Faust

I've got all four TTA books, plus some others I came across recently, to help me. Oh, and the Usborne Book of the Future (my fave when I was a kid, and it still kinda is!), so I think I can see some coolness approaching. :)

I wondered about the nose! Nicely done! Oh man... that Space album cover is AWESOME! it's so much a product of it's period - great stuff, I can taste the TTA vibe! Wait... that's it! I'll TTA this ship! Oh yeah... Now it's rockin'!

Wow... That looks stunning in the "low viz" scheme! Nice work! I was thinking maybe Jolly Rogers paint, at one point... like on the VF-1S in Macross. Now that I see your tactical scheme, though.... now my head's really moving in high gear.

One thing I’m not into, and never really was, is video games. I never got the allure of spending lots of time and money standing in crowded arcades when I could stay home and work on a model. However, one thing I AM into is cool-looking spaceships! It doesn’t matter to me if I know their backstory or not, for me spacecraft provoke a very deep and immediate response. In this case, I was drawn to the Wave Non-Scale “Solvalou” fighter from a famous (well, not to me, but…) videogame of the ‘80s. This game was called “Xevious”, and while successful here, it was a huge hit in its homeland of Japan. To honour the game’s anniversary, kitmaker WAVE issued this model a few years ago. I’m not sure about it’s origins, but man, it’s a neat looking ship with all kinds of potential! For something a bit different from the usual Star Wars, Star Trek and Gundam ships, check out the link below! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/wave-non-scale-solvalou-fighter-oob/

Everybody’s got to start somewhere; that’s just a fact of life. For the German Army of WWII, the most basic frontline tank used in great numbers was the Panzer II. Far from the complex and fire-breathing tanks of the Heer’s later years, the “little training tank that could” nonetheless was an important vehicle in Germany’s early-war arsenal. For me, the Panzer II was my start, as well, into building armour kits for real. Now, I don’t bother with all the fancy photoetch and stuff; I just want to have fun and make some neat tanks! For this, the 1/76 Matchbox tanks are perfect. They’re small, simple, but well-detailed and they go together with a minimum of fuss. Check out my beginning below, and see what you think of my efforts on this old-school armoured featherweight. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks to Matchbox, now I’m hooked on 1/76 armour! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/ships-and-tanks/176-matchbox-panzer-ii-ausf-f/

Since the -107 wasn't really a "Trumpeter" kit (they bought, used, whatever... the Monochrome kit) it's not really a surprise that there was only the one "available" scale. Man, in 1/48, this would be a big bird!

Oh, that's a good idea! I never thought of the naval aspect of the top-mounted intake! Hmmm... I also found out that the GPU-5A pod (Hasegawa weapons set one) fits nicely in the belly recess... How I'm thinking of a fast-mover CAS platform, like the A-16 they were pushing to replace the A-10 (Heresy!). Okay, I guess I need another one of these things... there's just too much to do with one airframe!

When it comes to aircraft, I do tend to have a bit of a love affair with the obscure. I like planes that are a bit “unfamous” and am particularly fond of planes that a lot of people either haven’t heard of or haven’t thought of in a while! I also love protypes and paper projects, or planes that only saw very limited service. There’s a lot of potential for what-iffery in models of planes that barely existed. The problem is that because these planes are pretty obscure, it’s not easy to find good injection moulded kits of them! That’s why I was pleased to get my hands on one of Trumpeter’s F-107A kits. The Ultra Sabre was a neat looking plane, and the fact that I’ve personally seen the one at the Dayton Air Force Museum made me even more excited to get one. I’m not yet sure what I’m going to do with it; I’ve got a lot of ideas in my head for this one! Before I get there, though, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at a kit which, while it seemed to make a stir when it first was announced, seems to me to have faded into relative obscurity. Check out this odd choice for a mainline release at the link below, and if you’ve got any ideas for what I could do with it, let me know. Right now, I’m thinking West German ground support aircraft! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/trumpeter-172-f-107a-oob/

I think I’m like most modellers in that I’m nostalgic for some of the older kits I built as a kid when I was first getting into modelling. However, for me it’s not so much model cars and planes that do this to me as it is model mecha. I love robots especially ones from animes, and when I found out that I could get MODEL robots I was over the moon! Some of the first Gundam kits I built (I’ve built well over 100 now) were the small “no grade” and bigger, deluxe (for the time) High Grade (HG) Wing Gundam kits. Back when they were new, 22 years ago, the 1/100 HG kits were the pinnacle of Gundam models>. However, times change, and to keep up with things, Bandai has released Master Grades (MGs) of all the Wing Gundam main machines. The first HG I ever built was the Shenlong, and so it only seemed fitting that the first MG Wing kit I built would be the Shenlong as well. It’s a very nice kit, but I have to say that the proportions are a bit off. Check out my finished MG Shenlong at the link below, and let me know what you think, both about my build, and about the machine’s proportions. https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/bandai-master-grade-1100-xxg-01s-shenlong-gundam/

Okay, it’s almost summer, but not quite, and the weather where I am has turned cruddy. It’s a grey, windy, “Blech” day on the “meh” side of staying in bed all day. So, to get everybody pumped back up, I decided to dig out my own sunshine, in the form of some old Matchbox “Sunset Stripe” box art. I love Matchbox kits, and the addition of the oh-so-80’s street van-esque “sunset stripe” to the boxes only makes these kits better. It’s like they’re trying to be something they’re not, but in the end, it just makes them cooler as relics of a long-gone age. Check out all the pictures of my stripers at the link below; I hope they photos bring a smile to your face and some warm memories to your mind. If nothing else, they’ll give you a bit of sun on a cloudy day! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/matchbox-planes-sunset-boxes/

Sometimes the neatest things are NOT what you are looking for, but you find them anyway! I can think of a few examples of things like this I’ve stumbled across, and I’m sure you can too. However, every now and then I come across something SO weird that not only wasn’t I looking for it, I didn’t even KNOW to look for it? Confused? So was I! The object in question was an old, large-scale Corgi from the British children’s TV show “The Magic Roundabout”. Given that tomorrow is 4-20 (with all the countercultural implications), it seemed that there couldn’t be a better time to post this oddest of little oddities! Check it out for something completely different! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/corgi-807-dougals-magic-roundabout-car/

I’ve been concentrating on loser cars and realistic airplanes for a while, so I felt the need to get back to the “What If”-side of my personality! I remember back when Dragon first started issuing kits of some of the Luft ’46 projects; I was hooked! I didn’t even know what these planes were, but the models were super-cool. Sadly, they were also more expensive than I was able to pay at the time. Thank goodness for shows and a nice supply of cheap Luft-46iness! This is the first of the Dragon Luft ’46 kits I’ve built. I know some people say there are fit issues, but this little guy wasn’t too bad at all! Check it out and let me know what you think. I should have bought the nachtjeager version of this thing when I had the chance! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/dragon-172-messerschmitt-p-1101/

It’s one thing for a car’s styling to be weird or polarizing (or both – ask AMC), but it’s another to be both of those things and STILL be forgotten! If you think about the Ford EXP (which I do, more than I should), it was pretty odd and polarizing too. Weird bug-eye headlights and odd two-seaterness certainly made it a car that most people recognized, even if they didn’t want to. Now imagine being even weirder looking than that, and then being almost totally forgotten! That’s what it’s like to be the EXP’s upscale brother. That’s right, the EXP had a twin: the Mercury LN7! Most of the time, Mercuries don’t get kitted for some reason. However, back in the early ‘80s, Monogram came to the rescue and re-tooled their EXP mould to produce the bubble-backed Mercury version. It may be a small kit, but it certainly captures all the increased awkwardness of the real thing! Check out the 1/32 Mongram LN7 at the link below. Remember, sometimes we forget things as a favour to ourselves; you’ll see what I mean! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/monogram-132-mercury-ln-7-sport-coupe-oob/

Yeah, by '85 things had started to turn around all over the place. The GM F-Bodies and their Mustang rivals were starting to climb out of the hole, and the smaller performance cars were getting a lot better. Things like the Shelby Turbos helped a lot. Sadly, TC3s were way done by then... I'm equally sure I saw a number of them, but just don't remember either. They were kind of that type of car!

Well, I finally got it done! After a lot of fighting with the bumpers and a few other fit issues, my take on the MPC “Fuzz Duster” Volare is finished. Since I like to try and immortalize the “losers” in as stock a form as I can (usually), I chose to do the model as a straight-up 1980 Road Runner. These are not common today, and weren’t even very common back in the day, actually! With it’s very square looks and very staid motor, the last Road Runners weren’t much to get excited about. However, the Fuzz Duster kit has everything you need to build one of these now largely forgotten “muscle” cars, and it’s a nice opportunity to build something that you just don’t see anymore. Check it out and let me know what you think! https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/cars/mpc-round-2-125-1980-volare-road-runner/