed great perseverance to end up with such a great finished product!

1/72 Academy challenger 1 Mk. 3 = This build was inspired by photos of an experimental digital camouflage scheme painted on a Challenger 2 and depicts what an early prototype scheme might have looked like on a Challenger 1 Mk.3 – which to the best of my knowledge, never had such a scheme applied to it – thus the “Digital Fantasy” aspect. It was accomplished using rattle cans (no airbrush) and required the cutting and masking of many hundreds of tiny little pieces of Tamiya 1mm masking tape which were applied with tweezers and a toothpick. This is what the tank might have looked like, in more or less pristine shape, from the paint workshop prior to field testing. The turret antenna, beacon light, and vision ports forward of the commander’s hatch were scratch built, and I filled the communication cable spool with fine black thread. Binary artwork was turned into a CD label, which was then applied to an actual CD and mounted onto the wooden base. A protective clear CD blank was applied over the CD. The circular wood base was purchased unfinished from a craft store and then sanded and painted semi-gloss black.

Thanks for the kind words, Jim! Yes, some of the Coastal Kits bases are really nice.

TAMIYA 1/35 CHALLENGER 1 MK.3 – Paint is all Tamiya TS rattle cans except for the commander figure which was done with a combination of TS rattle can paint and hand-brushed Tamiya acrylic paints. The base is composed of a Coastal Kits British base that I applied to a varnished wooden plaque. The nameplate (“Up to the Challenge”) is from Crown Awards. Stowage and assorted items are from the spares box and various accessory kits.

Thank you very much for the kind and encouraging words! They're very appreciated!

I love it! Super nice build of a Galaxie - one of my all-time favorite cars! I'm originally from the Buffalo area, although my Pop bought his Fords from Athoe Motors in Batavia. We had a Galaxie station wagon.

Thanks! If Takom kits build nothing else, they build patience!

This kit truly played the part of “The Beast of 1,000 parts” oh so well. (It may not actually have been 1,000 pieces, but it had to have been pretty darn close.) If you enjoy fiddly little parts with no discernible glue points, then this kit is for you! And as an added bonus, some of the intricate detail you’ll labor so diligently to complete will be – surprise! - completely covered up by subsequent assemblies! Way cool! I found this kit so maddingly frustrating that there were numerous times when I nearly chucked it – and everything else I have associated with the hobby – into the trash. However, I persevered and eventually brought the beast to bay. But it wasn’t easy. I gave up on the individual link tracks that came with the kit (after stomping them into the ground with fiendish delight), and finally bought a set of T-Rex tracks which were incredibly easy to assemble and had fantastic detail. The kit supplied metal tow cables were also impossible to fit, so I settled for a tow chain instead that I made from jewelry chain. There were innumerable instances where I drilled itsy bitsy holes in parts and used wire pegs to affix them as there seemed no other way to do it without drowning the darn thing in glue. I used rattle cans for almost all of the painting and carefully used Tamiya masking tape, which came in especially handy for the side skirts. The primary color was Tamiya TS-2 Dark Green, and I used other shades of green for the barrel, turret accessories, stowage, etc., to provide some color contrast. I recalled a T-55 reference photograph in which a single fuel drum was a light blue, and I had some light blue handy, so used it for both, along with some oil-related decals from the spare box (the oil-related company referenced in the decals was a US brand that ceased operations years before the T-55 AM2B went into service, but ask me if I care). The psychopaths at Takom that designed this kit should be forced to build it themselves – would serve them right. Main lesson learned from this build? Easy! - it’s only Tamiya armor kits from now on!

Beautiful build and a very cool idea! It would certainly turn some heads at the boat ramp.

Tri-X was good, but for ultra fine grain, you needed Pan-X - had an ASA somewhere near 25, depending upon which version you used. I'm pretty sure I used D-76 to develop it and even with a simple, basic Durst enlarger, it made outstanding prints.