Hello friends.
Breaking silence from a fairly busy final year of work in a new job. By final year, I mean retirement from the Canadian Forces in June 2020. , which I quite look forward to. By new job, well, I like it and it keeps my busy, so all good.
Not a lot of hobby time of late, but I have been on a bit of a model airplane kit. Not sure why. I built quite a few plastic kids as a kid, and it’s enjoyable to revisit that part of my past.
At least a decade ago, I bought an Airfix 1/72nd scale Typhoon for WW2 gaming. It was typical of the old Airfix kits, a few parts, poorly moulded, and not very interesting. I made a start on it, lost interest, and forgot about it. Found it last year, realized I had lost the clear plastic canopy, and took a chance on emailing Airfix customer service to see if I could get a replacement. Lo and behold they sent one in the post, free of charge, and that inspired me to finish the job.
A fairly simple paint job, and here it is, ready to make a brief appearance in a 20mm war-game as the scourge of some poor panzer.
Zoom zoom.
Typhoon on a stick. The stand is a fairly thick piece of dowel with a nail at the top, which inserts into the bottom of he fuselage. The bottom of the dowel is glued onto a base which is heavily weighted by a large metal washer. Works fairly well.
I enjoyed making this so much that I went out and bought another one, a fairly new release, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much quality Airfix has put into their products. The quality of the parts, the complexity of the model, the detail of the instructions and the options for assembly were all vastly improved over my old Typhoon kit.
Here’s the finished product in the decals and paint scheme of a Typhoon in a Canadian squadron in early 1945. I chose to make it with the landing gear down, which is always a tricky business for me, as the parts can be fiddly in the smaller scales and the strut assemblies sometimes lack strength to support the model. Here it worked fairly well.
The kit includes the possibility of opening the gun compartments, which appealed to me, even though it required some delicate surgery with a craft knife. That and the open canopy suggest that the pilot if waiting for the final check by his ground crew.
What does this have to do with wargaming? Nothing, really, but he will sit on a shelf behind my desk at work, and it gives me ridiculous amounts of pleasure to glance at it from time to time.
What have you made, not for gaming, but just for the pleasure of making it?
Wonderful and good to hear that Airfix are upping their game. Sometimes just doing things for no other reason than it makes us happy is a good things.
ReplyDeleteGood to have you posting again. The aeroplane looks great. I am hopefully going to grasp the nettle soon and buy & build a 1/72 kit to use in my games. I haven’t built one since my youth. My hobby stuff is really related, albeit tangentially sometimes, to some ongoing protect be it one on the front or back burner.
ReplyDeleteA nice pair of planes. I've always had a soft spot for the Typhoon :)
ReplyDeleteThey look great Michael. I have many miniatures and conversions. That i have painted and converted over the years to just have in my collection. Mostly my favourite movie or book characters really.
ReplyDeleteThey (Typhoons) both look great. I have a few limber/vignette pieces to paint to look at for the sheer eye candy.
ReplyDeleteGood luck in the new endeavor.
I do love me a good Tyffie. Those things were also the scourge of their own armour sadly. :/
ReplyDeleteGood to see you having a little time for posting again mate.
Random models for the heck of it? Not much of late, but I have a whole stack of random fantasy minis that I prep, prime, base and have sat in a drawer just to cleanse the hobby-palette from time to time. (See my previous posts on some random early 90's Minotaurs I recently-ish got done for that reason alone.)
Hello Padre, glad to see you are keeping yourself amused. Like you, I have enjoyed making models, and most of the time that is sublimated in model buildings for my TooFatLardies games, but I have acquired some very nice 1/48 kits, telling myself they can be used for scenery, like a Tamiya Mosquito that I'm very much looking forward to putting together.
ReplyDeleteIn gaming terms, there's nothing quite like an actual model to remind yourself that you have an asset to use. By doing two typhoons, you can use the 2nd one as the reminder along the base edge, and the 1st one on the stick as the impact point when you actually call on the asset and it arrives.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that there's anything that can't be used in gaming if you put enough imagination, creativity, and inventiveness into the project.
BTW, in the Trumpeter Fall In, we were playing modified Force On Force and had a Typhoon on call. So we did and Germans suffered a damaged Panther, destroyed 251, and a few infantry casualties. Unfortunately, the Game Master had suffered damaged to his lovely little Tiffie model before we even started the game, so it's appearance was nominal rather than actual.
ReplyDeleteNicely done. You've successfully completed PO "Build a Model Aircraft" for level 1 Air Cadets
ReplyDeleteCan’t go wrong with a Typhoon! I applaud your decision to cut open the wings of the new one - I’m not sure I’d have been able to bring myself to do that.
ReplyDeleteGreat looking pair of birds, Michael! New job AND retirement? That is an odd combination.
ReplyDeleteI like the use of the stick so I'm stealing it for a JU87 I plan to paint up for a future WW2 project, thanks :)
ReplyDeleteJames
https://forlornhopegaming.wordpress.com
Great looking pair of Typhoons! As I don't seem to play much , most of my stuff is just to sit on a shelf and to throw sugar at! ( My mum's phrase, I've no idea where it came from!)
ReplyDeleteBest Iain