Faust

When the French say “Vive la Difference!”, I doubt they were talking about the difference between aeronautically sound and advanced airplanes and whatever kind of flying aquaria/blimp gondolas the various French designers of the ‘20s and ‘30s were thinking about. However, one can’t deny that there is a difference there… and it is a big one! Since I already have the Amiot 143 from Heller, it should come as no surprise that I also have the nearly-equally-hideous Potez 540 in my collection! So, with spring about to sprung (or something) I thought it would be good to have a look at wha

When it comes to cars, you guys know I love something a bit different. I mean sure, I love losers, and Euro-weirdness (usually ugly Renaults), but there’s something about cars with the wrong number of wheels that really get me. I love six-wheeled cars, but hey, something with three wheels is also something to get excited about! A couple of years ago, I got a bunch of 1/32 Arii three-wheeled trucks from my Uncle for Christmas. I thought it was time to see how they built up, and I have to say, it was pretty fun! If you want to see something you’re not likely to come across too often,

Quick question: What’s black and white and is technologically -inconsistent-with-modern-military-hardware all over? Think about it… Nothing? Okay, I’ll give you a hint; it’s also retro-as-heck (and involves Ernest Borgnine). No? Well, if you’re stuck, I forgive you. If you’re not, though, you’ve already reached the right answer: Airwolf!! This ridiculously overpowered Bell 222 was one of the most popular of the ‘80s TV supervehices, and with Hellfire missiles, machine guns and afterburners, it tore up the screen in the mid-80s! No wonder then that Airwolf was also made

It’s been a busy number of months at my end, and I haven’t got as much building time as I’d like to. Of course, that is a common story for most of us, I’m sure! However, one thing I have gotten done is my customized Wing Gundam Fenice Rinascita. While I like most of the redesigned Wing Gundam Master Grade kits, Katoki’s take on the Wing just doesn’t work for me. It’s clowny, busy and just… too much, I guess. I decided it would be a far cry better to use the Wing Gundam Fenice Rinascita from Build Fighters Try to make my own Wing variant. So, with some slight rework, and

Well, can you believe it? It’s been 10 years of the Sprue Lagoon already! It was on Remembrance Day in 2012 that I first sent my site live; I really didn’t know how it was going to go or what I wanted to do with it, exactly. Since then, I’ve tried to steer it towards showcasing my own builds, as well as bringing you guys (and gals) out there in the world a look at some interesting, and maybe somewhat offbeat, models. I like to do the stuff that not everybody’s going to cover, and that usually means weird, old or both! To celebrate my 10th anniversary, I thought I’d pull

Yeah, it is. It's by no means the worst kit I've built, but it's surprisingly work-intensive for such a small plane. Like you've seen, the fit of a lot of the components is more than "a little off", and with all the detail being so soft, the sand-rescribe-resand cycles are very tedious and numerous as I've worked to bring all the bits together. It's like an old Frog, in a lot of ways.

Both of those look great! I'm just finding the fit is much less good than the look of the kit would imply - almost Pegasus- or Pioneer-like in spots. That, and the soft, often-rescribed detail is a bit of a pain. I wish everything could be as nice as a 1/72 Academy Stuka.... sigh... I've built plenty of POS kits, and this is no worse in most ways, but it was a lot more expensive for what I'm getting than I'm used to.

Thanks man, I appreciate the compliments! Cross your fingers the painting isn't as violently temperamental as the building stage!

That old saying about not judging a book by its cover seems to be true! When I got the Sword 1/72 TF-9J Cougar with the Vietnam-era decals and weapons, I was pretty excited. The kit looked decent, and despite being a bit expensive, I figured it would be a fairly easy project. Yeah, well… turns out, it’s not quite as nice as it looked. I’ve been battling this thing for a bit, and while I’ve now got it together, I have to say it’s a lot more short-run than I’d have thought. However, I’ve wanted a Twogar forever, so I’m still glad I’ve got it. I think. Check out how it’s g

What about the "old" Revell Germany/Zvezda kit? Sure, it's 1/72, but it looks decent enough. There must be a lot of those around, heck, even I have one!

If it’s not “what you’ve got” but “what you do with it”, then, unfortunately, the armoured vehicles of the WWII Imperial Japanese Army come up short no matter what you do. As a nation that had no real need of conventional armoured forces, the Japanese never really developed powerful tanks in the vein of their German allies or the Americans and British. However, as the American island-hopping campaign got underway, it became apparent that some new weapons would be needed to counter the types of tank their enemies preferred. Thus, like many other nations, the idea of the “tank destro

What’s black and white and red (and yellow, orange and purple) all over? If you said “A newspaper!” then you need to share whatever you’re putting on your Cheerios in the morning, because hogging that isn’t cool. If you answered “WTF are you talking about?” then you KNOW you’re on the right track for something crazy. What uses that palette? Well, here are some hints. MPC. Harry. Bradley. Minitruck. If you guessed the “California Sunshine” kit based on the Datsun 620 mould, then pat yourself on the back, because that is correct! I received one of these classic beauties f

The ‘50s were an exciting time, with airplanes improving, performance-wise, in leaps and bounds, and with new, futuristic shapes taking to the skies in increasing numbers. Swept wings, delta wings, rockets and afterburners… it was as if all the sci-fi serials had exploded into life overnight. For aviation-minded youths of the time, it was only natural to want to build the “latest and greatest” of these new aircraft as soon as possible. To that end, the modelling companies of the day often tripped over each other to be the “first out” with kits of new and racy planes, sometimes to t

When I say “silver”, what comes to mind? Is it a very precious metal? Is it the hair on an elderly gentleman? Or, is it the streamlined shape of a prowling fish? One thing that should come to mind is fast ‘50s jets, with their penchant for bare-metal silver chrominess! And, just like those real jets, there were a lot of kits from that time that tried to capture the look with silver plastic! I recently came across a quintet of such kits, and they’re silver in that they are supposed to look fast, they are aged, being from the ‘50s, and they are somewhat precious! For some

Sometimes, you end up with a bunch of similar things without even trying. A perfect example of that is my (admittedly small) collection of Lindberg 1/20 model cars. I never really went out of my way to collect them, I just kinda bought them when I saw them. Then, I realized I had a gaggle of them hanging around my stash! So, I thought it would be fun to visit a bit of a model car Brobdingnag and see how the “bigger half” lives. I have some older MPC 1/20 kits, but the Lindbergs are neat because they’re all from the ‘90s, when kits of this size were really not a thing! C