Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!

As I’ve said before (somewhere) building models isn’t something I do for fun. I do it because I have to. It’s like a monkey on my back, man. An evil, twisted monkey that sinks its fangs into me if I don’t get into that man cave and make a model.

Here’s FROG’s lovely little P-51A, which would be perfect were it not for the god-awful rivets and the totally wrong-shaped wings.

You glue it with the Micro Weld and you clamp it. Let it dry overnight and you end up with a model that should “require” very little “filler.”

I put a coat of U.S. Navy Blue Gray on it because, well, I have “several” bottles of this paint. I decided to mix up the color myself because all the diseased, evil monkeys (we have a monkey theme this week) who make paint were unable to provide this one, essential color. HOW HARD CAN IT BE?

Well, actually, very hard. By the time I’d “hit the target” I had, ahem, a heapin’ helpin’ of blue gray paint. So it’s time to use it up. As non-primer. I don’t believe in “primer” for plastic models, but a good base coat is a fine thing, and a good way to use up blue gray paint if you have a lot of it.

Brushing this stuff on is like making love. Just take it tenderly in your arms and dab away like you just don’t care. Let nature take its course. Flow.

The pilot was painted in RAF jammies so we’ll call him (her?) a British ferry pilot. Or something.

Remember, in Australia the ferry is Manly and don’t you forget it. In fact, riding the manly ferry is the national pastime and I say “well done, mate.” Nothing wrong with that.

No I am NOT schizophrenic and neither am I!!!

16 Replies to “Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!”

  1. Looks like they grafted Me109 wings on to that bird! Nice start! I can hear Petrr Gabriel’s “Shock the Monkey!” In the background.

  2. Brushpainter, help! I just mixed two Tamiya colors fx 26 with FX 3 ( both have been treated with Windex) for an RAF Harrier the color is nice, but it is leaving some small blobs that take longer to dry and then leave an ugly smudge, no brush marks but some spots wetter than others and thus dry differently. I tried going over the paint with a little alcohol on a brush to try to even it.this helped a little.but some spots are still pooling or leaving a smudge.Any thoughts or musings on this? What do you ponder I am doing wrong?

    On another note, the underside was done with Revell aqua, and perfect! Any thoughts or musings on this are appreciated. I enjoy reading this site

    1. As long as it dries into a hard, smooth finish it should work just fine. You don’t get the final, “even” finish until the final clear coat. Anyway, before that, you put on a few coats of Future to make it all super shiny anyway. Your analysis of the cause of the “problem” is interesting. The thing is, I don’t think there is a problem. The finish will be uneven and look pretty bad unless you follow all the steps and do all the stuff. There are many steps along the way. No one step is unimportant. No one step can be skipped. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, Grasshopper. When you can snatch the pebble from my hand… time for you to go.

    2. Ah… wait…wait a minute. I think I may (now) understand what you’re trying to say. DID YOU BRUSH OVER THE TAMIYA PAINT MORE THAN ONCE?? If so, you farked up. Tamiya paint is considered “unbrushable” by many otherwise capable modelers due to the fact that it immediately DISSOLVES the underlying coat of paint and creates a blobby mess if you BRUSH OVER IT SEVERAL TIMES.

      You must brush over with the lightest possible touch. Brush. Stop. This is THE WAY.

      It’s not easy (apparently). Easy for me, but I’m learning that this MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It’s similar to the mind reading, levitation or the astral travel. Me do. Other people NO DO. This makes elephants sad…

  3. Thanks, man you make this enjoyable! What a mensh! Hope spelled right! The windex trick works makes it workable. Revell works great, problem is matching colors.

    1. Don’t be afraid to mix your own color. Trust your own eyeballs, don’t lick the paint.

    1. I don’t believe anything from the Pentagon. The question of UFO’s leads to all sorts of interesting topics, particularly about “faster than light” travel. I’ll just point out one simple fact and leave the rest as an exercise for the student. “C” (from E=MC^2) may NOT be the speed of light. “C” is the “theoretical maximum speed in this universe” and that may, or may not, be equal to the speed of light. If lightspeed does NOT equal C then UFO’s could be from other planets, but the most logical explanation is that they are from right here on Earth.

    1. “C” is a philosophical concept. It means “the fastest speed that anything can move from one place to another.” Part of Special Relativity is that it incorporates the idea that the speed of light in a vacuum is, in fact, the mysterious “C.” But keep in mind that it’s NOT just a case of “We use a capital C to mean the speed of light.” That is WRONG. It’s just another example of what people learn from ignorant high school teachers who were never taught the truth because it’s, I guess, too complicated.

  4. I took college physics and the always use C as aconstant. No warp speed possible professor from classical physics would say. Please share more on C as being able to become the speed at which gravitational mass is able to warp space and thus bend time, or reduce distances. The speed limit gestates enough energy to make mass heavy enough to bend space. What do you think about this?

    1. I would love to discuss this, but the comments section here is acting very strange and I’m finding it very difficult to add comments to my own blog! Hah! If you want to continue this discussion drop me an email to dancho at thebrushpainter.com

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