Yo Nicolas,

As Claude said, you're PE is great! You saved a lot money with you're homemade PE

It's a unique work with al the scrathwork.

I keep following.

Greetz Nico

Looks like the thunder doesn't mùakes so much noise on week-ends

Thanks Seb -On those 2 next days you'll see how I use that plaster form, and honestly i wouldn't have been able to do without it

You're right there Nico -On the top of it, most of what I needed didn't exist in PE too.. cockpit yes, but barely anything else..


This I am happy about: I have been able to bend my PE okay and to solder it in position -this looks like the real thing! There will be some glass shattered here and there. i will have to be really very cautious in gluing it


Then, more about this plaster form. first I have to makes some choices, which parts I will keep (in black); which part I will not use (or scatter all over the place).


Now I had some trouble to obtain this: lead foil. This is incredibly expensive! I found that in a French mail order; i was surprised to see it was actually some Kitmaker favourite SmallShop stuff to do rivets (another good idea that looks like it went in the drain). Anyway, their lead foil is okay for my needs.
So let's start cutting and bending..

This is truly amazing stuff here! REAL modeling at it's finest! Making everything is what it's all about.


- Jeff

Hi Nicholas,
I have one of Small Shops 'Nutter' for making rivets, nuts and bolt heads. A brilliant tool. I think they still sell them? at least I hope the idea didn't 'go down the drain'

PE parts are looking great as usual. I can see this piece coming together now.

Cheers,
Charles

well Jeff that's nice from you saying that, but really yesterday i tried to add bits of wire according to the scarce infos I have been finding and fell so bored So nice modelling yep, but i think the effort will have to stop at some point -first i can't find any reference for the part that is just below the front cockpit, you know sight and stuff..

Well Charles I don't know about that Nutter thing, I can remind of a terrible looking website and of nothing more but i never see this stuff in mail orders anymore? maybe I speak to loud too soon on that one. thanks for the comments

So I applied a ruler against the metal and used a pin to do all the little rivets holes. Stupid of me, I should have buy that Trumpeteer tool to do so, this proved tiresome and maybe less regular than if I had used a tool.
Oh well.



In the end I have all those bits –enough to do the upper part of the plane (well, cockpit area!)
The lead foil is absolutely fantastic to create all kinds of destruction on aluminium, look at that destroyed panel!


Oh yeah, this begins to look pretty cool ! Notice the mix between PE parts bent on the right position (by pressing them against a curved surface like a Tenax bottle for instance) as well as the aluminum parts.. But then how did I manage to hold all this stuff together?
Answer tomorrow eh.. ||

What’s below the plane is absolutely ugly: this is car filler to get the metal all smooth. I have been using this stuff for years, it really stink but is incredibly efficient to sculpt minutethings, using Acetone, a gas mask and a brush you can even sculpt figs with it –I still have some Orks done this way in some corner (I believe)
Anyway, here it’s been applied on the back of the metal for a goodreason, it’s a very light paste and it can’t deform the fragilelead foil when applied. It makes a strong bond too.

Well, now it’s going to be a bit boring till the completion of the hull as it’s basically more plates assembly.. PE today.

This looks sooooo fragile to work with.
At least when you bend soemby accident it does not matter much.

Great exercice to follow!

Cheers
Claude

Colors are great at this time, silver and gold, looks like a sunken galleon.
Alex.

All hail to the wreck builder! because even when something fails on the floor he can claim it is intentional
Thanks for your comment

Yep Alex, that's Rheingold

So i am right into building some compartments walls. that's it, at least 4 trapdoors will stay open or will be pulled out, so time to do something about it -though I might be plagged by lack of reference at one point. I should ask at Hyperscale for close up pics.
So for those I use either plastic or like here my car repair mastic, i wait for it to start setting and cut it with an X-Acto.

Trapdoors.. notice the roundey thing, it's the place wheer you put the minigun. it's magic Sculp and phortoetch from my homemade set.

So here are all the parts already done which are enough to create an un-detailed portion of the f-105 fuselage. You may notice all the inner compartmenting that I will have to detail with various boxes and wires and stuff. And start sculpting a late pilot too.

I also cut the plastic canopy to the right dimension, and yep it fits!

Yo Nicolas,

Very nice trick how you put all the pieces togheter with the filler.

Nice update, really looks like plane to me

Keep up!

Greetz Nico

thanks Nico, appreciated

So here I fixed the canopy using tons of mastic and filler,

As some rivets went out with all that sanding job I have been doing, i had to use some of those Archer resin rivets that do the job quite nicely indeed


You don't want to miss tomorrow's update because it will be the last focusing on the plane -i have been spending hours this week-end on detailing all the cut bits and to be honest it looks like a real mess of a plane right now *and* for once the pictures are actually quite well taken.

eyes wide open! It already looks incredible, can't wait for the next photo grouping

C.

Thanks Charles -actually I am to the point where everybody can see that i ended up building something that would have been impossible to create if I had buy the Trumpeteer F-105 kit, or bought the Expensive Aires detail set. I mean, the plane really needed to look like it was *completely* broken, so all the panels had to be created separately etc..

Okay that’s it, the plane is mostly completed.
I have been super detailing all the bays, added some wires (lead string mostly), some parts of my PE fret were especially designed to create some of the inside of the bays. I have been adding a bit of the radar hanging too. I also sort of detailed the cockpit. I have been buying some instruments decals from Mike Grant Decals tyo make for a few details, but I think that in the end, some ground cover or some rice fern will be hiding a bit of the cockpit.
Now I have a problem with super detailing. I know most modellers are keen to detail their models to death (including some invisible parts) but so am I not, as I think that everything that can distract from the main idea is bad for the whole diorama. Yet I didn’t have any choice here. I took the risk that the people say “look at his crap radome, where did he find some reference to end up with such [auto-censored]”, instead of noticing the real nice lightning effects or the broken pilot.

A bit late, I found this build log.
Great, it looks like another masterpiece of work!!!
Self-made PE-parts are the best solution, when one can make them.
I only can draw the parts using my software.

Thats a lot of metal in the todays images.

greetings...
Soeren

Well it sure looks like a large chunk of airplane that has fallen out of the sky.
Thumbs up on this phase of the dio.
The painting/lighting are going to really make this piece.
Can't wait!
Cheers,
C.

One word, Nicolas : AWESOME !!!!! I can't wait for the next update . Cheers !
Kenneth .

Hi Nicolas,

I am a bit provoking here but my first impression when i looked at the last pictures was to say : Was that really worth putting so much work in details? This looks like any other assortiment of metal to my untrained eyes. Only a hardcore plane modeller can identify this correctly.

I suppose that i need to see that now in color to get the Aha-effect!

Cheers
Claude

Thanks Soeren -honestly the only thing that is very hard to do is the fret itself out of a software, as the material to create both an etching tank and a developing tool is readily available online -and that's not even TOO expensive

You are right on that Charles, already I have been undercoating the fuselage and I can see what waits for me.. I should do all the airbrush work soon enough!

Thanks a usual Kenneth friend

hey Claude I sure don't mind a bit of provocation otherwise I wouldn't model what i do
Here are (below) 2 of the 6 files I used as a base to superdetail the wreck. My main source being of course the original picture that you can find on my own website here
here
Well of course it shouldn't say anything to anybody not into planes -but so should be a hyper detailed PZ IV for people not into tanks. However I realized that being accurate -even when doing some wrecks- certainly helps the whole of the secene looking realistic. So yes, all the wrecking work I have been doing is actually as accurate as I can do
But a lot of the parts inside the panels are not painted in silver so I think that more contrast should be seen once painted

Thanks to all

Sorry for not posting yesterday, i am currently fighting a cold that transforms my mind into mashed potatoes.

Anyway here we are with the fig this time
first a Magic Sculp silhouette with some piano string inside to strengthen it. the work is quite crude at this stage..


yet you may notice the nice coat of primer on the F-105 as well as the fact that the body is pressed against the fuselage for the exact shape.

On the following day i proceeded to sculpt the lower body and the abdomen. Apparently the flight clothes were one piece and quite baggy.. Actually i had some trouble to find valuable reference for a pilot's uniform.



so that was the first try, the body was too "high" so I had to cut it quite a bit. I inserted some Hornet hands, because I don't want to spend valuable time sculpting something somebdoy can do better than me -but note I will definitely sculpt the face &s i don't want to have some Roger Saunders grins and neck problems on my dioramas

Hi Nicolas

another great project you have going here,

great work on the aircraft section, your pilot figure is coming along nicely aswell, as you mentioned eariler you intend to "turn stomachs" with this one, but try not add to much grow, im all for showing the realities of war but, a badly burned or injuered pilot may draw attemtion away from the model

oh are you intending to add water in this one? or is the crash site on dry ground

smashing work mate

shane

Now this is looking better with each update. Excellent scratch building.

Primož

Thanks a lot Shane! Of course there will be water in this diorama, a very calm red-brownish water with some rice plants in it, just like the real thing I hope.
Now I have to quote you here, because that's really interesting:



Well, first I must say i am not the best of modellers available, when it comes to model building you can't compare me with guys like Rick Lawler, Mig, Adam, or that incredible guy with his Me-410 build on Aeroscale, first because I don't have the right fingers, then because I don't *like* over modelling my subjects.
That means that always when there will be model making in my dioramas, i try it to be really quiet. So here, what i want is clearly that the attention should not be on the plane itself which will be hard because indeed it's over-modelled.

No, the aim of my work is and always has been to focus on the PEOPLE in it, here it means a broken pilot.
Honestly i won't show him as busted as in my source pic, but he will still be looking a bit miserable I am afraid.
But well, If I can use a trick of the light to make him appear a bit holly, then I will do it

My strong point is the way I manage the light in my dioramas so that in the end what you will be looking at will be a poor soul who lost in life in a water full of germs, in an alien land under an alien light, lying on a pile of scrap metal (who cares that it is a F-105, honestly)

Actually i feel pained that for accuracy's sake, i will have to write "us air force" on the plane because it would have looked better without it. Oh well..

Thanks for giving me the chance of explaining what i am about!


Always a pleasure to see you here Primož , and thanks for your input


Ah well, he is not that busted in the end.. here is the face as glued, as well as some torn clothes done of Green Stuff. His right shoulder is dangling precariously though.
The fig still hasn't any ears or pockets or hair, but that will be for tonight.
I am afraid he looks more Russian than American though.. I may have to sand him a bit in places indeed..

Hi Mate,
i fully understand, and think your right, that the human side to any story is important to convey the message

and your one of the best modelers ive seen, so im sure you'll pull it off perfectly

best regards

shane

Wow I've really missed alot on this project. Really looks brilliant.

What is it about france? There seems to be so many modelling genius' in France and so many people making DIY PE!

You and JB should start a new aftermarket company!