DanDeBouwer

Still alive!

The I-16 has been sitting like this for a week. I ‘cleaned’ the green off the body, however I damaged it in the process.

Not sure how this will look after priming, but the beauty of working with WW2 gear is that we can make it work even with some damage to the kit..

Modelbuilding hasn’t been on my mind though. It could be because of this mistake, but more likely I am just in a bit of a dip of my life.

My mother died last summer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 3 years ago, and although she survived the first hurdle, it came back sometime last year. By the time it was clear it had spread to her lungs and throat it was too late.

I guess we all thought she had overcome the cancer, but the truth is: it was never gone, and we knew it. Because of heart problems she wasn’t able to complete the entire treatment. We didn’t think too much of it, or at least I didn’t.. and it would have made no difference since the treatment was just impossible.

She had been complaining about having almost no energy since the end of last year, but in februari she had been cleared by doctors – no cancer, see you next year. I am not sure how, but she did actually have cancer, and she passed away on the 14th of Juli. 72 years old.

I am a grown man, and I haven’t ‘needed’ my mother in years, living my life on the other side of the country. I also would have expected to be devastated after losing one of my parents. But to be honest, I am not devastated. It has however given me a sense of how little it all means. We are here for such a short time, and even after that realization I have not been kicked into gear to get things done.

I haven’t taken a drop of alcohol since the end of March and although I don’t miss the taste or the loss of control, I have to admit I miss the feeling of not feeling.

I guess I am a little depressed at the moment, however I will manage it.. my other big hobby is sim racing, and the community I am an admin for will do a 24 hour race for the Make a Wish foundation. I also spend a lot of time on other games, so I won’t sit on the couch and do nothing.

Bit of rambling, this post.. I will get on my feet I’m sure, and I’ll build some more when I feel like it.

Groetjes,
Daniël

What do?

Just a tiny, tiny little blog as I am thinking about how to solve the pickle I put myself in back in 2017.

I had troubles with the exhaust back then, and as part of the solution I glued the entire engine block in the fuselage so I could attach the exhaust pipes again. I couldn’t make that work at the time because I didn’t use the right glue, but when I finally picked up the kit last week after 5 years I fixed it pretty quickly, although not perfectly.

However.. why did I glue the block to the fuselage in the first place? I probably could have done the same without doing so, and I wouldn’t have to mask off the insanely fragile engine block to be able to apply primer on this kit.

Ok, so thinking in terms of solutions: it seems to me I have to carefully remove the entire engine block. After that I have the green gun-cowling that I can attempt to mask off, although I would absolutely not be surprised if it would flake off after all this time.

I’ve also sort of decided on which paint/livery I am going for:

4th Guard Fighter Regiment of the Baltic Fleet Aviation.

The Revell version of this kit also has a unit of this regiment:

I don’t know if it would make sense for these 2 to ever ‘meet’ each other, but right now I have very blurry visions of a diorama with these 2 little planes.

Also: 2 white planes means it’s going to be weathering galore. That seems essential with white planes.

Groetjes,
Dan

Exhausted II

I am pretty happy with developments since writing the last blog where I wrote about my perfectionism and about how it kept me dropping the hobby again and again.

After that blog, the first thing I did was clean up my desk and sort out my tools and paint. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I can work in it and find stuff. That’s half the fun of building, right?

I don’t have any answers for perfectionism, but what I do know is that I enjoyed my first build even though I made plenty of mistakes. I even was of the mind to throw in the towel at some point, but I kept going after putting it all away for a few hours. And I think there is a huge clue there for me, because the main thing was that it was the only kit I was working on, and the only reason I have so many unfinished kits now is that I keep running away from my mistakes by starting new kits.

It all started going wrong with the I-16.. Or actually with a CargoLux 747-8F that I threw out. That kit is probably burned somewhere on a pile of trash, so we don’t talk about that here at dutchscalemodels.com… Back to the I-16, the last thing I did was trying to fit the awful exhaust construction, many moons ago.

I have 5 exhaust parts that I was smart enough to place in a bag before packing this kit up.

I do not like the instructions here, and I can only guess which part should go where exactly.

I am not sure about any of this, but if this isn’t correct that means I already placed some parts wrong 5 years ago..

Whatever.. it’s time to continue because that is what all of this is about!

I went straight for this stuff, since much plastic had already melted away back in 2017.

Picture made this afternoon just after I finished putting the last exhaust parts on!

I faced my exhaust/unfinished kit demons and I am pretty happy with the result!

Unfortunately, I did lose one of the pipes in the process. Working with tweezers somehow always is a risk for me and especially for the smallest parts. I seem to pinch too hard so they fly across the room, never to be seen again. The good news is, it’s one of the pipes at the bottom end of the engine. No one will know.

Well, now you know, and perhaps it would be in your best interest to look over your shoulders more often for the rest of your life. Of course I’m just kidding. Or.. am I? Obviously I am, because this is a modelbuilding blog and not a meth lab.

The even better news is: I don’t care too much about losing that part. At first I had the idea to probably turn this kit into a sort of wreck to serve in a diorama. I can still make it part of a diorama of course, but right now I feel I sort of saved it from destruction.

I am not out of the woods yet though! At some point, we’re going to have to mask those exhaust parts off to be able to prime and color the fuselage. I am skeptical of these parts being able to survive that. Not sure how I will make that work, but we’ll pass that bridge when we get to it.

I haven’t even taken a look at the instructions to see what the next step would be, but I feel relieved that I know this is the project I am finishing first now!

Groetjes,
Dan

I don’t want to say I am back again, but..

It seems I am back AGAIN.

The previous post is from October 2019, eh? A full 3 years then.. Of course a few things happened in all that time, but not so much on the modelmaking side of things.

The Spitfire I was working on back then is finished. Went a bit overboard with the weathering so definitely not my favorite.

I also started work on A-10, and of course didn’t finish it. Then I started work on a flight deck carrier, of course didn’t finish it. I also started work on a Messerschmitt BF-109 E3, but that one isn’t finished.

Yes, I absolutely do have a problem with perfectionism..

And it seems to make it impossible for me to enjoy this hobby for more than a month before I mess up a model and throw it in a box to return to a new model a while later. I start on that enthusiastically, then mess up and on we go for another cycle.

I’ve suffered from perfectionism for as long as I can remember. As a kid I would come home crying because I thought I just wasn’t doing good enough compared to other kids. As an adult, I finally found some rest in my work by taking anti-depressants which take a huge deal of the anxiety off. I’ve tried going without them in the last few years, and immediately the fear and insecurities come back: I am not doing enough, and it’s not good enough. Those insecurities are the reason I got a burn-out back in 2017, and the reason I started taking those meds back then.

So, those work for me on a professional level and I’m very happy to be able to function with them. I turned 37 last week, so there is still a while to go before I can professionally retire, and I simply can’t afford to question my own professional worth for another 30 years! Because rationally I do know I am good enough, and I know where my qualities lie and how I can use them effectively. It is just impossible to function when you are constantly second guessing yourself.

But although the meds seem to work for fine for the things that I have to do, like work. But not so much for the stuff that I want to do, like hobbies. In modelbuilding, that means I just stop as I describe above, and start a new kit after a while. In gaming, my other big hobby, I just keep buying new games so I can run away from the nagging feeling of perfectionism whenever the going gets tough when playing a game.

I am a man of solutions though, and I feel the best thing for me to do is get rid of the stash-of-doom with all those unfinished projects, and focus on a single project from that moment on and force myself to finish it. The first kit I placed in the stash-of-doom was the I-16 after the exhaust assembly didn’t go the way I planned it.

I see two options with that kit:
-Get the exhaust assembly right. Might be impossible since the tiny exhaust parts are likely to have gone missing after moving the box a few times.
-Make a diorama with it. I have another 1/32 I-16 lying around. It’s essentially the exact same kit, however rebranded by Revell. If I can get the both from the same squadron or at least of two squadrons who were historically based on the same airfield that might be a nice little project.

I have absolutely no idea how to go about making diorama’s though, so that would take some researching. But that’s half the fun, right?

First things first though: my workplace has become my office, and it’s a huge mess not fit for building anything.

Time to first clean up all that junk..

I always enjoyed writing, so it felt like a good idea to start up this blog again. That also takes a bit of cleaning up though, since after 5 years I see some dead links and incorrect categorization which I want to fix.

By the time my next blog comes around I should have sorted out the desk, and hopefully fixed the blog as well!

Groetjes,
Dan

Pins and needles WO WO WO

Coming week I’ll be doing some work on all the smaller parts, since I broke my airbrush needle today.. I have managed to get the underside sprayed in light gray which I didn’t take a picture of since it is barely visible even with the naked eye.

I also did the upside in a gray all-over, so I could apply the green camo.

However when I started doing that today, it was clear that the ‘progressive action’ 0.35mm needle is not fine enough for the camo job. Besides that, I noticed the airbrush needed a cleaning too because the flow wasn’t great, and while cleaning it fell on the floor.. right on the tip, which obviously is bent now!

I ordered new stuff from Ultimate Modeling Products. Obviously a new 0.35mm needle, along with a 0.2mm needle and conversion kit for the finer details. Since I will be spending much on shipping I also purchased a metal airbrush cap, some more airbrush cleaner (I really love the stuff!) and a ‘photo-etch placer’. The last item could be a bit of trash, but for not even 3 quid who cares?

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So it looks like I won’t be able to continue work on the camo the coming week, but there is plenty of small stuff that needs to be prepped for primer. Depending on the amount of damage on the current needle I might even be able to apply primer.

Groetjes,
Dan

Winter is coming

And winter is the best time for building! I’ve been thinking about it for a few days and today was a nice rainy day for it!

Since my last blog, I’ve been on vacation and started a new job which took some time and especially energy. Because of that, it’s been a while since I used liquid mask on the canopy..

I’ve applied this more than a month ago, and I am not sure if that will have an effect on the clear parts.. thankfully while looking for my rotating painting stand I came across a box full of left-overs from my first attempt at this kit, and so I have some spare clear parts should that be required! The bad news would be the masking set would have been a waste, so obviously I hope the original part will be fine when I remove the masking tape.

Since it has been a few weeks when I last used it, I decided to first give my airbrush some love and once again turn some things around on my desk.

At the end of the day (literally) I can say I haven’t even used it today, but hopefully I’ll have energy the coming days.

I have to admit masking off the underside was a bit challenging.. I’ve been messing around with masking tape the last weeks, but wasn’t happy with the result and ripped it all off. I finally settled with using the gear bay door to mask the bay off, which is sort of its job anyway..

Time will tell how good a job this has done. Presumably not a perfect job, but I’ll look at the damage when the time comes.

For primer, I decided to take the quick and dirty option and use Tamiya Surface Primer straight from the can.. I’ll be completely honest here: I just can’t be bothered right now to de-can it.

I actually have some bad experience with applying it straight from the can, but I hope that experience will keep me from making the same mistakes.

I applied it in two light layers, seperatly on the above and underside.

A bit of a weird result after applying the first layer: a lot of dust particals seemed to have appeared from nowhere and have been only applied on the right wing. I used a dishcloth and some UMP airbrush cleaner to clean up before applying the last layer. The UMP airbrush cleaner is not too aggresive, and it did a nice job.

I applied the last layer about an hour ago, and the can is now empty.. which is the end of applying primer straight from the can. I have enough alternatives from UMP: black, gloss black and white. Probably more than I can go through the next years!

Next steps

This build is progressing nicely although very slowly obviously. The next steps presumably are:

-Sand the body and get the imperfections out.
-Airbrush the body in the livery I want. I’ve decided on the standard No. 416 Royal Canadian Air Force which is included in the kit.
-Prime and paint all the remaining parts.
-Decide if I want to fit bombs.

Plenty of work still to be done!

See you,
Dan

Mask on

This won’t be my best blog as I still need to get some flow to finish this kit. I already have some plans when the Spitfire kit is finally done. I don’t really enjoy the fact this feels like a ‘must-finish’ project, but I don’t want to start up yet another kit. I want to clean up the things I still have on the bench before starting something new.

-First of all, this Revell Spitfire Mk. XIc needs to get finished.
-After that, I have the Mazda MX-5/Roadster to finish. Oh yes that’s right, I went through a little car phase last summer:

Ofcourse I didn’t learn my lesson after the Cargolux 747-8F two years ago. I had to buy another subject that didn’t really have my genuine interest.. losing my interest once again when I was halfway through.

To complete that list:
-I started a Tamiya Pz.III some time ago, although I only got to step 2 on that if I remember correctly.
-I have an ICM I-16, and in the meantime I also bought the Revell version of that kit so I can see how the engine actually should be assembled since I messed it up.

Wow.. I remember in one of my first blog I expressed the intention to not get bogged down with multiple open kits.. looks like I ended up doing exactly that.

One thing at a time though! There is no reason why I wouldn’t be able to finish all these kits, but I really need to find my way again. I don’t want to make it sound like working on a model has become a chore because that’s not true, and when I find that flow I still find it to be one of the best ways to spend my time. This is an activity that gives you the oppertunity to find flow, more than watching tv or playing a computergame will do.

Back to the Spit, I bought a couple of things:

The thing I needed most was a masking set for the canopy. Looking at this picture I see there I didn’t do a perfect job at masking it off, so I’ll have to see if I can correct that.

I also bought some resin parts! Haven’t worked with the stuff yet, so I have some reading and viewing to do to see how this works.. Would be a waste to ruin this stuff.

I have two more things on order right now:

For future kits, I want to buy a Big Ed kit so I can really go to town in customization! My last attempt at PE was with the A6M5 but it didn’t out too well. It was incredibly fiddly, and I hope my second attempt will go down better if I can use the right tools to work with it. Again, I hope that also will be a matter of preparing with the right reading and viewing.

The masking set I bought doesn’t actually completely mask off the canopy.. it shows in the instructions that liquid mask is needed to completely cover all of it. Another thing I haven’t used so far, but shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.

See you,
Dan

Bogged down

One week has passed since re-opening, and I have nothing model-y to show for it!

It’s not like I’ve been staring at this kit wondering what to do.. masking off the gear bays and cockpit is all I have to do. But not only am I not sure how to exactly do that while avoiding it being a numbingly tedious task, I have also been busy with other stuff!

Something I still enjoy doing very much is flying online in IL-2 Sturmovik, with my squadmates of the virtual 1.JaVA or ‘Eerste Jachtvliegtuig Afdeeling’ which can be loosely translated to ‘First Fighterplane Squadron’. The 1.JaVA was an actual squadron, although there isn’t much information about it online that I can find unfortunatly. I do know these guys flew the Fokker D.XXI which is definitly on my wishlist as 1/32 kit!

Unfortunatly this beautiful plane is not in the IL-2 game! We still have a ton of fun flying online though, and it’s not like the game has a lack of amazing planes as it is.
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Another plane I have on my modelbuilding wishlist, although I definitly have to go through the stack I have currently or it will just keep growing.

Another huge thing I did this week was flying along on a soarplane! This has been a long time wish of mine, and yesterday I impulsively went for it while visiting a so called ‘Fly-in’ in Oostmalle.

I will definitly be doing this again! In fact, I have serious plans to take lessons and end up licensed to I can fly on my own.. but that’s way in the future ofcourse.

Oh, another cool thing while waiting until we were allowed to take off, this happened:

Not a punishment to have to wait on an airstrip when a P-51 is taking off!

So, this blog hasn’t been about scale models all that much, but I’ve been enjoying myself anyway!

A last thing about scale modeling: I’ll probably try to find some canopy masking stuff for this kit.. or do the old tedious job myself anyway because I doubt it will be around for a 30 euro kit.

Groetjes,
Dan

And I’m back.. I guess?

Well, yeah. Ofcourse I’m back because I just paid good money to renew my account!

In the last 13 months I haven’t done nearly enough building to justify splashing the cash at a scalemodeling blog again. But when I tried some more building recently I came to the realization that I actually need this part of the hobby.. I guess it’s that moment to recap the things you did, and plan for things to come. I considered setting up a YouTube channel, but that is just not my thing. So, here we are again for part II of http://www.dutchscalemodels.com!

And yes, I realize I can get all I need with a free blog plan. It’s just that I couldn’t stand taking a step back in quality. I like the way this blog looks, and I want to keep that look!

About some actual building: at the time of ending this blog last year in May I was working on a 1/32 Mitsubishi A6M5, and I finished it somewhere summer 2018.

There’s some good stuff, there’s some bad stuff.. Looking at this pictures I see a few things I don’t like, but that’s part of the building and learning experience I guess. Overall I am quite happy with the result especially on the weathering. I even had myself a ‘happy accident’ as Bob Ross would call it:

I cleaned up a bit too aggressively after a dirt wash, and some of the top coat of paint came off.. whoops, but I think it actually looks quite nice. It gives a sort of old-rusty-ship vibe to the model that might not be completely appropriate for a plane that is supposed to depict a plane in use. But as long as it gets the weathered look across, it’s fine by me!

That about sums up all the builds I have finished since then, bringing my total up to an amazing 2 models since rebooting my modeling and blogging ambitions! 2 models, 2 years and if all things go as planned I might be able to make it 3 out of 3!

This is the kit I re-bought after messing it up initially! It’s a 30 euro kit that doesn’t have a lot of detail. Obviously I haven’t put out the numbers to be pedantic about low level kits (and for that price, who can complain too much about detail anyway?) but I’ve already decided I want a certain quality level for any new kits I will be buying. That means I will probably step away from Revell, and 30 euro kits..

Don’t get me wrong, because again: for the price it really is good enough. But I have seen enough kits by now to know there is some much better detail out there.

Next time I’ll probably blog about some of the other kits I have started on, the ones I threw out and the ones I bought. And by that time I will have hopefully primed the Spitfire, because as you can see in the picture it is about that time for this particulair kit..

See you,
Dan

Goodbye

Just a short one this time.. because it is time to say goodbye to this blog.

I will keep making models, but I have to be honest: ever since I started my work reintegration this blog has become more and more of a chore. Now I have been working for a few months and I am feeling probably happy as ever, and I have so much stuff do to that blogging isn’t really on my mind. So there we go!

I started this thing last year when I was still at home and it has been so great to me.. especially the people that supported me during my FW-190 A8 build have been so great! Thanks everyone who has given me feedback and support over the last year!

See you!
Dan