Month: March 2022

Superquick Railway Hotel in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 6 Comments

I had a change of direction this week and built one of the Superquick card models i had lounging around. It makes a nice change to build something not out of plastic and also a switch to some scenery. These kits maybe old but their design really stands the test of time. I guess they are older than me and pre 1970 even!

This one is the Railway Hotel and seemed to me like it would fit into any European town. So now it is called the Hotel Du Canard Mort and will be sitting pretty in my Normandy towns and villages. When building these card kits I make sure I use some foam board bits to reinforce the whole thing rather than just rely on the card supports supplied. Makes the whole thing much straighter and stronger. Rather than use the flimsy base supplied I used 3mm MDF covered with paving slabs glued on individually. I also added some foil flashing superglued on as box gutters in suitable places. Its a good finishing touch to paint all the exposed cardboard edges with matching paint colour. This definitely makes a big difference. I added some weathering powders to rough it up a bit too as cardboard tends to look to clean. The street lights are little kits from Langley Models in the UK and added a nice detail I thought! Oh I also added black drain pipes using painted wire glued straight onto the card and also metal chimney pots from Langley Models again. These little additions take the card kits up a notch. Bit like MDF kits when you make that extra effort!

Dragon Models Tigers in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 9 Comments

I have been a bit slow in finishing stuff these past few days as the world seems to be descending into a very bad place and seeing what is happening on the news makes me very sad for the state of the human race. Although it may seem hypocritical to be writing about armoured vehicles at least our hobby shows we have an acceptance and understanding of history and all its horror. This should not be happening in 2022. Anyway all i can think of doing is heading to my favourite Ukrainian hobby shop and spending a whole heap of money on some gift cards or something where they can use the funds in some way.

I built three different versions of the Tiger all from Dragon Models. The first two kits were great. They came with extra PE bits and pieces, replacement engine grills and exhaust covers and cool stuff like that. As with all Dragon kits you tend to pay more but get great models. The Early Production Tiger 1 was not so great – the plastic was weird and some of the exhaust parts did not fit so well. It felt like a lower quality kit compared to the other two, so maybe avoid that one. It still came out ok but needed a bit of stuffing around. I added an AB crew and a Battlefield Miniatures commander to one of the tanks as the command tank. You get plenty of decals and I just used my favourite options with no regard for any accuracy. Not the time to be worrying about that. This time I used a three colour patchy camo scheme which was over sprayed with another faint layer of dunkelb to soften my painted edges. I just used dirt and dust and gave the chipping a miss this time. I think more impatience to finish more than anything. Plenty of photos above and I am not sure which tank is which anymore – the one with Zimmerit can be spotted though.

If I had the power to send some real Tigers to Ukraine to help I would.