Space The Final Frontier

No, this aint' Star Wars. It's better.

Work in progress pictures of my Battlestar Galactica kit, it is made in 1:4105 by Revell with molds from Moebius Models, who design a lot of starship kits based on the remake of the Battlestar Galactica tv show and other science fiction series.

The 2004 remake of the classic Battlestar Galactica show, get some background informations about BSG in this PDF, is my favorite tv series ever, I could write much about it, and I was lucky when I got the Revell version of this modelkit for a low price at the bay, even when it was already started and 2 small parts were missing.
It was built but then I stashed it, I had other kits to finish on my priority list.

The first thing I did last weekend was to give the kit a layer of primer, for this I use some cheap stuff from the discounter, this stuff is pretty good but needs some time, I gave it 24 hours to dry.

The next step was adding grey, first a complete base layer, then I highlighted the armourplates with a lighter grey. After this I gave the kit a good layer af matte varnish, normally you use glossy varnish, later more on that.

And I absolutetely recommend using a airbrush for kits of this size.

This was followed by a premiere, for the first time I used a selfmade wash based on black oilpaint mixed with lightergas. I read so much about this that I had to try it for myself.

In German it would be easier to describe this than in my crappy English. If you want to try it for yourself , just look for tutorials on youtube.

Usally you need to use gloss varnish for a protective layer, the glossy surface protects the acrylic color from the solvent of the wash and of taking the oil color, but I used matte varnish because I wanted give the whole ship a dirty look.

You can find much better tutorials on this but all you have to do ist to apply the wash, wait some minutes and then start to rub it off with papertowels and cotton swaps.

Depending on the pressure and the rubbing  you will get the result that you want. The final step before you continue to paint this thing is to add another layer of glosscoat, because the oilcolor will not dry completely, it will cause a mess if you do not do this. Use only matte clearcoat if you want the colors to get dull, I used matte because I wanted this effect.

After that I applied some generic grey, not completely, only a very heavy highlighting. This is the actual building state of it.

A detail shot of my Revell Hind kit give you a better view of the look of the highlighted panel lines. The rest of the black was rubbed away. It is not perfect and I may redo some spots, but for my first real try (with glosscoats) of this technique I am pretty satisfied with the result. More on that and (of course) the Hind will come in future posts.

The big advantage of this is that the oilpaint will not completely dry, you can pause whenever you want, all what may be needed is some lightergas to get the paints wet again. And will need a proper stock of cotton swaps since you will need a lot of them.

The base of the stand was painted in Antikbronze, sealed with glosscoat and then I added a layer of oilwash. It was the first time I used metallic color through my airbrush, I had some concerns about cleaning the pistol after that. Maybe I will redo this thing, there are 2 spots that I messed up.

Beside of finishing this kitten, this weekends task is to finish the Galactica, instead of the red decal stripes I will use paint for them, this will definitely look better. I have to go through my source material since I have questions about coloring of some of the details.

At the moment I am preparing some posts, they will appear this weekend.

So say we all.

Komm, wir gehen nach Panama

Yesterday the Montagsmaler went rogue and met, even when it was Friday. My mate continued the paintjob on his German tanks, last week we removed the old paint, basecoated them, and gave them a first layer of paint.

While Olli removed the masking tape from his Tiger, the tank's paintjob looks somehow like the Tigerente from German children's book author Janosch.

At the moment I am preparing a handful of post for the next days, a lot of stuff piled up in the past few days that a I would like to show you.

Just Some Pictures I Found On My Phone

Scenery contruction pictures from the last year. I found them while I was browsing through the backup from my phone. 

This is our river piece from this post. I found some pictures of it's construction:

 

 

 

The river piece in w.i.p. status. I hotglued some layers of cardboard pieces (leaving a gap) on a 120x30cm (roughly 4x1ft) piece of Styrodur (foamed polystyrene), then I filled the edges with acrylics. The gap, which should become the river, was filled with two component epoxy, in which some blue color was added. After that, the stones were added while it was still sticky.

Then two bridges and some more details were added as you can see in the first picture of the post.

And then there were some more pictures of an other scenery piece I made with my mate Olli.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This piece is a coastal segment, sized also 120cm width and built from Styrodur. It is planned as a D-Day element and can be set on any of our 120cm wide battlefield elements. While it looks almost finished in the last picture there will be a lot more work to spend on this section of the battlefield.

We were thinking of adding one or two bunkers and some obstacles at the beach, maybe we find some nice pieces at Thingiverse. And a small strip of blue paper needs to be added to represent the sea.

At the moment I enjoy the Friesian summer, waiting for an order of bits and bats to continue the work on my Rügen'46 project. When it will arrive things are going to get a little weirder.

Since I must pickup a small bargain from the bay, tomorrow will be no modelling on my modelling sunday, but I think I will find some time for a closer look at something.

More Works In Progress

Zvezda's 1:144 Ilyushin Il-2 Stormovik. I built it today, then it got it's base colors via airbrush. The lower part was masked with tape, the camouflage pattern was created with liquid masking solution. When I removed the tape, some parts of the color kept sticking on it, so I had to repaint some parts with a brush.

The next steps will be to paint the details followed by a coat of gloss coat to prepare it for decaling. The decals of both of the Zvezda planes are generic ´numbers and nationalsigns, not too bad and usable.

Zvezda's 1:144 Messerschmitt BF 109 F/2. This was built today too, but at the moment it got only primed and the lower hull was painted grey. I am still unclear how to paint the upper hull.

Two Plastic Soldier Company SD.Kfz. 251/D in 15mm scale. Both got nightfighting equipment. The left model got upgraded to the Sd.Kfz. 251/20 UHU with the Heer46 conversion parts. Since I did not like the driver's night vision piece I changed it with a matching piece from the Heer46 Panther night vision conversion pack. I also added a clear lense to the searchlight which is not on the pictures.

On the other halftrack I changed the closed doors to scratchbuilt open ones. 

I forgot to make pictures of Olli's stuff but I think soon he will upload some pictures in his own blog. Another successful building session for the Montagsmaler even when it is Wednesday.

Revell 1:144 Ju 87b Stuka Todays W.I.P.

Two pictures of Revell's 1:144 Micro Wings Stuka kit. Revell's Micro Wings range offered 16 world war 2 planes in 1:144 scale made from moulds from the early seventies. My mate Olli made pictures of another two Revell Micro Wings fighters which he will publish in his blog soon (update: this post).

Due to the age of the kits' moulds there was a lot of flash and some parts did not went together without putty and some mild violence. I painted it with the brush, using masking tape for the camouflage pattern. While I am not 100 percent satisfied with the results, it will be a decent game piece.

The (still unfinished) diorama base was made with a picture frame and some cartonage.

Today my mate Olli joined me for another Montagmaler session. Our roguish goals for today are to build two Zwezda "Art of Tactics" 1:144 planes, I will try to build a Sd.Kfz. 215/20 "UHU" from the PSC Sd.Kfz.251/D kit and the Heer46 UHU conversion kit. Olli wants to remove its paint before he starts to repaint one of his Tigers. Maybe we will build and paint some more stuff, but the clock is ticking.

 

Later in the evening I will post some pictures of today's progress.

The New Battlefield (Work In Progress)

After some hours of work we finished the smaller piece with the bridge. The large piece got some streets and parts of an airfield but we did not finish it.

The whole battlefield

The connection piece with the 2 bridges

The center of  the new part of the battlefield

The airfield

Soviet tanks approaching the river

Italeri 1:72 SdKfz. 234/4 (Work In Progress)

Some pictures of an actual project, this is Italeri's SdKfz. 234/4. This is the first kit that I painted with a "real" airbrush gun, the colors are still a little wet. The used colors were Revell Aquacolor Sand (#36116), farn green (#36360) and mud brown(#36180),  all colors were thinned with alcohol.

The camo pattern is not too bad for a first try and there are some spots where I will use a brush to finish the paintjob.

The picture below shows my new airbrush gun and compressor, I bought the Revell Airbrush starter set (#39199) and I think it is worth its price.

Next week I will publish my videoreview of this stuff, the scenes are already filmed but the sound is too bad, that's why I have to re-record it.