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Well, I finally got around to taking some better photos of my models that I built during the Pandemic and learned about Focus Stacking. I've always been trying to fight the depth of field thing where only the nose of the plane is in focus and the tail is blurry - even with tonnes of light, and stepping down the aperture the physical lens limitations and the sensor size will only allow a few inches to be in focus even with Macro lenses. Anyways, here are proper photos of the planes I've built in the last 3 years... thanks.

Ah, thanks @borgified! Kind of quiet lately and busy with Holiday cleanup I hadn't kept track. I'm glad to let this one go by. Good luck everyone tonight.

Is this just a top scroller?

Pre-order for what?

Sorry @arbit I missed this - they look wonderful!!! Especially the one with the arm up if that's possible? Absolutely perfect! How can I get my gubby little hands on a printed one? 😛

NICE RECOVERY @pengbuzz - your perseverance never ceases to amaze me (it would have devastated me and I would have tossed it in the garbage). It looks better than before, I can't believe you made it from scratch, it looks awesome! Congrats. Can't wait to see the tiny 1/700 people on it!!! You are insane.

Hey @Urashiman noticed your clamps, I want to get a set, what did you feel was the most useful sizes to get, I noticed they come in 2” all the way up to 9”. I wished there was an assortment or variety pack.

Hey @pengbuzz, I'd put the cockpit control/panel decals on, you will make out that the arm consoles are blank if you look down through the canopy. Absolutely stunning Titanic @derex3592 - how could you ever part with it?!?! I could never do commissioned work as I can't part with my babies after all the hours poured into them. Unfortunately I don't have much space to display them either. Beautiful Cat @Rock - congrats, the GWH kit is really great! Might get another one after my 3 Hasegawas, 2 Finemolds are actually done?! Also I keep hearing good things about the Academy F-14 new tool.

I'd love to see your take on the Academy, I have the Fujimi 1/72 F-22 and would love to see the comparison and how you tackle the silvery grey paint finish.

I might take you up on your offer @derex3592!!! In fact I have shot a mini-gun with blanks back when I was on "Bulletproof Monk" art department - all I remember was it was so heavy I just didn't want to drop it, but there was no recoil/kickback with the blanks at all, it just sounded like a really loud wail/fart, you couldn't make out the individual rounds. I always thought being an armourer would be such a cool job! Damn you @Urashiman - you're making me want to buy one of these plamax kits... (I have too many unbuilt kits in my stash already!!!)

Hey @derex3592 totally been there and totally understand!!! I hope its going to a museum as its totally museum quality! I had such a hard time painting this stupid Nerf Pulse Rifle and its just I don't know how to use spray cans (coming from airbrushes all my life - its like painting with giant bombs with my left hand!) and the fact that the black took forever to dry and it attracted every fiber particle in my house that every time I get a coat on, I ended up sanding all the imperfections down and recoating it - 2 steps forward and 1 step back for 2 weeks! Just glad its finished. @pengbuzz you're perseverance is legendary - I would not have your patience - way to go and I love seeing you progress. Thanks everyone for the comments of real firearms - I have no experience, never seen a real gun other than the ones our armourers and prop masters show me at work. I'd love to go to a gun range someday and fire some cool weapons (that's on my list of to do things if I ever visit Florida or Las Vegas!) I poured over the movie and freezed framed it and couldn't find all the scratches I see online. I will probably just do a heavier dark wash to catch some more recesses around the angles, plates and screws when I take it apart to install the strap anchors after Christmas and call it done (I just love shooting the Nerf darts from it!!!).

@Bolt That's looking amazing!!! I love LOVE LOVE splinter/ferris schemes and its looking so good on a VF-4. Can't wait to see it finished. @Urashiman Thanks for your posts, I was wondering why do we need another VF-1 in 1/72 scale, its nice to see the differences and your build. Looking great so far! "I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher." OK finally got a little bit of time to re-assemble my Nerf Pulse Rifle. It took so long because it takes 5-7 days for the Rustoleum primer and black top coat to dry/cure, so most of that time was hanging it up and trying not to touch/play with it putting finger prints all over it. However the semi-gloss black for some reason is a dust magnet, its the paint and I would not recommend using Rustoleum spray paints on this. The silver rub turned out great, I used the Tamiya silver marker on an old rag/t-shirt and rubbed all over the semi-gloss paint and it really gave it a metallic sheen and especially catching all the highlights. I liked it so much I did it on the brown parts (note: Brown Bess is not available as a colour anywhere in North America - I didn't want to pay the exorbitant shipping from UK, so I got a really close brown with Tamiya TS-90). I'm not sure if I'm going to do all the silver chipping, I'm thinking the silver rub might be enough, as I don't see the chipping in the Aliens stills, but its dark. I used aluminum foil duct tape on cut styrene at the grenade launcher ejection slot and it turned out pretty well, they had this stupid raised "ALIENS" logo in there and I was sure I wasn't able to sand that curve perfectly smooth for a nice metal finish. I've also spray rubberized (spray can plastic-dip) the handle and grenade pump action handle and it feels great - not sure how to weather rubber though. In my rush I forgot to screw on the metal attachments I got for the strap (I will have to take the entire gun apart again to do this as that damn non-retractable stock is in the way of the screws), unfortunately I didn't get the 2" wide nylon webbing that's screen accurate, it would have cost more than the Nerf gun, instead I got a 2" wide cotton webbing in olive green. I couldn't match the screen accurate fittings either, but hey, the Nerf gun already has an extra barrel that I didn't remove, so I'll forgive myself for not being screen accurate. Being able to rapid fire Nerf bullets is way more fun than being screen accurate. I've ordered some 5mm dia eraser refills that I'm thinking I'd paint and plug those screw holes with (so that they are removable if I need to take it apart for any reason) It's come a long way from the yellow and white toy and I love it! Should I age it down more? All the prop examples I see online are much more scuffed and worn, but I can't find any references to the original props, but the freeze frames don't seem to be that worn.

YES!!! I'd totally go for a 1/60 DX version of this VF-2SS too 😍

OMG!!! @MechTech That is phenomenal. I love small things and this is the ultimate - congrats!!!

@Urashiman the 3D work is amazing! Congrats. That is the next big frontier for us to create our own 3D things. I would love to get into it as soon as I have a bit more time from my job, maybe when I retire 😛 I love designing 3D models digitally, but I hate sanding, so it looks like its gotta be a resin printer for me when I take the dive. Watching you do your stuff is certainly inspirational. @MechTech I've never seen a Navy plane in that poor shape, I'd be ashamed to fly it 😛 Yeah, I'm always timid on how far to weather my models, I always error on the less is more side of thing. I just have a hard time trying to scale the dirt down to look appropriate for 1/72. Not much to show for my Nerf gun yet, made the mistake of using Rustoleum lacquer spray paints - I was thinking they'd be more durable than my model stuff. Well the primer takes ages to dry (says 5-7days on plastic) and you'd think their primer would work well with their topcoat, but not so! After I let the primer dry for 5-6 days, I sprayed on the top coat of black and there's some areas that started to crackle - WTF?! This only happened if I were mixing the wrong type of paint on not allowing the undercoat dry in enough time but never with the same type of paint. Oh well, I guess its back to a lot of sanding it down again to re-spray. The Tamiya TS-90 brown when on buttery smooth (should have used a semi-gloss black from Tamiya instead) - it was the closest match to Brown Bess I could get in North America - who knew this was a UK specific colour and not available outside?

Hey @arbit, that would be amazing, but at least let me cover the mailing expenses? Sorry to be old but what is Patreon, is it a donation thing? How do I get onto that to provide moral support?

It's looking great @arbit! I'd love it either hair out or hair tucked in - don't really know, but its amazing! Could you get her to lean forward a little in the seat like she's yelling at Hikaru. How would you paint the eyes and facial features at this scale? May I put in an paid order for one printed by you please :)!!! Not much to show on the Nerf gun yet, A LOT OF SANDING! The Lacquer black paint is so thick that I'm worried it will telegraph through underneath the paint finish, so I stripped it with lacquer thinner but that attacked the plastic, so I had to sand it all back to make sure there's no wipe marks, should have just sanded the markings off in the first place! There's so much kiddie warnings to sand off too, so I sanded it the best I could and then covered it in a sheet styrene. Using spray cans is a who new skill level, I wanted the Krylon spray cans because they are very durable, but it certainly lacks the precision of an airbrush so I made a makeshift spray booth to contain the overspray as its too cold to do it outside now.

Now for something completely different... wish me luck! Fantastic Nerf toy BTW, highly recommend it if you don't have one.

Great stuff @arbit but I was hoping for the specific DYRL hair and her orange spacesuit...

Thanks @M'Kyuun, too bad it wasn't 2x2 or even 2x4/6, I might get some just to see if it will make it work, too many pieces tend to make the long boom flimsy though. Yeah, I love the Bubbleship and this was the best design (so many variations) but I loved how they dealt with the tail rotor on this one and Vonado seemed to be the only place that had this design. But the design (not the bricks) was ultimately too heavy for the ball joints underneath to support its weight and I had to use crazy glue to lock them in place (its fake lego anyways, so I thought once I went in I might as well go all the way and use kragle).

Thanks everyone! It wasn't the easiest experience, but I'm glad its done (might be gettin' too old for 1/72 scale, but I just don't have the room or time to go bigger). I think I'm going to do something simpler next maybe the Enterprise/Reliant where its all pearlescent white or Galactica where its all grey or nu-Galactica where its all gunmetal with a crap load of decals 😛 @arbit these figures are fantastic, wished I had a resin printer (might look into that someday). I'd love a 1/72 Minmay with her helmet off sitting in the backseat of the VT-1 (DYRL) - I would definitely pay someone for a very nice 4K/8K resin print of that!!! I've been waiting on that for the Hasegawa 1/72 VT-1 in my stash.

I got my VF-1D from them and they were great! Good packing and fast (shipping pricey but its all been that since the Pandemic)

@derex3592 the rigging does at a lot for realism! Looking great! How do you keep it taught if you put tape in front of the crazy glue dot, when you take that tape away after its cured, isn't there slack in the thread/line? Yay!!! Finally finished my FineMolds F-4J in 1/72 scale - love these hi-viz 70s schemes. Missiles are all on and even re-did my last years Tomcat missiles too. I would like to take some proper pictures of them someday when I have time to get out a proper background and lighting (I'm a few models behind on that).

Hey @Dobber Vonado has been pretty good as far as those China stores go, but you have to watch out if they replace pieces from the original designs (which was what they did for the Bubbleship). I've had pretty good experience from them in the past - I've gotten a Launch Utility Tower & Crawler (to go with my Saturn V), the older UCS Millenium Falcon, Imperial Shuttle Tydrium, and Space Shuttle 1:110 scale (but they do seem to be slipping now with more and more replacement pieces in the wrong colours) - basically only things I couldn't get in real Lego set.

Great question, being a fellow old fart - I'd say DEFINITELY NOT.