John Craft
Piedmont, Oklahoma
John dressed up Tamiya’s already nice 1/48 scale P-47D with a Quickboost engine, True Details cockpit, seat belts and rivets from HGW, gun barrels and gunsight from Master, and Ultracast wheels. He finished the Thuderbolt as Snafu flown by Lt. Severino Calderon from the 84th Fighter Squadron.
Randy Pavatte
Houston, Texas
Modeling German troops about to leave their trench with Andrea 54mm figures, Randy wanted to capture the fear and apprehension of soldiers going over the top in World War I.
Travis Flowers
Benton, Louisiana
Inspired by a YouTube video about Jagdtigers at the Battle of the Bulge, Travis built Takom’s 1/35 scale kit of the German tank destroyer. His improvements include a turned-metal gun barrel, Friulmodel metal tracks, and Voyager photo-etched metal details.
Dana Leker
North Little Rock, Arkansas
To enhance McDevitt Studio’s 1/10 scale Hulk Frankenstein bust, Dana added free-standing graphic novels. The figure was finished with acrylic paint and colored pencils.
Vince Barrale
Houston, Texas
Vince built Master Box’s 1/24 scale Satyr out of the box then placed it on a scratchbuilt base.
J.R. Boye
Burleson, Texas
J.R. hand-painted the skull on the nose of Chorozsy Modelbud’s 1/72 scale Farman MF.11 bis to model a Belgian aircraft flown by Lts. Ferdinand Jacquet and Louis Robin during World War I. He lengthened and reshaped the fuselage, upper wing, tail surfaces, and landing gear, added interior detail, revised the engine, and scratchbuilt the open visor.
David Green
Sugar Land, Texas
Expressing his fondness for Indy cars, David built Tamiya’s 1/20 scale Lola T93 out of the box and finished it with Tamiya paint.
Greg Kittinger
Tulsa, Oklahoma
To improve Airfix’s 1/72 scale Petlyakov Pe-2, Greg scratchbuilt interior details for the cockpit and gun positions, including metal barrels for the guns and tape for seat belts. He also drilled and opened the dive brakes under the wings.
Richard Kern
Magnolia, Texas
Inspired by the movie The Hunt for Red October, Richard built Trumpeter’s 1/700 scale Typhoon-class Russian sub out of the box.
Ed Rains
Houston, Texas
There’s a ton of extra detail aboard Ed’s Zvezda 1/350 scale Varyag, including Master Model’s brass masts, yardarms, and gun barrels, Eduard and Gold Medal Models photo-etched metal, a wooden deck from ArtWox, and a crew of Northstar figures. He painted the ship with enamels before putting launching it on a sea of Envirotex Lite Pour-on High Gloss Finish, Liquitex Acrylic Gel Medium, thin white paint, and Pledge Floor Gloss.
Bryan Tucker
Midlothian, Texas
Bryan describes Wingnut Wings’ 1/32 scale Hansa-Brandenburg W.29 as a wonderful kit that is highly detailed out of the box. So, that’s exactly what he did, building it out of the box down to dressing the German floatplane with lozenge decals included in the kit.
Christopher Woodson
Alexander, Arkansas
“I like the lore behind the Space Wolf Chapter set in the Warhammer 40K universe,” says Christopher. He enhanced the Space Marine with alternative armor plates from Legio Models.
James Rice
Raceland, Louisiana
As an experiment in painting object light source, James placed Blacksmith Miniatures’ 70mm Keykeeper in a scratchbuilt shadowbox.
Matt Bond
Sherwood, Arkansas
“I loved the idea of a tank turret being added to an armored car,” says Matt. To that end, he built Bronco’s 1/48 scale Staghound Mk.III pretty much out of the box — he added a radio antenna — as a late-World War II British armored car.