Matt Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Coming back to modeling after about a 6 year layoff and a bad case of AMS. This happened to be one of the few unstarted kits left in the stash. The plan was totally OOB, just something I could get through start to finish. I've built one before, and I was never very happy about the static stance just sitting there, but I didn't want to go build an entire revetment diorama either. So I'm going for an inflight build. I'm not going to sweat trying to make the rotors look like they are spinning, just something more 'action' than sitting on the shelf. This means spending some time making the figures a little more 'active'. I'm not totally sure of which ship to depict. I was going to do the 135 AHC Taipan 127, but after doing some research I may do 'American Woman' instead if I can figure out how to do the markings as I havn't found a decal sheet yet. Not a lot of progress yet. A lot of dry fitting, sorting out the mounting and starting to hack around the posing of the figures. On the pole Right Hand Door Gunner Left Hand Door Gunner Cheers, Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted October 7, 2015 Author Share Posted October 7, 2015 With a wet weekend I got a chance to get a bit more work done and get some pictures taken. I didn't like the way the miniguns were coming out, so I've decided to ditch those and go with just 19 shot rockets pods. This looks like a common fit for 135th AHC aircraft based on the pictures available. That also opens the door to doing 'American Woman', assuming I can figure out how to pull the markings together. Progress right now is gated around getting the figures squared away. The door gunner and crew chief have been finalized, the final step was to convert the heads to represent the face shields being down. The pilot is straight forward, hands and feet on the controls. To get the right look the right arm had to be cheated in towards the center of the lap and the left arm lowered and the hand turned out to grasp the collective properly. I have no idea yet on the co-pilot. As there are no miniguns, there would be no need for the flex-sight which is what the kit figure is set up to do. I'm thinking of having him turned and looking out to the left. That means I need to finish the seats and put the side armor on to make sure it all fits with the figure. In the meantime, I did some initial painting of the cabin, just to see what techniques I could work with. I also put some paint to the engine, mostly for the tailpipe as the rest will be hidden. Based on pictures, it seems that most door gunners on gunships used free standing large ammo cans to hold their ammo belts, so I scratched up a couple of reasonable facsimiles. Still more painting to do here. One challenge is going to be sourcing or building lengths of 7.62 ammo belts. Having decided on using the 19 shot pods, I had to modify them to make them appear as if some shots had been taken given the nature of this piece. I figured 4 pairs would be a reasonable number for one or two passes. It took more time to research what the right firing order was for these pods than to do the work. That's it for now. I did get part way through doing the IP and other panels, but I wasn't happy so I stripped them. Hopefully second times a charm. Cheers, Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bravosierra001 Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 I really like the ammo cans. Can not wait to see this one come together. Brandon Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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