Riezl P. Mangay-ayam
Pasig City, Philippines
Riezl returned to scale modeling during the pandemic and built an Accurate Miniatures 1/48 scale A-36 Apache. He added seat belts using micropore medical tape and inserted straight pins into the landing lights so that the heads serve as lenses. To finish the ground-attack aircraft, he painted with Vallajo and Tamiya acrylics.
Greg Brett
Brinsmead, Queensland, Australia
After adding Tamiya fuel drums and ammo boxes to the engine deck of Tamiya’s 1/35 scale Panther, Greg painted it with Tamiya lacquer spray paint. He flowed on a wash of raw umber artist oil paint then dry-brushed Tamiya Weathering Master snow for the winter camo. The figures are Dragon Panzer Grenadiers Wiking Division Hungary 1945 painted with Tamiya acrylics; the tank commander is from a Tamiya tank crew set. He set the scene on MiniArt’s Country Road set with Vallejo mud and Citadel snow fixed with white glue. The diorama is on permanent display in the Wehrmacht Hall at the Australian Armour and Artillery Museum in Cairns in northern Queensland. “We actually have a working World War II Normandy Panther restored by Axis Track in the UK on display at the museum,” Greg says.
Spencer Pollard
Newport, Shropshire, England
To build his diorama, TIEs Died, Spencer used spare parts from Revell’s 1/65 scale Outland TIE Fighter. “Or, in this case, I had two to use,” he says. He added bits and pieces from his spares box and scratchbuilt the tower at the back to give the scene more height. “The whole thing was really a proof-of-concept project,” he says. “Could I build it from spares and still capture the look of the Star Wars universe and the artwork on which the idea was based? I didn’t worry to much about the lore that surround the stories, so there will be a ton of liberties. I also didn’t really micro-paint each item, concentrating on the idea [more] than its execution. Instead, I just had fun during the few days it took to build.”
Paul Killins
Signal Hill, California
Paul and his brother, Dan, grew up in Houston and spent many hours aboard the USS Texas museum ship. In honor of the time they spent together, Paul built a Trumpeter 1/350 scale USS Texas to represent the battleship as it appeared off Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, in support of the D-Day invasion for Dan. Paul improved the kit with Master metal 14-inch and 5-inch gun barrels, 3D-printed antitaircraft guns from Black Cat, photo-etched metal details from Eduard, radar units from Infini, Master whip antennas, and L’Arsenal OS2U Kingfishers. To finish it, he used acrylics from Testors Model Master, Tamiya, AK Interactive, Italeri, and Mission.
B.J. van de Maat
Rijssen, Overijssel, Netherlands
To build a Greek Phantom, B.J. added resin ejection seats, intakes, exhausts, and wheels to a Hasegawa 1/48 scale F-4E. He painted the camouflage with Hataka colors and used Revell acrylics for the bright orange and blue.
Larry Ball
Stevens Point, Wisconsin
Compared to recent kits, Emhar’s 1/35 scale Whippet is rudimentary. “But then again, so was the Whippet itself,” Larry says. “As a result, a few surprisingly easy, common tweaks make a remarkably fine result from the Emhar kit.” To that end, he cut the kit’s vinyl tracks into link-and-length to shape them around the running gear realistically, replaced the machine guns with parts from his spares box, drilled out vision holes, scratchbuilt stowage boxes, detailed the exhausts, replaced solid-molded grab handles with wire, and opened the engine louvers. “That’s it,” he says. “Paint it up, slather it with many colors of mud, grime, and washes, top it all off with some graphite and pastels, and the Emhar kit turns into a very convincing Whippet.”
Paulo Ayres Muselli de Mendonça
Porto Trombetas, Pará, Brazil
After struggling with warped parts in AMT’s 1/2500 scale USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B, Paulo was delighted to add the colorful decals to finish the Excelsior-class starship seen in Star Trek Generations.
David Campbell
Yuba City, California
Straying from his love for NASCAR, David built Revell’s 1/25 scale “Jungle Jim” Vega Funny Car basically straight out of the box using the kit decals and Tamiya Metallic Blue paint; Powerslide decals brand the tires. His only change was modifying the body stand into a one-piece stand.
Fredrik Strom
Östersund, Jämtlamd, Sweden
Fredrik dressed Revell’s 1/48 scale F-86D with Cutting Edge decals to model a Yugoslav air force academy Sabre Dog. To improve the kit, he replaced parts with white metal landing gear legs, Eduard resin wheels, and Eduard photo-etched metal details. “There is a debate whether the color on the nose is blue, black, or something in between,” Fredrik says. “I went for the blue option choosing the same blue color as in the air force insignia.” He painted the metal body with Alclad II lacquers and used Mr. Hobby and Ammo by Mig Jimenez acrylics.
Robert Shveytser
Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Gaso.line’s 1/48 scale M3 Stuart is a multimedia kit with resin, photo-etched metal, and vinyl tracks. Robert finished it as a Lend-Lease tank in Soviet service with custom-mixed Tamiya acrylics, and weathered with artist pencils, oil-paint washes, and airbrushed filters. The slogans were hand-painted, and he scrounged the red stars are from another kit.