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china man, pedro bastos, unknown chick, adam o...... lezers snoging @ the purple lizard - carlisle cumbria england
Our good friend Alicia of Alicia Wines Photography with her trusty D700 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.4.
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As I neared the furthest point north on the Konza Prairie Trail, I paused for a moment. I felt a presence and slowly looked around. I was excited to discover a White-tailed deer in my peripheral vision! She was frozen trying to decide what to do. She stayed motionless for about 30 seconds before jumping over a fence and crossing the trail. I was rewarded for waiting another 5 minutes. A baby deer followed in her footprints.
Canon 5D Mark III
Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG lens
Sigma 1.4 teleconverter
f/9 1/500th ISO 640 @ 840mm
my identifier: _V5A9501_DxO-2
Nerd didn't know I was taking photos of her. This was taken at Sand Harbor in Nevada. We were looking for a good spot to take photos of the fireworks on July 4th. Needless to say, we kind of got in an argument over where we wanted to plant our tripods and take photos of the fireworks. After arguing, we went our own separate ways... but somehow, we ended up planting our tripods right next to each other! Haha. We get in bad arguments, but what best friend's don't get into arguments? They just bring you "that" much closer ;).
Still love you Nerd... hahaha.
“The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphized animal characters in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames valley.”
~Wikipedia
I have visited with this dear old friend so many times and each time, it is better than the first.
For my Flickr groups…
The benarasi palli holds a community of bihari war refugees in Bangladesh who make the famous Benarasi sarees.
Despite living in small huts themselves, they often have a close association with livestock.
Benarasi Palli,Dhaka.
A friend-ship sailing on the vast sea, in a tiny journal. I've already posted it to my blog and talk about it there, so please don't be shy, click on over to read the post, see the before of this spread & leave me a comment there. You know it's much appreciate that!
via Instagram instagr.am/p/CNNFnwUAUg-/
In ogni caso la felicità è sempre dietro l'angolo: la felicità arriva all'improvviso, indipendentemente dalla situazione e dalle circostanze, tanto da sembrare spietata […]. È imprevedibile come lo sono le onde e il tempo. I miracoli sono sempre in attesa, senza far distinzione per nessuno. (da Ricordi di un vicolo cieco)
Banana Yoshimoto
My lovely friend Gladys passed away on Friday the 22nd. It was so unexpected. She was very old I'm not really sure of her age as she had been abandoned over 10 years ago she came to me then a full grown beautiful big kitty. We had a nick name for her Fat Gladys. People would always be asking if she was expecting kittens no she's just fat LOL!.
She has given so many people so much love over the year she's been with me. She'd sit on the wall waiting for people to walk past just so they would make a fuss of her. There was one who would make a special detour just so she could say hello to Gladys. She gave as much love back to them as they gave her.
Gladys has not been up to jumping up on the wall for some months now old age wouldn't allow her to get up there. But it did not stop people asking about her and miss seeing her there.
Gladys went to sleep after her dinner on Friday and died. It was totally unexpected as she was not ill other than that she was old. I and so many others. will miss a very very special kitty
Another historic classic, another "child" of the late 70ies: an anime interpretation of the famous 'Fields & Meadows' camouflage, characteristic for the Swedish Saab 37 'Viggen' jet plane family (and also used on other Swedish military vehicles, but the Viggen is/was the most prominent one).
This weirdo idea had been lurking in the back of my mind for a long time, and when a friend of mine uttered the idea of such a color variant for a Valkyrie, too, I decided to start a kind of competion - for comparison purposes, to see how an individual interpretation of this unique paradigm on a Valykrie from both of us would look like?
The kit is, as usual, a simple, vintage 1:100 scale VF-1A Valkyrie Fighter from ARII. Since the livery would be the "star" of the kit, only minor things were changed/enhanced. Usual added cockpit details include a HUD, a pilot figure, seat belts and an ejection seat trigger. Some typical Valkyrie antennae on the outside were added, too, and the rudders re-positioned off of the neutral position.
Additional external features are a IR pod under the nose, small bulges in tne air intake area which are supposed to contain guidance antennae for the air-to-ground missiles (see below), and two outriggers under the vertical fins which contain a (fictional) radar warning system and a chaff dispenser. Viggen would frequently carry such equipment in external pods, so why not be more effective and integrate them into the hull?
Now for the camouflage scheme... that one was tricky. The colors themselves are already a riddle. I guess that anyone who tries to match the original colors through photographs becomes crazy at some point, because light and weathering make them look VERY different from machine to machine, and even from picture to picture!
The Viggen's proportions hardly match a Valkyrie, but I tried my best to apply the 'Fields & Meadows' scheme on the upper surfaces. But transferring a scheme from a fixed double delta wing airplane onto a variable geometry wing fighter just leaves lots of room for interpretation... After extensive research (and experience with two 'Fields & Meadows' Viggens in 1/72 scale in the past) I finally settled for the small Valykrie on:
Light Green "322M" = Testors/Model Master 1734 (Green Zinc Chromate)
Dark Green "326M" = Humbrol 117 (Leaf Green, FS34102)
Black "093M" = Mix of Humbrol's 33 & 91 (Flat Black & Black Green) in 1:1 ratio
Earth "507M" = Testors/Model Master 2008 (Raw Sienna)
Grey undersides "058M" = Testors/Model Master 2086 (RLM76, Lichtblau)
The Zinc Chromate sounds crude and IS very bright, but on the 1/100 scale Valkyrie this extreme green is O.K., esp. with the later black ink wash which tones down everything a bit. At 1/72 scale I would have rather used Humbrol's 80 (Grass Green), which is a bit "milder" and comes IMHO very close to the real life color.
Humbrol 117 for the dark green tone is a compromise, and IMHO still a bit too dark. During pre-tests I found more authentic but even darker greens like Humbrol's 116 (FS 34079), 75 (Bronze Green) or 30 (Dark Green) to be too murky for the small kit. 117 is already considerably "brighter", and this contrast was simply necessary for a good overall impression of the camouflage scheme - the dark green was supposed to stand out against both the light green and the black fields. I should have used RAL6003, but the way it turned out is still acceptable.
Instead of pure black which 'Fields & Meadows' is supposed to contain, I went for a very dark green, which also yields a slightly bleached look. Some pictures of real Viggen also suggest that the "Black" is actually a greenish tone.
Testors' Raw Sienna from their figure color series is a very good match for the Viggen's light earth color patches. Another, more common but also very plausible alternative is Humbrol's 118 (US Tan, FS30219). Again, pictures of real Viggen suggest a wide variety of light brown shades due to fading and light influences! The Sienna is more yellowish, though, so I went for that tone.
Finally, RLM76 for the undersides was a surprise find! Originally, FS36375 (Humbrol 127) was my choice. But when I checked other paints in store I found Testors' RLM76 to be a tad lighter and with a stronger bluish hue - exactly the look I had been searching for for this kit, without need for mixing.
The radar nose became semi-gloss black and the wings' leading edges were painted in flatr aluminium Markings were consciously left simple, trying to emulate the stern original Viggen look as much as possible, with no flashy distractions. Consequently, there are just standard Macross roundels instead of Swedish insignia (which look, in red/white instead of blue/yellow, a bit disturbing?), a yellow squadron number at the cockpit (for SVF-15) and the red individual airplane number on the vertical fins' outsides. Only a falcon squadron empblem in red and yellow found its way onto the fins (it comes from an Israeli IAI Kfir from a Hasegawa kit), because the colors matched well with the overall look of the kit.
After basic painting, the kit received a light wash with black ink and some fine liner treatment. Then, decals and finally a coat of matte varnish was appllied. The end result looks cool, though, whatever one might quibble about authenticity!
Some extra effort went into the ordnance under this VF-1A's wings, though: the outer pylons hold a 4-missile launcher each (leftover from a fictional but neat ESCI Kamow Ka-34 'Hokum' kit), the inner pylons carry larger cruise missiles which were inspired by the characteristic Rb04E and more modern Rbs-15 anti-ship/surface missiles the AJ37 used to carry in its heydays.
These are actually modified Norwegian AGM-119C 'Penguin' missiles in 1/72 which I found in a Hasegawa F-16 weapon kit and never has a use for. I shortened the fuselage, changed the main fins into wing end plate types and added details like an underbelly air intake for a jet engine (like the more modern RBS-15 missile now carried by the Gripen) and an exhaust nozzle. Finally, these missiles were painted to look like a Rb04E in white, black and aluminium - they help a lot in order to create a "vintage AJ37 feel" to this Valkyrie.
Even when the finish is not perfect, it is amazing to see how well even such an exotic livery works on a Macross Valkyrie - it suits her well, as an hommage to one of the most famous (and attractive?) camouflage schemes ever applied to military verhicles.