Andrew D. the Jolly Rogers guy

Much appreciated, thank you! Detailed the wheel wells, still lots left to do on the airframe bodywork, though. Admittedly looks a LOT better not all blown up to larger size like this 😄

Decided to take care of the weapons bay doors now, early. Can't really do one long door on each side since the belly changes to angle upward right in the middle of all this. Was originally going to make both fore and aft doors longer, but realized the forward doors fit the upward-angled bit fine. So, need to extend the aft doors. I calculated the total length of the revised rear doors need to be 43.5 mm, lengthened from 32.5mm. Decided to make resin copies of one end of the doors. Went for four, so as to have twice as many to choose from. Doors are marked so as to know

Decided to dabble in some nostalgia from my teen years. Loved the look of the destroid mecha in the Macross/First Robotech War (depending on how one follows). 1/100 Arii kit. Biggest challenge is how not to make this look like a toy, especially with the awful, poorly-planned seams. Lots of drybrushing after airbrushing. Chest-mounted searchlights created with acrylic gemstones with the facets sanded off then clear floor polish painted over. Green unit in the middle is bare metal foil with clear green overpainted. Thanks for looking!

Added the HUD from the Eduard PE set for the MiG-29 along with the kit's HUD glass. Figured it wouldn't be far off since, technically, the -37 is a late 80's design. 😋 Also removed the curious position lights, RHAW gear or whatever they are from the tails and wings. Funny how the top of the wings fit the fuselage with Tamiya-like precision, but the undersides decidedly less so. The flaps have serious sink marks that need filling, both top and bottom. The tails fit even less well than the wing undersides. Also added wingtip lights (imag

For the intakes, first remove the curious position lights or whatever they are.... Also, no idea why the compressor face (engine front) is literally half the diameter of the exhausts. Almost tried to install bigger compressors from spares, then thought, on a Stealth plane, this should be hidden. Once the bulb-items were removed, the intakes just seemed 'WAY too open and exposed for a Stealth plane. I just felt it needed strakes or something inside the intake ducting.

Cockpit is painted MRP MiG-29 blue-gray, although in retrospect I think I should've gone for a darker shade. Well, what can I say for a scratchbuilt 1/72 cockpit tub and panel....

No way to make a MiG-29 instrument panel fit this thing, nor any other panel I'm aware of. Solution: Make a panel for the upper combing and fit a display screen to that. Then, cut off the upper half (or more) of the MiG-29 panel, add another screen and other detailing, and fit that part to the tub.

Cockpit is too small to be realistic. Found a way to shave off the bottom and corners of an Airfix MiG-29 cockpit tub and make it fit in the VERY confined forward fuselage, although it took carving away a big chunk of the aft decking. For detailing...well....more than 25 years ago when I was young and ambitious I tried scratchbuilding a MiG-31 (it was literally a decade before a decent kit emerged). I scratchbuilt (but did not complete) a VERY detailed cockpit, incorporating bits of Eduard MiG-29UB brass. Years later I only saved the cockpit; it was too good to scrap.

I was going to make it simple, but I failed...decided to detail all-out. I have a couple dozen PE frets with leftover parts and decided to use them plus some styrene to detail the fictitious bays. Lengthy process but fun!

One more airliner I decided to try. Wanted something I had actually flown on as a kid. Added LACI flaps; was tougher than I thought and didn't go as well as hoped. Even with a lifetime of modeling military aircraft, I was surprised at how many basic mistakes I was trying to overcome. I must say you airline builders are most skilled in your area of specialty! Also replaced the strut of the nose gear, after learning from a NWA build how weak that part is. Also reshaped the lip of the tail intake to be sharper, and made clear wingtip lights.

Okay, while making the horns, I still had to keep readjusting, as I realized they were a bit too long out to the sides. Finally got the bodywork on it sorted, and painted. I deliberately used brush painting for the central mount, as from the photos it appears to have that "wrapped" look. Had a license plate made by a decal company that does custom work. Turns out they were not waterslide decals, but photo decals in which you use the paper backing. So, I used bare metal foil for the reverse side of the plate, in case anyone was able to glance behind it from one

Besides the main weapons bay, I really liked the idea from another build I found online of two tiny additional bays for self defense AAMs. As I wanted this to be a late Cold War bird, which is when the model was produced, I figured R-60/AA-8s would be feasible, even though R-73s/AA-11s would be more desirable. Why did I go with the 60's? Because I had a pair of 60's that I had modified the forward fins on. And because I had no 73s. After cutting out for the small bays, I changed my mind about the shape of the forward end, and added wedge shapes to give

Well, I'm hoping the weapons bay fits snugly under it....somewhere between the bay and the dorsal intakes....

I tried figuring if any Soviet/Russian air-to-ground weaponry would fit into the tiny weapons bays. NOTHING. Worse yet, Russian A-G missiles are pretty huge. I finally realized a solution. Connect the two weapons bays, fore to aft, right through the maingear wells, and it would be JUST BARELY big enough to hold a single Kh-31 missile, perfect for a Wild Weasel type. Also add two smaller bays for a pair of self-defense AAM's. The gear legs themselves already mount 'way outboard, so they won't have to be moved for the bays to be connected. So, extend the gear bays fo

I was 17 when I bought the original 1/48th release when it came out in 1988. I know it isn't everyone's cup-o-tea, but I totally loved it. So ugly that it grabbed my heart. As I grew up and went through flight school, I realized the problems in this otherwise neat bit of fiction. PROBLEM 1: It can't carry hardly anything in its TINY bays to make it worthwhile to operate in the first place. PROBLEM 2: Really, it is about 30-35% too small. A stealth plane with internal weapons bays should be plenty larger than an A-7 Corsair. Even the undersized cockpit barely fits

Ok, a little more. Finished the modified/corrected bumpers, plus the re-chromed parts, corrected the taillights from the Cabriolet kit, and started the steer horns.

The "Klingon Cloaking Device" was a prop created for one of the "Nighthawk Corsairs'" deployments. The rumor mill was strong that this was the unit that flew the mythical Stealth Fighters in the Nevada desert. So, they took a napalm-cannister-turned-luggage-pod and did it up with a big flashing light, false aerials, nuclear markings and a "Reactor Cooling Fill Port" marking, creating a most sinister underwing store! The idea was to say "the A-7 is the REAL stealth plane, thanks to this nuclear pod!"

Another addition to my Stealth/XST/F-117A series I did earlier this year. It was the F-117 pilots' cover story; they could truly say they flew A-7's, at least by day. It handled similarly to their "real" mount. Fujimi kit, Aires cockpit, Wolfpak decals (sadly OOP). Scratch-built "Klingon Cloaking Device" pod, one of the great military disinformation pranks of modern times 😄

Decided to take the bottom of a FineMolds TIE Fighter base and reshape it to complement the Diamond's angles. Maybe I did it the hard way, but I like the result. Once the shape was established, and a bottom installed, it was filled with lead weights and liquid resin. The "pole" was also angular, depicting the subject as well as what it was actually mounted on at the radar range (sort of)(nothing round!). Once the top of the base was cut and installed, and the final bodywork and primer done, a simple spray graphite color was used. Voila.

In-progress pics. For this shape, a block sander is an ABSOLUTE necessity. Filled the gear bays, prepared to scratch build exhausts in the style of the Have Blue XST and F-117. Reshaped cockpit tub, then added kit seat from a Fujimi A-7 Corsair (correct time frame). Canopy glass was tinted goldish as on real Stealth planes. 1/2 of an Airwaves F-117 intake screen proved just right for the Diamond's fictional intakes.

Built this in the Spring as part of my Stealth/XST/F-117A collection. In reality was only a shape that Lockheed tested in the early 70s to prove their stealth approach for their XST submission. This of course led to the stunning F-117A. Unicraft 1/72 resin kit; very crude, but the airframe is workable. It was produced with the makings of a cockpit and jet exhaust, which the actual Hopeless Diamond model did NOT have, but let's face it, would be a VERY boring build without those options. The provided landing gear was pretty much unusable, but I wasn't going use it anyway, prefer

The rest of the glass is from the Aoshima kit; just gotta cut the forward sections off and discard the rest. Once black is applied for the rubber lining, I use BareMetal Foil for the metal bits. Then, all the glass is tinted with a special blend of Clear Floor Polish, food coloring and acrylic thinner. Now, here's how I make headlights. I take the appropriate size acrylic rhinestone/gemstone. Make sure it's acrylic and not glass. Use sandpaper to remove the facets, then "paint" with clear floor polish. Voila.

Took old post and added a ton of stuff to it. Thanks for looking!

Gettin' there, folks! First, windscreen had to be made from scratch, since the windscreen frame was significantly widened from the Revell Classic VW kit. Thankfully, it's flat, so, not impossible. Started with the original windscreen, traced it, then added the appropriate fill plug, on paper. Then, cut the new shape from packaging from something-or-other that my lovely wife bought (no idea what, it was in the recycling). Next, the bumpers. Closest option of the 3 kits is the Aoshima, except these represent the slightly later style wit

Ok, fine...not perfect, but close enough for now. Definitely hoping not to do that again....