What's on my desk? Part 122.
Good morning and welcome!
It's a rainy day, but let's not let that damper the modelling spirit!
I've been pretty busy last week, with rearranging the store on Tuesday afternoon, and there was a day off on Friday, so my work pace has been somewhat slow.
Let me start with something a little bit different. As you know, I'd like having some expercience with the things I'm selling. I've built cars and a motorcycle for the first time, have made a wooden tram and ship, all with varying degrees of success.
The Robotime brands have been on my shelves for some time now, but I never actually tried my hand on building one of these kits. With some new ones arriving, I decided to order this for myself:
I like cats. You may have noticed in the shop (or in this very blog) there's a few models of them around. So I instantly took a liking to this small scene.
So, on Sunday, I cracked open the box and started building. This is what's in the (sturdy) package:
Three bags of parts, one sheet of paper decoration, one sheet of stickers, and the instruction booklet. In these small ones there's no lighting, but the larger models (and booknooks) do have a LED light, battery box and wires.
Also in the box: a small piece of sandpaper, two sheets of double-sided tape (pre-cut) and a plastic tweezer.
Construction is straightforward: larger pieces are laser-cut wood and fit together without glue (or with a small strip of tape). Graphics are either stickers (like the bottle labels), already printed on the part (like the walls and floor), or thin paper you have to stick on the part yourself.
You're supposed to use the double-sided tape for everything, but I used some wood glue and superglue at places, to ensure e.g. the paper would't peel off in the corners, or to strenghten the bond of some wood or plastic parts.
Like these small posters on the bar (trigger warning for graphic designers; the kerning on that rightmost poster is abominable :-) ):
This entire piece fits together perfectly, just using some double-sided tape on the countertop and on the rectangular frontpieces.
It takes just a couple of hours to assemble the whole thing:
I left off some things, arranged the bartop somewhat differently, and used glue instead of tape for the glasses and bottles. In all, pretty enjoyable. It's a nice palate cleanser that goes together well and results in a cute scene to put on your desk.
One thing I'd still like to do is paint the cat into a tuxie...
The other models, then:
T-72: the final part on the engine was the yellow bracket you can see in the picture. I fixed all the parts on the upper glacis and put the roof (loose) on the model:
The end fenders attach to this plate, so keeping this loose is going to be a challenge...
I also started work on the turret. Gathering (and attaching) parts to paint in the same colour.
The turret is built up of an outer and inner shell. A nice touch, let's see how it goes together...
Bloch 152: the wheels are on, antennas painted. I now need to paint the propeller. First off, the spinner received a coat of aluminium, was then sprayed with scratches effects fluid so I could have a peeling red paint:
The rear end of this cone needs to be black, together with the prop itself and the rear part seen at the top of the picture.
Some 'interesting' masking ahead.
Speaking of masking, I applied all the stickers for the light green on the Viggen. Not an easy job, as it turns out the masking set is not actually for this version of the Viggen... I also discovered that I forgot to paint an area (on the left air intake), so that had to be corrected. I decided to next paint the tan/brown colour, as these are all bordering light green. The darker green areas are the masks; these are somewhat transparant to help with placement:
You can see air bubbles under the masking stickers, each one of those is a tiny dust mote... Next step: double-checking the brown patches to make sure they're large enough, then mask them and spray the dark green (Always go light to dark when painting camouflage).
I think that's it for now...
See you next week!