Ryan Young
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Ryan added an Aires resin cockpit and pitot tubes to Hasegawa 1/48 scale F-16CJ, then dressed it with Astra Decals to model USAF fighter involved in Operation Inherent Resolve. It carries weapons from a Kinetic F-16D kit. He painted the camouflage with Tamiya acrylics and weathered it with a wash of black oils. I chose to model this aircraft because I saw it in a magazine and it looked really cool,” Ryan says. “It was tough to find the proper decals however.”
Manuel Castro
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Manuel calls this diorama "May God Help My Marines..." in honor of Maj. Walter M. Murphy who uttered those words after being mortally wounded on January 31, 1968. In it, a squad of Marines make their way down a street in Hue and come upon a M247 Mule with a 106mm recoilless rifle. The driver has been wounded by a mortar round and a Navy corpsman tends to him. Manuel built the 1/35 scale scene on a MiniArt base and used a Dragon M247 fitted with a AFV Club barrel for the recoilless rifle. The figures are from Bravo6, Model Master, and Tamiya.
Mike Walston
Highlands Ranch, Colorado
In Ray Bradbury's classic, The Martian Chronicles, the alien sand ships are described as immense, blue-sailed ships with emerald bodies, bronze hull points, razor sharp prows, and moon-white tillers. The sails were compared to "metal petals of some ancient flower;" and "cobalt butterflies." Martian culture was said to have combined art, science and religion; and the Martians onboard all wore silvery masks. Mike took a Monogram Star Trek: Voyager Kazon ship and turned it upside down and backwards for the main hull and painted it metallic green. The sails were cut from soda bottles, painted transparent blue, and detailed with Testors Dullcote stripe patterns, and he added figures and deck details from his spares box. “In other parts of the book, the Martians used insect shaped vehicles, so I used part of a Metal Earth Praying Mantis as a figurehead and tied the two forward sails into it to appear as wings,” Mike says. “I made longitudinal dunes out of DAP Plastic Wood-X to give the impression of rippling waves on the 10- x 14-inch base.
B.J. van de Maat
Rijssen, Overijssel, Netherlands
Bert added a scratchbuilt ejection-set to Trumpeter’s 1/32 scale A-1J Skyraider and painted the Vietnam War attacker with Vallejo acrylics.
Blaine Cole
Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
Blaine finished Hasegawa’s 1/32 scale BF2C-1 Goshawk for the U.S. Navy’s Bombing Squadron 5 using Mr. Color lacquers and EZ Line rigging.
John Hill
Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England
To detail Tamiya’s 1/12 scale Bimota Tesi 1D 906SR, John added resin hose connectors and photo-etched metal cable ties from Studio 27 as well as metal eyeball connectors and braided line on oil cooler and shocks, extra cables and wiring, metal rivets on fairings, and scratchbuilt the coolant header tank and electric box under seat.
Keith Campbell
Englewood, Colorado
“This is a fun twist on Tamiya's 1/35 scale Willys MB kit,” Keith says. “I built it up to represent a Willys that was converted for civilian use and eventually left to rust.” He painted the 4 x 4 with acrylics and weathered it with artist oils and pigments.
Norm Sheppard
Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada
After adding Verinden stowage, Norm painted Tamiya’s 1/35 scale PBR 31 Mk.II patrol boat with Mr. Color lacquers, and acrylics from Tamiya and Vallejo. He weathered the Vietnam War vessel with washes and pigments, then drew tattoos on the crew with Sakura .005mm markers.
Michael Butry
North Tonawanda, New York
Michael built Tamiya’s 1/48 scale M20 essentially out of the box, but he decided near the end of the build to add storage bags as well as tarps and covers made from aluminum foil. “The gear was added before I painted the vehicle, which at first I thought was going to be tough but in the end was actually easy,” he says. He painted the armored car’s weathered camo with a variety of shades from Tamiya and Model Master over a base coat NATO black. Weathering continued with Tamiya pigments, Ammo by Mig Jimenez washes, and Winsor & Newton oils.
Richard Davenport
Lansing, Michigan
Using mostly Tamiya acrylics — Mr. Color lacquers colored the prop — Richard painted Hasegawa’s 1/48 scale Nakajima Ki 84-I Type 4 as an aircraft from the Japanese army’s 22nd Flight Regiment. The Frank was built straight from the box.