Blog News – Dutch Scale Models

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

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

Things are warming up!

Even though I made an effort to isolate my new workplace, it can still become (at least) a degree colder than the comfortable living room, which kept my away for the last few weeks.

However spring is upon us, and I find myself back at the workplace daily!

A goal I set for myself in the last blog was to finish the I-16 cockpit. And I have! High time to write about it.

New Airbrush

But first.. I already considered purchasing a new airbrush at the time I was writing my last blog, and once the thought of buying new stuff sets it never seems to take long before I actually do!

This time I didn’t drive straight to my main hobbyshop to splash the cash. I like Hobbycar and I have most of my stuff from that place, but although I started my search there, I really took my time to see what is what in the world of airbrushes and get the best deal out there. Especially now I have lost my 10% IPMS discount, there might be better alternatives around.

My current airbrush is a Fengda BD-135. It did a good job, and it gave me a good idea of what works and doesn’t work. Unfortunately, it broke fairly quickly: although it still functioned, the black cap at the end had come off, probably because the screw-thread had come off. Nothing more but a minor nuisance, but I do like the cap to be on so I don’t accidentally poke my eye out. A bigger problem was the persistent clogging I have experienced with this airbrush, basically from day one. I have gained a lot of experience especially with thinning my paint, and it has gotten better, but still a lot of the trouble was down to using a 0,2mm nozzle and needle for all my airbrush jobs.

With this experience in mind I had an idea of what I wanted in a new airbrush

Perhaps pay a bit more if the results will be better.
Something easier to clean.
A bigger paint container, preferably one I can close off while using the airbrush.
The possibility to use larger nozzles.

I realize that a higher price doesn’t always represent a better result, but my first Fengda already cracked after a few months of (fairly extensive) use. I started my search for the names I have seen in many discussions about airbrush.. but even though I have my own experience of my 20 euro airbrush failing so quickly, I still couldn’t find a lot of good arguments to go straight for the high-end airbrushes.

As I’m sure you recognize if you have been involved in any online modeling community, the argument to use a particular brand of airbrush is usually something like ‘I use Brand X is so it is great, I don’t use Brand Y is so it is shit, hurdur’.

For me this just isn’t a good enough reason to spend more money. Although I hope another low-end airbrush will not break again so soon, I ended up looking at the Fengda alternatives.

Taking into account my other wishes, I ended up with the FE-130:

This particular set has a three nozzles and needles included: 0,2; 0,3 and 0,5!

So far I have used only the 0,3 nozzle, and I have to say that for the things I am doing this has probably been the size I have been waiting for. I like to airbrush basically every part because I just like the end result a lot better. I imagine myself using the 0,2 size for finer detail and 0,5 for larger areas or primer jobs.

Although I first aimed to spend somewhere around 100 euros on something not-Fengda, I ended up with this 35 euro Fengda set.. Ofcourse I can only hope the quality will be better than the BD-135, but for 35 euro I can’t complain even if it only survives one year.

I-16 Cockpit

In the last blog I considered ripping apart one of the first assembled and painted sub-components.

I ended up doing that, and to be honest I don’t see a difference with what it was before, and I still don’t really like the end result. The good thing about the cockpit on this model though: you can really spend time on the details if you want to, but even if you look down into it once it is finished you won’t see a lot.

The black parts on the chair are my own interpretation, and it looks a bit shabby. Next time I’ll make sure to not limit myself in terms of reference material. The back of the seat is based on how things look in IL-2, but later on in the cockpit build I actually started using anything I could find.

The bottom plate of the cockpit should be light gray according to the instruction booklet, but most reference show a green metal color. I changed this later on.

I quite like the instrument panel on this kit! It actually has a back plate which you need to paint black, then place a decal on top of it, and after that you place a clear part on top of that. The instruction booklet actually seems to indicate this clear parts needs to be painted black as well, that doesn’t make a lot of sense and obviously I didn’t. I did paint the sides of the clear panelfront.

The end result of the instrument panel.

Before closing off the cockpit I had seen so much reference photo’s with the green steel parts that I did a last-minute change of the bottom plate as well as the control. After applying a clear gloss coat I did some weathering, including a bit of a dirt wash.
The almost-end result, but this is before applying the wash.

Like I said the end result doesn’t show much of the cockpit anyway, especially if you decide to close the ‘canopy’ (it is basically two doors) you won’t be seeing much of the interior.

The result so far. The cockpit is finished, and now it is on for the engine!

I like this kit a lot so far. Things fit together perfectly overall, and on the parts where it doesn’t I don’t mind too much: a WW2 aircraft to me doesn’t have to fit a 100% perfect, as long as it doesn’t have enormous gaps between.

One of the things I am less enthusiastic about is probably the instruction booklet. I especially feel the range of colours has been simplified to not force a builder to spend a lot of money on paint. However, there are a lot of reference pictures available and I actually enjoyed the search to find a plausible set of colours. After a few months of building I have collected a respectable amount of paint too, so I can deviate from the booklet and go for what I think makes more sense.

Next up on this kit: the engine!

Groetjes,
Dan

New year

Yes, it has been a while since last blog!

First off all, a late happy new year to all!

As I covered in my last post, I found another way to spend my time. I went all out as always when I try new things, and have probably spent about 100 hours on the game since I purchased it last month. Of course the first enthusiasm at some point fades a bit and I’ve slowly been finding myself behind the bench a bit more that last week.

The last few weeks

With the holidays and my new hobby, work has been slow the last couple of weeks. A brief overview of what I have been able to achieve.

Just like the last time I visited my parents, I took a kit with me to get some work done. I went for the new I-16 type by ICM. Very interesting little plane and a fine kit. I’ll be writing more about it in the future no doubt.

Back to the Zero, I still had that nice job ahead of me.. masking the clear parts. I decided to just go for it. The result wasn’t perfect, but I figured it would still be better than hand brushing.
Here goes nothing! As long as the clear parts are not messed up with green paint I am happy.

It won’t be visible on this picture probably.. but in my last blog I noted the color was probably a little too light for the Zero, and I did another layer with a slightly darker tint of green. The good news is this color seems a bit better to me. The bad news is that the darker undertones might have disappeared a bit too much. Then again, they should be subtle so I could still be all right.

I wanted to redo the black around the cockpit area a bit because I hadn’t focused on it so far, and there was some green residue around.

Here is the result so far! I am fairly happy with it, although I doubt this will look as pleasing as I had hoped when I started it. Being an older kit it really takes more skill than I have to make it look really interesting, but once again I learned a lot so far and I’ll be focusing on some newer kits for the foreseeable future.

A present for my dad

When my dad gave me some of his old kits this summer he told me that he basically wouldn’t be buying any new kits, but he was still looking out for a good P51 kit because he really loves the Mustang. In the weeks after that I looked around a bit for what was available in 1/32 scale, but the offerings were either a expensive or seemed to be lacking in quality. My dad’s main brand has always been Revell, so I was very happy to see Revell had a new tool coming up:

I initially wanted to build this one myself, and it really is a fantastic looking kit if you’re looking for an affordable Mustang. I went for the I-16 in the end because at the moment the subject interests me more, but this could very well still end up on my shelve at some point. For now, I looked forward to giving this to my dad as a present.

My dad is really happy with the kit and has made some good progress in the last couple of weeks! I gave him some brushes and glue to start off with, and my mom bought all the paint required so he could start again with an acrylic color collection. Not having to use enamels really revived the hobby for me, and I think he will probably feel the same. Finally no more hassle and horrible smells and the result is fine.

Veel plezier, pa!

The future of this blog

I didn’t forget about the blog in the last weeks.. but I have also been thinking about where I want to go with it.

When I started it this summer, I was starting to feel better recovering from my burn-out. I was still sitting at home, trying to find something I could do. Modeling really was a blessing: it allowed me to reboot my engineering brain without any pressure at all. A big part of my work is documenting, and the blog filled in that part. I was able to spend a few hours on building, and do regular updates on basically anything modeling related.

Right now I have my job again to get my fill of engineering and documentation, and doing 3 or 4 updates a few on my models is out of the question. Obviously, after the first build it is probably natural to zoom out a bit a take bigger steps in reporting on the model.. I like gluing part 24 and 25 on part 37, but doing a weekly update rules out that sort of close reporting on my progress. I would annoy you as much as I would annoy myself!

The way I see it now, I will probably keep trying to do a weekly update on my modeling stuff, but I do have some thoughts about not renewing my WordPress subscription. I know, I can also continue with the free plan, but I like the blog as I can deliver it right now and that’s only possible because I spent some money on it.

And I have to admit I have even been thinking about moving to YT once I stop this blog, but I honestly don’t know if it would suit me and if people would be interested. I am happy to see I have more followers than I would ever have expected, and a few more than some of the people I started following last summer. I take that as a complement, because I see even some non-modelers follow my blog and that tells me I am doing something right.

Some more soul searching required the coming weeks!

Groetjes,
Dan