A beautiful mind

I don't know how it works with you guys, but sometimes my brain gets an idea and then a wild rollercoaster of crazy ideas, frenzied work and noting down future orders, and the next day you think how the hell did that happen?

Recently, I had such a chat session with Modhail, in which we discussed Crimson Skies, how the game had died many years ago, how we had built several 1/72 conversions and it all fizzled out, but has never really left our heads. So, since I'm working on 3mm stuff, he pitted the idea of 3mm stuff vs his Revell Zeppelin. Start the rollercoaster boys :). What would be a good airplane to demonstrate the possibilities > Go for a fighter or a bomber or a transport plane > What would be a famous pilot > Han Solo is famous > He flies the Milennium Falcon > What would a light transport look like if it was used by a smuggler > Flying low volume expensive cargo > Must have twin engines and a turret for self defence > Be very maneuverable > What 3mm aircraft do I have that I can scrap for this?

After a short period of converting, and a few nights thinking about the scheme, and why it is what it is, I got there in the end.

FFW a couple of days later, Battlegroup is having a poll and Stalingrad as a book is on top, Stalingrad > Sad movie > One of the sadder moments is the plane leaving and the guys being left behind > The plane is a Ju-52 > I've got one built and primered > Hey, look at these barely fitting Red Cross decals > Painting time! A target is born. N for Nurse.

Sometimes it is just that easy to find inspiration.

Catch of the day

...or, more precisely, of the week.

I've been spending the proceeds of my sale on items that will help me with, or are part of my projects. A great help for this Ebay and Marktplaats, a local Dutch variant on that theme. Ebay has the minor issue in that it clashes with the 2 weeks rule. Auctions tend to run for a week, so that doens't really work, hence I just made a list of items that I want, made searches for it on Ebay and saved those. If there are new items posted that fit the bill I get a signal. If after 2 weeks I no longer require the item, I delete the search, easy as that. Marktplaats is easier, people put stuff on that stays on for a month. More then enough time for me. But I have to be honest, I sometimes break that rule if there is a very good deal to be had. On Ebay, this means sellers offering low or free shipping, or a very low opening bid. On Marktplaats this means making a low bid and then just seeing if the seller responds, or not. If after 2 weeks I still want it and there is no reply, I can always raise my bid.

This week I received and won the following items:

On Marktplaats, I made a bid of 2,50 euro for a 1:72 Revell Me-262. This was accepted after a few days. As I didn't need the box or the instructions, the seller agreed to mail it to me in a brown unmarked envelop instead of a package, making the total cost a mere 4,75 euro. I'm going to combine this with a 1/72 Quickboost resin starboard engine that is partially dismantled (which I won for 6,50 Pounds incluyding shipping from Australia recently) and base it wheels down as a late war German forest plane on a wooden platform. A piece of scenery for short :) I still have plenty of aftermarket decals in my stash so that is covered too.

On Ebay, I used Buy it Now to buy a early example of the engine used in the Me-109, amongst others. This set me back 10 Pounds including shipping, plus I bookmarked the store for the future as shipping from the UK to me was a mere 60 pence. I can't even mail a average envelope inside Holland for that. They send out normal kits for 1.65 Pounds shipping, normally this is 5 Pounds minimum for most Ebay sellers from the UK to Holland. I don't know how they do it, but I like it. The engine will be used in my casting experiments, and the casts (if they succeed or not) will be used in the Me-109 wrecks I'm planning on building. A few years back I got a great deal on a stack of old Matchbox(?) Me-109E's for 1 euro a piece from Italy, and besides making Crimson Skies planes out of them, they have not been used yet. Since I like making wrecks, this one should be fun.

On Marktplaats again, I ran into a seller who was liquidating his Ho train collection, and had quite a few lots of scenery items as well. He was selling each of the items you see for 3 euro per lot, the normal store price for this lot is well over 35 euros new online. 17,50 Inlcuding shipping, and a nice addition to my forest which I refound last week in the attic. The Kohl & Salat (Cabbages and Salad) is especially welcome, as in one of my pre orders for the Crisis show I have 2 greenhouses and 2 smaller ones. These will mix very well, and so I can do back gardens for the Wikkywok houses.

Marktplaats, I picked up this for a mere 5 euros, and I only had to divert my ride from work by a little bit to pick it up. Now, wait a minute, I don't have a American army, right? That is correct, but there are 2 reasons I've picked it up. I do want to make an American army, but that probably won't be till 2016 before I start it. Secondly, the British army I want to start needs an Auster, and these are hard to find and go for high prices (usually). This will be a nice stand in. The price helped a lot too.

Back to Ebay, I was browsing the shop were I bought the 109 engine, and found this Pe-2 for 9.20 Pounds including shipping. I already have a Pe-2 kit from a obscure Russian company which is a dramatically bad piece of engineering. I've read stellar reviews about the Hobbyboss one, and the price was very good so hey, another kit for my Mid to Late War Russians. On opening the kit I was pleasantly suprised at the low parts count, which is perfect for me. It will be easy to modify to take a flight stand.

I've been watching the old Matchbox Churchill AVRE ever since I picked up 4 boxes of PSC Churchills, as I think these will make a great add-on piece for one of them. Problem was that whenever I was watching, these went for 10-15 Pounds plus 5 Pounds shipping minimum. I made some bids here and there and was always outbid. Till last week. My opening bid of 4.99 turned out to be the winner, and for 10 Pounds including shipping this one is mine. Now I just want the bridge, and the add on parts, so I have no idea yet what to do with the complete tank. Maybe sell it, or build it as a wreck, who knows. A great find, this one. The decals are still crisp too, very nice.

I also picked up some Oyumaru plastic clay from Ebay, from Hong Kong, for casting purposes. I'm a bit late to the party, I believe this hit the scene 1-2 years ago, so I won't bore you with details on who and what. This has been explained in better detail by many Blogs, like this one. I want to use it for the engine block, and wheel rims that I will use for burnt out wrecks, and other engines that I can find, as these tend to be pricey online. If I can make my own casts for private use, the better. I'll probably will do even more things with it, who knows. Anyway, 30 sticks put me back 20 Pounds including shipping, but those should be enough to last me quite some time. I'll grab a few boxes of Milliput when I'm at the Crisis show.

I have a commission running with Wikkywok at the moment, and he shown me some lovely photos of the first testhouse he made for me. Aside from 1 or 2 minor points, I was quite happy with it already so I'm looking forward to having all 4 right here with me. More on that at a later date.

Lastly, a purchase arrived from mid August :) For some reason, mail from Canada is incredibly slow at best and glacial at its worst. Dunno why. But I received 2 Blue Steel books today, namely Civil Wars: The Gun Trucks and Blue Steel IV: M-50 Sherman tanks and APC's in South Lebanon. These were, with shipping included, quite pricey, but that is normal for such a specialist publication. The Gun Truck book gives descriptions of photographs of various gun trucks used, also explaining to which faction they belonged, very handy! The M-50 book gives details about the M-50 and the APC variants, and lots of detail shots of rusting hulks. Both books will come in very handy for my Lebanon project as these were used by the SLA, one of the militias I will focus on.

Of course, this has been quite the expense, so it is back to selling again, as I still have a lot of micro armour to sort for sale. Back to that right after posting this :)

Minimi GAZ-AA truck with open bed review.

I was painting a few newly released open backed GAZ-AA trucks from Minimi, finished one that was going into the Flak build, saw the SA-7 one and gave up. Originally meant it for Crimson Skies, a generic Ford truck, it would do nicely in a civillian WW2 setting, albeit it an elderly truck.

As usual, I ask Minimi to cast it for me without base. Specially cast for me, they arrive here, and when they arrive I tend to let them breathe for a week or so to let the resin fully cure. I tend to find that if I wash and clean them straight away the resin sometimes feels tacky, hence why.
Of the 3 models ordered, I only had 2 that had 1 airbubble, 1 in the flatbed of one model (not so easily filled) and one in the tire of another (easily filled)



For a one piece casting these are very good, you have no assembly of any parts, due to the special request for a no-base you might lose a bit of the tire here and there but thats ok with me.  4.60 Pounds per model, and the flatbed gives you more options, be it cargo, troops or even AA guns. Or as in this case, as a civillian one.

Compared to the Minimi GAZ-AAA


If you want to save time on building a fleet of trucks for your Russians, this could be the one to get.

Republic of Texas, 1938 (Crimson Skies)

When the Republic of Texas started looking at German aircraft to bolster its ranks, they sent sent over a zeppelin with attachees and their latest state of the art hardware. Included for the protection of the zeppelin it housed an entire Staffel (12 aircraft, Red, White and Yellow flight), something unheard of for a zeppelin of this size. The aircraft was the tried and tested Bf-105, a variant of the Bf-109 specifically designed for Zeppelin duty. Clipped wings, a short tail, but still packing a powerful engine, 2 20mm cannons in the wings and 2 MG's in the nose the Kleiner Messer (or unofficially called the Stiletto or Wespe) wasn't exactly a pilots dream to handle but was more then a match for pirates and militias. Yellow flight was equipped with the 20mm cannon nose submodel for added punch. Mock dogfights were held to show the strengths and weaknesses of the design vs Texas aircraft.

We now show you some of the gun camera footage.

 In the end, the Republic of Texas purchased several German designs, including production rights.

 This was my back up for my main entry Relic, cause I wasn't too sure yet if I could do distressed and weathered bare metal. The original mode, a old Airfix Me-109 was converted way back in 2008 after an original idea from John Paterson for a parasite fighter for Crimson Skies. It never progressed beyond a semi painted stage before being dumped into the spares bin.

 I was actually going to use the hulk as a test for Reals flight stand, to see if I could refit older magnet bases aircraft to the new system. This was rather succesful so I took out the hulk and overhauled it.

Added a adapter for the flight stand

 Fixed the problem of the propellor sticking out in front of the aircraft by adding some additional plasticcard

And gave it a good cleaning and sanding

 And here she is, Rote 3 (Red 3) in all of its colourful splender. Wingtips and nose are painted red for recognition purposes (in Yellow and White flight these correspond to the group name). The scheme is derived from German aircraft of that particular era.

I gave her a handpainted wooden prop. Quite a bit more surface area then the gunstocks I'm used to painting like this.

Something quite different compared to my recent output, I know, but made it cause I know there are some Crimson Skies fans outthere and I want to use this as a personal motivator for Modhail to kickstart his Crimson Skies interests again, and show it is possible to game this in 1/72 as well Hell, I'm even going to use it for VBCW for all I care.....