Mississippi King: Walkway

I decided to put the Red Dragon on hold since the sails need to rebuilt to the correct scale and stores are either closed or completely out of thread due to COVID. That means I will be switching over to my other ship project, the Artesania Latina: King of the Mississippi.

This kit was the one my youngest picked out for me to build as an heirloom for her. It's a big ship in comparison to the other's I have built so far. In doing some research on the build, I came across this build diary (all in french). I absolutely love the weathered finish this builder was able to achieve. I spent some time playing around with stains, oils, and pigments to see how I can try to achieve a similar affect. For the gangway I finished this past weekend, I used pigments to discolor the edges.

I also started experimenting with diluted oil paints, almost like a wash. The effect is very nearly what I was hoping for to have on the wall panels.

As with my last two experiences with Artesania kits, I am expecting to quickly toss out the instructions and use the blueprints as a rough guide. For someone who needs to achieve high precision, these kits have often left me very frustrated when instructions are wrong or the kit parts have changed.

Red Dragon: The Sail Dilemma

My grandmother bought me an antique wooden ship when I was fifteen. Even though she didn't build it herself, it still represents an extravagant gift to me (given her very limited income) that I still proudly display in my home 25 years later. She past away almost two decades ago, but I am so glad I still have this memento from her.

Inspired by this, I have often thought about what I would like to leave with my two daughters that they can pass down. Building small things is a big part of my life, but I didn't want them to be left with a bunch of 1:35 military plastic kits to deal with. Instead I asked each of my daughters to pick a wooden ship that I would build for them. These ships represent hundreds of hours of my time, pain, and as you will soon see, frustration. They are truly a part of me and represent who I am as a maker.

My oldest daughter, who was adopted from China about 8 years ago, appropriately picked out a Chinese junk boat. In November of 2018, I started work on the Red Dragon. This boat will truly look stunning when completed, but the Artesania Latina kit has caused me so many problems along the way.

 

I have had to make a LOT of modifications to this ship and basically tossed out the instructions completely. The biggest issue that has caused a rise in my blood pressure was that front side of the blueprints were printed at 1:1 scale and the back side of the blueprints where scaled up by 10-15%. I didn't catch the discrepancy until recently, but it is wrecking havoc on the build. I was attempting to put sails on this week, and discovered they were way too large to fit the boat. Now, I have to redo about a week's worth of effort to remake them at the proper size. EXPLETIVE!!

It's so frustrating to be approaching the end of this project and to have another big set back. I haven't decided whether to shelve this boat for a while until I am ready to redo a tedious part of the build. After I calm down a bit, I will have to make a decision. Either way, I need to buy some more thread since I burned through a lot making the first set of sails, and our fabric store is closed a few more weeks due to COVID.

Master Box German Radio Car Build: Complete

I am glad this build is finally over. It was definitely becoming a chore to finish. As I mentioned in a previous post, this was a frustrating kit to work with. Apart from a lot of broken plastic, the decals were garbage and flaked into pieces. At first, I was going to scrap them but then decided to use the flaking to my advantage. With a couple additional scrapes of the hobby blade, I was able to make the decals look like chipped paint. It worked out well given the circumstances.

Here's my process for getting the finish:

1. Start with preshading and base coat (see previous post).
2. Using an inexpensive paint sponge with black paint, I dabbed it around in certain areas to simulate the effect of paint chipping.
3. Apply a light dust coat using Tamiya Flat Earth, especially near the bottom of the vehicle.
4. I use a mixture of black and brown oil paint heavily thinned with paint thinner to do a wash around all the details.
5. Finally, I add in some Vallejo light and dark pigments with a soft brush to get the final blended color variations.

 

 

London Phone Box: The Wrap-Up

I just glued the last couple of metal pieces on and this project is now officially complete. Overall, I had a good time building this booth. It was just the right-sized build to fit within my attention span. Anything longer and this would have quickly turned into work.

The kit itself had some issues that required out-of-the-box improvements or fixes. The clear acetate for the windows was fairly scuffed up upon arrival. Only one side of it had protective liner. I didn't have anything else to replace it with, nor did I really want to wait to buy something. It's what you get when you buy an old kit from eBay on the cheap. Still, it turned into something fairly nice.

Gunpla: Abandoned Haro

Preface: The model in this post was completed late last year. However, I thought I'd go back through some of my old builds to write posts about them.

I was browsing around Barnes and Nobel lusting after all the Bandai kits they carry. What I really wanted was the Voltron kit, but it was hard to justify the $70 spend with the misses looking over my shoulder. Instead, I decide to buy a tiny Gunpla kit. I am not at all familiar with Gunpla, but the Haro kit was under $10, and I was desperate to put something together.

Haro is a happy, spherical robot painted in circus colors and affixed with a permanent smile. It was far too merry of a mechanical being for my taste. It needed to be introduced to the hardships of life. I have always wanted to try and tell a story with a diorama that was limited to a very small area (e.g. 6 inches squared). I also wanted that concept of the story to be convey by a single word: abandoned. With that idea in mind, I started sketching:

This was the first time I worked with Sculptamold. I wanted to make a crater and add some surface texturing to a square of wood. It's really fun stuff, but I ended up having to remake it after a first try. For the first go, I used a square of end-joined pine that warped terribly from all the moisture from the curing Sculptamold. The second try was done with done with plywood which resists warping since each ply has the grain of wood going in different directions. When one layer wants to swell and distort along the length of its grain, the other layers can prevent the movement.

After a coat of earth-toned paint acrylic paint, I added some Modpodge and sprinkled on sifted dirt from outside my house. A very weathered and chipped Haro was added to the scene with glue. Finally, I added some black- and light-colored pigment streaks to the ground to mimic scorch marks. 

This delightful little droid met a bad end and was eventually forgotten by those who sent it. It was a memorable build. Someday soon I plan to tell another story on a 6x6 inch plank.

Wood Working: A Happy Tortoise

Two coats of exterior varnish added, and this hideout is ready for the outdoors. Here is Zoe trying the new place out. Hopefully this week the weather will be warm enough where she can actually be outside to enjoy the new digs.

London Phone Box: Nameplates

Things are starting to wrap up quickly on this project. Today I spent time doing the nameplates at the top. There were a couple problems with what the kit provided. First, I had to reprint them because the size the label provided with the kit was too large to fit into the area provided for the nameplate. Also, they were just printed on normal white paper which would start to warp very quickly with any humidity. To fix this problem, I cut up sections of styrene, and applied the new label using double-sided tape.

Only four things left:

• Glue on the base
• Put in the "windows"
• Attach the door
• Finally assembly