mkimages

I don't own one, but as someone who has been doing small product photography as a sideline for many years, I'll say that it look like it's very well designed for its intended use. You might have trouble shooting models bigger than 15" or so but that covers most 1/48 fighters and smaller. As far as being able to make one for half the price, I'd bet that for less than $25 and a trip to Home depot & Hobby Lobby i could assemble a kit to do the exact same thing that would collapse into a standard mailing tube.

Floyd: :D :D

Look on the bright side, now there is a reason to expand the model display area into the kitchen :D :D

Don't know if it'll translate into styrene, but a tried-and-true method for bending metal pipes without kinks is to fill them with sand. Might be worth a shot. Alternately, these work great on metal too, and might work with plastic, but they might transfer the spring pattern to the outside of the tubing.

Since you have Photoshop, here is what I did to the bottom pic: open Levels Adjustment and move the sliders like this: Then run Unsharp Mask with settings of Amount 500, Radius 0.2, Threshold 0 That's it. Also, I assume you are using a tripod and cable release? You have your camera set on Aperture Priority and Æ’/22 which is great for depth of field, but is giving you a 1 second exposure time and might actually be contributing to the softness of the shot. Try setting the aperture back to Æ’/16 (or even 11 if you can keep the model all in focus). You'll still get the DOF you need but you

Judging from the P-40 shots you've previously posted, and assuming that you still use the same lighting setup with your new background, you're on the right track. In fact the lighting you're getting inside your spray booth is quite good. The only issues with those shots are contrast and sharpness, both things that are easily (and a lot of times, better) taken care of post-capture. Here's one of your P-40 shots as you posted it. And here's the same one with the contrast boosted and a bit of sharpening. I used Photoshop, but any image editing software should be able to do this. If there

640x480 is just fine. You could probably go a bit bigger if you want, smaller might be too small. There's no real standard size but it's nice to not have to scroll sideways to see all of a bigger image. I usually like to do mine at 750 pixels wide. Seems to work well. :D

Awesome paintwork there; the tongue is a work of art all on its own. Overall it's quite a believable effect. About the only thing I could suggest might be a bit of dried blood on some of the teeth and lower jaw. :D

It's more expensive than the above suggestions (I think. Haven't bought posterboard in forever), but you can get rolls of background paper in varying widths at photo-supply places (like B&H). If you could go in with a couple of others, you could each get 12 feet of 26" wide paper for about 8 bucks shipped. Just mount it on a stick and pull it down when you need a nice, smooth, coved background.

Glad they were of help to you, Stephane. One of these days I'll remember to take a ruler with me when I go to museums. Looking forward to seeing your finished product. No hurry though, I'm having to save my pennies for this one .

That's quite a nice looking Mustang . Fairly interesting that you were able to get such a smooth silver finish with a brush. I've never been able to do silver in more than small areas without brush marks popping up. I'd guess that your decanted paint happened to be exactly the correct consistency to go on smoothly. Also, a neat technique I've used to tone panels on painted silver finishes is to mask off the panels and use a cloth to rub pencil graphite into the paint (after it has cured, of course). Depending on how much graphite you use & how hard and the direction you rub, you can vary

Nice collection . I really like the Dauntless display. :lol:

I hate to burst your bubble folks, but I built this kit some months ago and made the mistake of applying a coat of gray primer (note to self: use Future next time). Much to my surprise and chagrin, I wound up not with a jet but an apparent repop of the Williams Bros. 1/72 B-10 kit. :D

The last one is an Aermacchi MB-339. No clue on the first two.

Welcome news for me. I've wanted a 48th Albatross for a long time, and as much as I'd like to, I can't justify the cost of the RVHP kit. Hopefully this one will come in at somewhere under half of that. Having seen what Kinetic did with the E-2C, I kind of hope Trumpeter gets the same idea with this kit. Specifically, concentrating their effort on accuracy and fit and leaving the interior detail minimal, since that can be done better by aftermarket producers and will keep the cost down.

Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. When you can see the reflection of your light source in the paint on the model, the "wet spot" will appear shinier than the rest of the paint. This works better with flat paint, but does apply to gloss as well. If you don't use a spray booth, a bare light bulb located above and in front of you (roughly where your hand is when you extend your arm up at a 45° angle) will give you a nice specular reflection to use. :unsure:

Have you got the ones I posted in the Blackbird reference thread? I have a couple more from that series I can send when I get home tonight. :)

Is that like having "too much money in the bank"? That's an incredible looking kit. Hope it pans out. :wub:

I'm thinking a Dashboard widget would be ideal for this. It's not really a matter of being unable to do the calculations, but instead having a quick & easy way to do them on-demand. Invoke D'board, type in the numbers, and click the convert button. No starting up spreadsheets, opening browser windows, running multiple equations in a calculator, just instant results whenever you'd need them. Sweet :wub:

Great (!) job on the BMF. That thing looks awesome.

That's great! Extra special compliments on the pilot and the smooth paintjob. ;)

How about standard auto window-tinting film. You could probably get some scraps for free if you have a tinting shop near you. You may even be able to get some that is actually polarized. <_<

*Sigh* I wish I had wings.

It boggles my mind that that whole cockpit is about a centimeter long. Absolutely amazing work :wacko:

If you chop the sprue up pretty finely, you could probably use lacquer thinner. I'd think things like turpentine, paint thinner, and the like would be too weak (or the wrong solvent) to really do much good. Also, Turpentine is produced from tree resin (mostly pine), while mineral spirits (aka paint thinner, white spirit, Stoddard solvent, etc.) is a petroleum distillate. Lacquer thinner is a combination of ingredients (that can differ widely) including things like xylene and toluene, which among other properties, dissolve styrene plastic nicely.