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Making 25 floors..then I had to cut an evenly spaced hole in the middle of each one before painting them dark grey.
used the following gundams for kitbash
1Red Frame Astray
2Legend Gundam
3Aegis Gundam
4Sword Strike Gundam
Non-transformable super articulated Devastator, with lots of new parts on his upper torso, for a bulkier and more blocky look. New shoulders/biceps section, for improved articulation, with ratchet joints (leader class Prime).
Figure / boots: Ultra Corps snowboarder
Uniform: vintage 70's Action Man
I think this custom 12' Snow Job turned out super! Can't wait to use him in the snow :D
Ripping apart 5 building kits. It took some time to get the windows out with out breaking them as they are glued in.
Headmaster Duros. This is a little bit of a teaser for a project I am soon to finish up. I got a little ahead of myself and wanted to post these tonigh (no pun intended)
Duros was built using mainly U. Nightstick and lower legs from a minicon, who's name I don't remember. I added HLJ ball joints at the hips giving it even more articulation. He stands about 1.75" tall.
Non-transformable super articulated Devastator, with lots of new parts on his upper torso, for a bulkier and more blocky look. New shoulders/biceps section, for improved articulation, with ratchet joints (leader class Prime).
I started to detail the top section. Though I'm only have way done. I need to spend a good hour or so painting and detailing the roof and top piece.
Then I need to glue on advertisements on the signs.
Roof details. I aged and weathered the roof. I also added an extra Chimney, vent, and air conditioner.
I've been wanting to make this figure for a long time, finally found a decent looking uniform to make it happen, this is based on the US soldiers that responded to the 'black mesa incident' in the first half-life and it's expansions
known as 'human grunts' they fought against the invading aliens, the player. and pretty much everyone in an attempt to contain and coverup the incident,
their uniforms have long since been a favorite of mine and I'm glad I've finally got one in my collection, I'd love to make more but I have no idea where this uniform came from haha
Custom buildings are not the easiest structures to build for a relative novice like myself. I originally was going to use Walthers' Modulars Kits for this project, but W.K. Walthers discontinued them. Therefore, I used DPM kits instead. The annex is a Pola Pickle Factory kit.
All I really got done today was painting the facade walls. I also have to clean up a few of the edges still on the panel parts. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more work on this tomorrow. (Saturday)
I'll hopefully get the building together and start to add details, and weathering to the facade as well.
I'm going to modify the top a little bit and the ground floor entry from how the kit comes out of the box.
I also like the dull brown over the bright lime green. Once this is weathered it'll bring the facade to life as well.
More to come tomorrow.
Painting and markings:
This was quite a challenge, because I initially was not certain who the manufacturer and operator of this fictional aircraft should be? Japan and Sweden were initial choices, but since there had been some indigenous and quite exotic designs after WWII I eventually settled for Switzerland. Another reason for this choice was the fact that I had wanted to apply the rather unique “layered” camouflage on a model, and this was great opportunity.
I have no information about the colors/tones that had been used, e. g. on some Doflug D-3801/03 fighters or one or two EFW P.16 prototypes. But apparently some darker shades, including dark green and earth brown (and probably more!) were applied with broad brushes or even a mop over a grey uniform basis, probably the same light tone that was used for the undersides. From the poor b/w pics I’d say that every aircraft received an individual pattern, and I used a color picture of a P.16 (which offered a good view on the upper surfaces, even though in a very weathered state) as benchmark and tried to replicate the look.
Things started with an overall coat with Humbrol 165 (RAF Medium Sea Grey). Then I used thinned acrylic paint to layer wavy lines with Revell 45 (Farngrau, close to RLM02) and 82 (Earth), both tones offered only little contrast to the underlying grey. Then came more wiggles with 42 (Gelboliv, RAL 6014) and finally with 84 (Lederbraun, RAL 8027) – resulting in a very disruptive pattern that really breaks up the airframe’s outlines and hides almost all surface details. Disturbingly effective!
The cockpit was painted in a very dark grey (Revell 06, Anthracite) and the landing gear as well as the respective wells in a mix of Humbrol 11 and 165, for a dull metallic grey.
After that the model received an overall black ink washing as well as some post-shading on the lower surfaces – a futile task on the upper camouflage, because of its cluttered character!
Markings became minimal, just with Swiss roundels procured from an F-5E sheet for the fins and from a generic markings sheet from TL Modellbau for the bigger wing markings. The tactical code was adapted from a Swiss BAe Hawk trainer (U-1257, the U was turned into a J with a cutter knife…). To add some color I painted the spinner red and added fictional unit markings to the nose, as well as some red warning markings, stencils and fake louvres around the engine.
a fellow boardie over at the 3A Forum, name of wwwetworks, asked me if i'd liked to paint up one of his cool kitbash customs.
it's based on ashley woods Adventure Kartel (AK) Zombot, with added WWRp Bramble arms.
of course i said yes!
what's cooler than to paint up a zombie???
it was a lot of fun, indeed!
thanks again for this cool job, carlo!
A kitbash using a Phicen body and the blonde headsculpt by Kimi , also wearing a cowgirl outfit by Super Duck .
Phicen kitbash using the Little Red Riding Hood headsculpt . For the life of me I still can't find a proper Phicen body that matches this particular headsculpt ,this is the pale body and it still doesn't match , so frustrating >:(
I finally pulled out the razor saw & mitre box and shortened the nose to a more prototypical length. I needed to shorten the nose by ~10" (about 2.9mm) so I took out a slice that's about 2.5mm, and that and the sawcuts brought the nose back enough so that the front walkways are no longer deathtraps.
Lots still to do on just this nose! I need to scrounge a louver section from one of the scrap rs32 shells I've got (I bought 3 of them for 578 & 576, plus one spare. One long hood is going onto the B11, and that leaves enough to cut up for louvers), fill the gaps in the new joint, and set up pilot holes for grab irons and the ladder up the DS of the hood. But nevertheless 578 no longer looks like it has RSD15 envy, which is a necessary start to this kitbash.
A kitbash using a Phicen body with a Scarlet Witch headsculpt by Hot Toy's and an outfit by Super Duck .
A kitbash using a Phicen body and the blonde headsculpt by Kimi , also wearing a cowgirl outfit by Super Duck .
The last Kitbash Widow I'm going be doing for a while (parts aren't cheap nor easy to get is a sorely needed upgrade of the Endgame figure.
Effectively everything about the Hot Toys releases screamed disappointment, with the only exception being the suit which was the first of the "stretchy" releases.
The sculpted ponytail was removed and rehaired to resemble Natasha's look from the teleconference scene in Endgame. Colours are definitely more vibrant, but the artist and I were in an experimenting mood.
As expected, the suit held up reasonably well, though I'd be lying if I said it came out flawless. The suit came shaped like a really crappy hourglass, which helped with not only the fitting into the body but also with giving the body a better sense of curves than the other ones.
I've been wanting to make this figure for a long time, finally found a decent looking uniform to make it happen, this is based on the US soldiers that responded to the 'black mesa incident' in the first half-life and it's expansions
known as 'human grunts' they fought against the invading aliens, the player. and pretty much everyone in an attempt to contain and coverup the incident,
their uniforms have long since been a favorite of mine and I'm glad I've finally got one in my collection, I'd love to make more but I have no idea where this uniform came from haha
Everyone has gotten such a kick out of this G.I. Joe mod that I thought I'd go ahead and upload one of my deleted outtakes.
So here they are...all the wall pieces and glass pieces. They are all sanded down and sized to be glued together.
That said I made one small boo boo on one wall piece. I'll have to fix it as there will be a small gap in the side wall in one spot. I have extra material from the extra bottoms. I'll be able to fix this with hardly a noticeable clue.
Also I'm going to paint the wall sections. I hate the lime green. I also hate the plastic look. As well I'm going to change the store frontage too. Yuck.
Anyways I'll get to this tomorrow. I'll post my updates later tomorrow. :D
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some Background:
The Nanchang J-9C was a mid-sized interceptor for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) that had been developed during the Eighties. By the late Seventies, a new benchmark fighter had entered the global stage, the General Dynamics F-16, and the Ministry of Defense issued a new requirement on 9 June 1979 - and slightly revised it in November – to develop an air superiority fighter with comparable performance, since the Chinese People's Liberation Army’s standard fighters of the time, the J-7 (a derivative of the Soviet MiG-21, used by both PLAAF and PLAN) and the indigenous J-8 (used by the PLAAF only), appeared both outdated and no match for the American product anymore.
The fighter project started under the designation J-9II, inherited from the stillborn (and unrelated) Chengdu J-9 heavy interceptor project that had already been proposed in 1964 and eventually, after many iterations, evermore demanding requirements concerning range and speed but no prototypes, been cancelled in 1980. To reflect the second use of the designation and avoid confusion, the new type was called J-9II (later renamed into J-9B).
The J-9II was heavily inspired by the American 4thgeneration F-16, but eventually was a very different aircraft, even though the J-9II shared the F-16’s general layout, including the characteristic lip air intake. Rumor has it that information about the American type was acquired from Egypt where the F-16 had been introduced in 1982.
Two different variants of single airframe were initially proposed by Nanchang Aircraft Factory to cater to the slightly different needs of both PLAAF and PLAN. The navy variant was already dropped in 1981, though, while the air force variant was tailored to execute fast interception missions, with a secondary ground attack capability. However, from a technological standpoint, the J-9II was still only a 3rd generation fighter, at best, and suffered from several shortcomings. For instance, the J-9II’s wing geometry was very similar to the J-7s’ and J-8s’ clipped delta wings, even though they were combined with a blended body on the upper surface for additional lift and featured organically integrated LERX that improved handling at high angles of attack. The highly swept wings gave great speed and roll characteristics, but provided poor lift at low speed what limited the J-9II’s utility as a frontline fighter.
The aircraft’s powerplant was a single WS-9 Qinling twin-shaft turbofan engine, which was a blunt copy of the British Rolls Royce RB.168 Spey 202, originally exported to China in 1975 violating the COCOM restrictions. At the time of the J-9II’s development the copied Spey was, like many other aspects of the aircraft, no longer state-of-the-art, but it was the only suitable engine for the project. In the J-9II it was paired with an indigenous afterburner.
This semi-indigenous engine turned out to be notoriously unreliable and hardly provided the promised output of 53.4 kN/12,140 lbf dry thrust and 91.2 kN/20,500 lbf with reheat, leaving the aircraft notoriously underpowered. For comparison, the F-16A benchmark’s Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 turbofan was rated at 14,670 lbf/64.9 kN and 23,830 lbf/106.0 kN with afterburner. The J-9II’s higher structural weight due to the limited use of light composite material hampered its performance even further.
Other differences from the F-16 included a single foldable fin in the style of the Soviet MiG-23/27 (a solution also employed on the J-8 interceptor) instead of a pair of fixed vanes on the F-16, and the pilot sat in a more upright position under a taller and conventional canopy with a fixed 3-part windscreen. Even though the lip air intake was in the same position as on the F-16, it had a totally different square shape and geometry with an adjustable intake ramp and auxiliary intakes with feathered covers on the flanks to prevent engine surge.
The J-9II’s avionics were quite state-of-the-art, though, but not highly capable when compared with foreign systems and based on existing equipment. Its primary armament consisted of IR-guided PL-5 (based on the Soviet Vympel K-13) and PL-8 short-range AAMs (a license-built Version of the Israeli Python 3), and semi-active radar-guided PL-11 mid-range AAMs (a license-built version of the Italian Aspide missile, which itself was an ungraded AIM-7 Sparrow). A total of seven hardpoints were available for a total external ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb). Secondary armament consisted of a ventral Type 23-III twin-barrel cannon, a copy of the Soviet Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23L. The radar was a modified Type 1471 pulse-Doppler radar, placed under a pointed nose radome, which had a bigger diameter than the F-16’s installation, what gave the J-9II, together with the deeper cockpit section and its more bulbous canopy, a markedly different profile.
The first J-9II prototype was rolled out in August 1988 and shortly thereafter unveiled to the public in September 1988 at Farnborough International Air Show, where it was officially baptized “Tiān Hǔ” (天虎, Heavenly Tiger) – a first among Chinese military aircraft, which had until then lacked such an accolade. At the same time, it was given the AFIC code name “Freshman” by NATO. The first batch of eight J-9II aircraft was delivered to the PLAAF for evaluation in the early 1990’s. After a year of testing the air force agreed to procure more aircraft of the new type after upgrading the avionics and weapons suite with improved technology. This upgraded J-9II was then – following the PLAAF’s revised naming system – designated J-9C. The first serial production aircraft built to this revised standard were delivered to PLAAF units probably in 2001, where they primarily replaced outdated 1st generation J-8Is and some J-7 fighters, too.
However, on the PLAAF’s agenda, the J-9C was quickly superseded by the Chengdu J-10 “Vigorous Dragon” (NATO reporting name: Firebird), another medium-weight, single-engine, multirole combat aircraft. The J-10 was capable of all-weather operations and configured with a delta wing and canard design, with fly-by-wire flight controls. This project had been kicked off as early as 1981 and developed in parallel to the J-9II, even though with more severe delays, so that the Tiān Hǔ’s development had been kept up to ensure at least one more modern interceptor type for the PLAAF from 2000 on. Compared with the J-9C, the J-10 was a much more modern aircraft overall and a true 4th generation fighter on par with the F-16. When the first J-10s were delivered to the PLAAF in 2003, only two years after the first J-9Cs, the latter’s production was shut down after only roughly 100 aircraft that were exclusively operated by PLAAF interceptor regiments.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 17,06 m (55 ft 10¾ in) overall incl. pitot
Wingspan: 8,93 m (29 ft 3 in)
Height: 4,25 m (13 ft 11 in)
Wing area: 30,5 m² (327 sqft)
Empty weight: 9.373 kg (20,645 lb)
Gross weight: 13.036 kg (28,713 lb) with full internal fuel
Max takeoff weight: 19.250 kg (42,400 lb)
Fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) internal
Powerplant:
1× Xian WS-9 Qinling twin-shaft turbofan engine with afterburner,
with 53.4 kN (12,140 lbf ) dry thrust and 91.2 kN (20,500 lbf) with reheat
Performance
Maximum speed: (1,825 km/h (1,134 mph, 985 kn, Mach 1.72) at 35,000 ft (11,000 m), clean
Combat range: 1,000 km (620 mi, 540 nmi) radius with 4x AAMs and 2x drop tanks
Ferry range: 4,217 km (2,620 mi, 2,277 nmi) with 3x drop tanks, subsonic
Service ceiling: 17,500 m (57,400 ft)
Time to altitude: 17,000 m (56,000 ft) in 8 minutes 30 seconds
Rate of climb: 224 m/s (44,100 ft/min) at sea level
Roll rate: 275°/s
g limits: +6.0 sustained at 5,000 m (16,000 ft)
Thrust-to-weight: 0.72
Wing loading: 87.8 lb/sq ft (427 kg/m²)
Unstick speed: 330 km/h (210 mph; 180 kn)
Take-off run: 630 m (2,070 ft)
Touchdown speed: 224 km/h (139 mph; 121 kn)
Landing run: 900 m (3,000 ft)
Armament:
1× internal 23 mm Type 23-III (Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23L) autocannon with 200 rounds
7x external hardpoints for a total ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb)
The kit and its assembly:
This what-if model was inspired by an online picture of a model, probably at a convention or competition, that I had seen many years ago: it was an F-16 with wings and stabilizers from a MiG-21 in Czech markings and with a brown/green camouflage livery. While the idea appeared odd the highly swept wings blended well into the F-16’s LERXs – and I wanted to re-create this someday.
This has happened now, even though I put some more effort into the model and furthermore stumbled over some layout questions while building it. At the core this is a Hasegawa F-16A, mated with MiG-21 wings (probably from an Academy MiG-21 F-13) and many other additional mods.
These included:
- A new, deeper nose radome from a Nakotne MiG-29 (which has a totally wrong shape with a flat underside)
- A different sliding two-piece canopy (from a Hasegawa Grumman F9F Panther) with a classic layout for an old-school look
- Fin and stabilizers taken wholesale from a PM Model Su-15, because MiG-21 surfaces appeared too small
- A twin wheel front landing gear leg with modified covers
- Different main landing gear struts with F-16 wheels
- A new exhaust installation that has a more Spey-esque shrouded layout (as on the British Phantoms); two exhaust sections from F-16 kits were glue behind each other to extend the fuselage, and a J79 nozzle (from an Italeri IAI Kfir) was mounted inside
- The F-16’s ventral twin fins were replaced with a single foldable MiG-23 fin (from an Academy kit)
- A new “pizza oven-style” air intake, blended into the lower F-16 body with LOTS of PSR
While assembling this thing and recognizing that the MiG-21 wings would shift the center of lift considerably further back I wondered if the F-16’s original landing gear with its relatively short wheelbase would work on the J-9C at all, even more so because the fuselage would be extended at the tail with the different Spey exhaust arrangement. The inspiring benchmark picture of the Czech AF kitbash was taken from an angle that did not reveal the landing gear at all, probably on purpose… To avoid any trouble later, I decided even before I closed the fuselage halves to move the whole main landing gear and its bay backwards by about 0.5”/13 mm. Two ventral sections were cut out, switched positions, and PSRed back into the body again. Messy, but worthwhile.
Blending the wings into the F-16 body was not too complicated, even though the deeper MiG-21 wings left a significant gap at their trailing edge. To bridge this, I cut out of the respective sections from the F-16 wings, glued them flush with the MiG-21 wings’ trailing edges and later filled the resulting hole with putty.
The nose section was also rather tricky. To get away from the sleek F-16 look I implanted a different canopy, which required the cockpit opening to be raised and leveled out with the help of styrene profiles and lots of PSR. Additionally, I decided to replace the original flat radome with a taller one, so that there was a new raised are in front of the windscreen. With even more PSR this worked, and the result has a strange Su-27ish look! Inside of the cockpit the F-16 parts remained, I just mounted the seat in a more upright position (and filled its back) and had to sculpt the rear bulkhead new with putty and paper tissue drenched in white glue due to the opening’s raised edge.
Another element for a different silhouette was the air intake; instead of the F-16’s oval opening with a fixed geometry I constructed an implant from Su-15 intakes, with a ramp and a totally different (square) shape, which reminds a lot of the J-10’s arrangement and also a little of the Eurfoghter/Typhoon and the experimental MiG Ye-8.
The landing gear was totally changed, too, with a new twin front wheel arrangement and modified covers as well as main landing gear struts from a MiG-23/27 (Academy kit), which were glued together in a different fashion (upper segments turned by 90° so that they hang vertically in the hull) and into the wells that were moved back, yet with the F-16’s wheels.
Additionally, I gave the aircraft a Type 23-III gun in its small, characteristic pod (left over from a Condor MiG-21), on the left side of the front landing wheel well, similar to the J-10’s arrangement.
The underwing pylons were taken from the Hasegawa F-16, the ventral pod came from an Academy MiG-23/27, placed in front of vertical styrene tube adapter as a display holder for flight scenes. The ordnance was procured from the spares bank (AIM-7 from an Intech F-16 as Aspide/PL-11 AAMs and K-13 AAMs from a KP MiG-21 clone as PL-5s). At first, I also considered a pair of drop tanks on the inner wing stations, but to give the aircraft a “faster” look I eventually left them away and only hung the AAMs under its wings.
Painting and markings:
Again a rather dry and subdued choice. Many active PLAAF aircraft, esp. the fighters, carry rather boring liveries, with only a few historic exceptions. For a whif that already looks quite strange I went for a simple solution, inspired by typical J-10s; these carry uniform light bluish-grey upper and lower surfaces with a low waterline and with only little contrast between the tones. To add a unique touch, though, I used RAL tones for the camouflage, namely RAL 7000 (Fehgrau, Revell 57) above and 7001 (Silbergrau, Revell 374) underneath, which both appear colder than the very similar FS 36320 and 36375 greys. The radome and some other di-electric panels were painted in a very dark green (RLM 71, Humbrol 91), inspired by JH-7 fighter bombers with a similar livery.
Even though the J-10 benchmark typically has its landing gear and the respective bays painted white, I decided to do for a more Soviet look and painted everything silver-grey (Humbrol 56) and the wheels received bright green wheel discs. The cockpit was painted with a medium grey (Revell 77) on the floor and the rear bulkhead, but also with the dreaded Soviet bright teal (ModelMaster 4664) on the side walls and the dashboard.
The model received a light black ink washing and some post-shading to give the uniform surface more visible structure. Markings/decals were puzzled together from the scrap box – including non-standard national insignia with white instead of yellow. Not really low-viz, due to the bright standard red, but more subdued than the normal markings – even though I assume that the decals were designed in a wrong fashion, because I have never seen this type of roundels in real life? The tactical code was puzzled together from five single digits on each flank of the air intake, following the pre-2004 PLAAF scheme for its cryptic 5-digit-codes that I found in a book. The code includes information about the aircraft’s individual code, its unit, and the respective squadron within it. Finally, the model was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and the bare metal areas around the exhaust were treated with grinded graphite to create a metallic shine.
Quite a complex build with lots of PSR, but the result looks really good, even plausible! The MiG-21 wings blend well with the F-16 fuselage and its LERXs, and the many other changes help to move the J-9C visually away from its F-16 ancestry, which makes up less than 50% of the model. Especially the new front section, with the deeper radome, taller canopy, and square air intake, make you wonder about the model’s heritage. And the all-over pale blue-grey livery adds to the authentic look, too.
Customizing office floors, and office details.
I got these ideas from my friend Jerry.
His blog is quinntopia.blogspot.com/
This guy is one of my favorite (and most valuable haha) figures in my collection, I've always loved this armor design even if compared to what the military actually uses now, this 80s vision of the future looks very obsolete, it's a perfect blend of futuristic and "G.I." look that a lot of scifi soldiers don't have, I'm really hoping hot toys revisits this license like they are with robocop, just to give me a chance to get more armor sets haha