Hi Terri - nice to hear from my neighbor to the north - WAY north !
I underpaint with acrylics and overpaint with tube oils - final flat coat is AK ultra matte varnish - same as on aircraft.
If you are interested the best guide still - IMHO - is the late , GREAT Shep Paine's
" How to Build Dioramas " by Kalmbach Books. Wonderful tutorial on face and figure painting included amongst all the other great stuff.
I am very tempted to try some acrylics though- the drying time for some oil colors stretches to eternity.
Thanks for looking in - Richard

Richard-- Not sure how I missed your excellent build of the Oscar's-- one of my favorite Japanese aircraft--just super work! It could be the "1/48" in the title, as I mostly build in 1/32 though-- I guess that was it. Here's a trick I use to speed up drying time for oil paint-- I thin it in one of those nylon artist pallets with the small dish shapes, with mineral spirits with a drop or two of lacquer thinner added-- it will bring the drying time down to the level of an enamel paint--the more lacquer thinner, the faster the drying time. You just have to be careful working it into the base coat, because the lacquer thinner may tend to eat into the base coat if you rub to hard with the brush. The way I get around this is to ensure the base coat has at least 48 hours to dry. I use this method both for wood grain effects (aka the WnW tutorial for wood grain) and faces.
VR, Russ

I used to have that book , but I passed it on to a nephew who was getting into scale modeling . That was 17 years ago . It was my bible at the time for scratch building and weathering which help my skills in WW 1 modeling when I started building them .

Never tired oils as an over lay . Never have luck with oils but I have been messing with Vallejo brush paints . But my results are still no better . I should be practicing this more . Until next time my friend from the deep South


Terri

Drats!!!... Now mine needs a cockpit air vent tube too

Your Hyabusa is looking awesome Richard. The pilot figure is definitely the cherry on top imho. Much more realistic than your average pilot figure. I can almost see him wiggling his fingers or drumming his hands on the fuselage anxiously waiting for the ground crew to hook up the starter truck

Working on posing two ground crew figures for the diorama - both from the FineMolds Ki 10 kit. The hand/forearm for the Hucks truck driver is from Eduard's IJAAF figure set. I hope to portray the driver hanging on to the steering wheel while leaning out of the truck and signaling to the pilot and ground crewman who will be resting his hand on the wing while holding the lanyard for a wheel chock in the other.
The driver needed cutting at the hip and knee to position the left leg. The fore arm and torso were bored with a .020" bit to accept a piece of .020" brass rod as an armature. Boring all the way through the torso will allow me to place the hand on the wheel and the driver in position and then fix the rod at the torso with C/A. The upper arm can then be built up and sculpted with milliput.
The groung crewman needed his right arm severed at the shoulder and elbow to pose on the wing. All joints will be tuned up with Milliput.













Thanks for looking in - Richard

Great work with the figures Richard they are not my forte and I highly respect those that work with them. The project as a whole seems to be coming together nicely looking forward to seeing it progress.

Mike and Chris -

Thanks gents for looking in and the compliments - figures can make or break a scene and I hope these don't break it - we'll see I suppose !

Richard

A little more progress on the figures-









Working on scene composition-





Thanks for looking ! - Richard

Hi to all-
My apologies for the lack of updates to those who may be following and wondering - still alive here but I've been busy with a 1/1 scale diorama including a figure my wife and I put together 30 years ago - our first daughter !



Ha - thanks for allowing the detour !

Here is as far as I have gotten with the figures - should have more time at the bench now .





Thanks for looking ! Richard

Richard, congrats on the event. Nice looking location.

What color is on the starter truck?

Bob

Richard,
Nice job on all the work posted! Congrats on the wedding too. Can't wait to see the Oscar dio finished. Are you planning on starting the K143II also? I have the Hasegawa 1/32 kit, with Eduard PE and decals-- but just haven't got up the energy to start it yet. Maybe Ill wait and see where yours goes.
VR, Russ

Thanks Bob- here is link to starter truck build - paint details are in there somewhere .

http://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/forums/243710&page=1

Thanks Russ- I have a number of Hayabusas in the stash - both Hasegawa and FineMolds - the next one I do will be a Ki 43 -II in NMF . Thinking of using a Hasegawa kit and correcting the fuselage/cowl and making resin castings of them. Currently I have two early FineMolds Claudes in primer to finish first. And then there is the WnW D VII tugging at me as well -

Cheers - Richard

Thanks Richard, I looked up your paint for the truck:

[quote]I first pre shaded with Tamiya XF 1 Flat Black mixed 50/50 with 91% isopropyl alcohol. I mixed Tamiya XF 49 Khaki with XF 64
Red Brown at a 2 to 1 ratio for the IJAAF brown base color. The first highlight was done with the base color mix lightened with Tamiya XF 60 Dark Yellow sprayed in halo pattern.[quote]

this will help in the future.

Bob

Alittle progress on the ground crew figures -





trying to get back in the groove here but life gets in the way at times -

Thanks for looking -Richard

Beautiful work on your figures! The faces are well done and the uniform colors look good, right down to the buttons

Thanks Mike ! I have separated the Hucks truck from the base and I am wrestling with the composition - trying to determine base size/shape -more difficult than it would seem - How is your Oscar coming along ? I'm anxious to see more of it -

Thanks for looking in - Richard

Well folks - just got my extortion note from photobucket demanding $ 399 per year for third party hosting - I guess this blog is on hold till I figure out what to do - obviously I am shopping for a new image host because Photobucket is very problematic and apparently even the 12 bucks a year deal won't let you post images to sites like this anymore. If anyone can tell me the 3rd party hosting policies of other hosts such as Imgur or Image Shack I would be grateful - I went to both their sites but couldn't find a " contact us " link to ask directly - too bad as I really enjoy this but not to the tune of 400 bucks a year for a host that is broken or agonizingly slow half the time . Good riddance Photobucket

Richard, I just started with Postimage and it seems to work good for me.

https://old.postimage.org/

Bob

Reposting my rant here to keep my blog alive while I explore hosting options.

The more I contemplate Photobucket's recent action the more angry I become. I am not well versed in internet technology but I learn more every day. I am a relative newcomer to the blog world - my first was the Hucks truck started here on Aeroscale at the end of January 2016 so a total of a year and a half- I'm a relative beginner.

I struggled tremendously with photo posting initially - the first page of my first blog painfully and embaressingly revealed my ignorance in these matters but with the help of Jessica and others I eventually got it. The sharing of our hobby with each other became a source of great joy for me .

I signed up with Photobucket several years ago at the recommendation of my daughter to store a few photos of one of my other passions - Norton motorcycles - because I had no i pad at the time and the pics were on my wife's digital camera. I think the sum total of images I had on photo bucket until I started my first blog here was approximately 12.

My account is the free one - I had no knowledge that they even offered anything other than the $ 12 deal to bypass the ads. Frankly, the ads never troubled me that much and I make it point to click on them from time to time because I understand that is how they make their income.

Apparently the more images one posts and the more people view them it increases the requirements ( bandwidths ? ) on Photobuckets part - again let me state my ignorance regarding this technology. Photobucket is a business that provides a service and as such they are entitled to their profits. I have since learned that they previously offered a $ 60. program that took care of the bandwidth issues - I know this because my brother in law who frequently posts his armor work paid for this program but now he - like myself and many,many others - has been told he now needs to pay $ 400. per year . How does a business make the leap to charge $ 400. per year for something they managed to provide previously and presumably profitably for $ 60. ?

As a private business they are entitled to charge whatever they like and I will be the first to defend their right to do so. What they are NOT entitled to do is vandalize other peoples' hard work by taking down the photos which they previously allowed. I don't know the legality of who owns the images once they are stored on PB - I do know they did not take the photos I posted - I did . Some of the money I earn gets stored in the bank
- they don't own it - I do. The photos did not get posted by PB - they were posted by me through my efforts - surely I should have some say in their disposition. This travesty that PB has initiated hasn't just affected us on Kitmaker - it has undone the hard work of likely hundreds of thousands if not millions of individuals who post pictures for thousands of reasons ranging from hobbies to selling things to earning their livelihood and seems to me in my very amateur awareness of legal matters to be a very real basis for a class action lawsuit.



I have no problem paying for what I use providing it seems fair and reasonable. If it seems unfair and/or unreasonable I have the option of using a different provider.

I have a TREMENDOUS problem with one of the parties in a previously mutually beneficial relationship tearing down the work of another and holding it for ransom which is precisely what Photobucket has done to me and a great , great many others.

The right thing for Photobucket to do is reinstate all the images EVERYWHERE that were posted before their policy change - let us see if they can man up and do it - HOW ABOUT IT PHOTOBUCKET - ARE YOU LISTENING ?

Richard,
Firstly, thanks for trying to help me with my own quest to get photos into the blog. I hear your frustration, and in a way, I'm glad I didn't post earlier, as I would be very upset, like you, and rightfully so. It's one thing for a company to charge, but to steal and then trash ones work is another, as you have so eloquently stated. Having said that, I'm trying to figure out what course I will take, having set up accounts with both Flickr and Imageshack. My dilemma though is knowing which is easier/ better for posting-- does anyone have any idea? I think I can safely say that PB won't be anybody's go to site in the future. I wonder how they can stay in business with such bad press. I am not a victim of PB like many of you out there are, but I will stay away from them after seeing the angst they have caused among others.
VR, Russ

Thanks Russ - As always a pleasure to hear from you - even in the negative atmosphere that Photof--kit has fostered. I think this whole debacle will prove to be a watershed event in the way this whole hosting thing works - I predict a class action lawsuit against Photobucket and their ultimate collapse . In spite of how I believe I, along with a great many others, was wronged by this I won't take delight if they fail because I think they were pioneers in their field and I believe that the litigious nature of our legal system in the USA is unhealthy for most -
I don't pretend to know the solution to this. Had I known about the $ 60. /yr program and had some assurance that it had reasonable permanence with modest inevitable cost increases I would have gladly paid it. I certainly would not do it now at any cost- greater or lesser - because my hobby ( Passion ? ) is not more important than my principles.
Ideally the solution may be in subscribing to Kitmaker and have them host the images but their system is very cumbersome ( at least for me ) to post images. They are likely caught between a rock and a hard place as I am sure improvements require capitalization which may not be there or prove to be equitable.

I hope this all shakes out in a way that is good for everyone as I truly enjoy this community - Chins up everyone - Richard

Imgur is reasonably stable, and I have not had any problems with third pary hosting. (I would guess most websites don't even make a blip on their bandwith measures.)

Personally I tend to just link photos from my own wordpress blog.

Tusen tuck Eirik - My mother was from Tonsberg and I am enjoying a piece of Gjetost as I write this - God dag ! Richard

Wordpress seems to be a good idea, I'm also using it but there are also other services. I've always been using Imageshack, which costs me under $40 per year and works well and easy. By the way I think it's a good idea to have at least two independent photo services.

As for the PB, thankfully the issue didn't hit me badly, used them occasionally... PB sucks, they would have to pay me $400 per year to use them.

Best regards
Hubert