Greg Baker I plan to include a bit of cloud on the base... but not obscuring this masterpiece...

Martin Oostrom Hold your horses! You are claiming a masterpiece yourself? We'll be the judge of that and you'll accept our regular judgement: masterpiece

Dave Flitton Watching

Sergej I Wow! Following!

J W Glad it wasn't made backwards Greg, that'd be edam.

Greg Baker Thanks guys. I decided to finish up the other half of this build project first, so I can turn my full attention to this baby... but the encouraging words help!

Chris Greathouse Following for when you come back!

Greg Baker Won't be long... the Porco Rosso build has captured my attention for the moment, but I just need a bit of masking and painting to finish off the MiG-21 side of this build... so it won't be long before I get back to work on this one.

Slavo Hazucha Now what's this? Area '44...? You really can carve out some jewels in miniature scale, love all the colors & shiny bits. They just look fabulos.

Greg Baker Thanks Slavo... but I can't take any praise yet. These are preprinted/assembled "gashapon" kits of M.33 and a R3C-1. But I'm going to break them down and turn them into the Savoia S.21 x Curtiss R3C-0 from the Porco Rosso manga (which is the short 15 page story the movie is based on). For the M.33 that means rounding off the nose, completely changing the wing and elevators and moving the cockpit back, and for the R3C it's just a bit of reshaping of the wing.

Greg Baker I had this project in the back of my mind for a while, but didn't move forward with it because I wasn't sure if I could get a small enough motor to make the propellor turn. I can't fit them inside these tiny guys, but I think I might have come up with a workable alternative... stay tuned!

Chris Greathouse Yay Porco Rosso Watching! (also album title misspelled)

Greg Baker Thanks Chris. Auto correct at work! I could've just painted these two little gashapon kits and called it a day, but where's the fun in that?

Tim Heimer O.k Greg TY for the redirect. Off on another adventure! LOL

Chris Greathouse Porco Rosso is based on only 15 pages? That's insane for how good the movie is

Greg Baker Interestingly, Hayao Miyazaki wrote and painted "The Age of the Flying Boat" in 1989 for publication in Model Grafix Magazine in Japan. Later it was evolved and expanded into Studio Ghibli's 1992 movie, Porco Rosso. So, Porco Rosso has its roots in modelling. If you're interested in reading the pages, they're all here - ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2010/..liBlog+%28The+Ghibli+Blog%29

Tim Heimer And we're off on another adventure!

Rv I'm in !

Greg Baker Thanks guys! The album is now populated with a few pics - Porco Rosso Dogfight (Savoia S.21 x Curtiss R3C-0) | Album by strobez (1:144)

Slavo Hazucha The earlier (F) series had a smaller cone with only a simple rangefinder inside, later MiG-21 versions have a considerably larger one with a full (yet still relatively small) radar inside. The cone also moved during flight so at speed, it could be further out than on the ground. The short ones you have are correct, but could be further out in-flight, the long one is vastly aesthetically superior IMO but not historically correct. Area 88 decision I guess

Greg Baker I added the images from the manga (a little story bonus for those of you following along). The cones look bigger, and manga accuracy is generally more important to me than historical, so I'll extend them. But now that I've drilled them out, I have more flexibility on the exact length.

Greg Baker I got the pilots seated, but managed to screw up one of the canopies when glueing them on... sigh.

Matthew A Welcome to my world - I spend most of the time fixing my mistakes. Just spent four days working my Tintin seahawk conversion and have only produced a pile of blue resin dust

Greg Baker LMAO!

Daniel Klink Following! Of course

Slavo Hazucha The trio´s getting some shiny silver finish, great! Surely you can put the compromised canopy MiG in a position in the flight where it will not matter... Looking forward to this group coming together. Must be quite a light show when you turn all your Area 88 pieces on

Greg Baker That... and the noise of the whirring of all the propellers is deafening...

This trio is coming along now, so I'm just masking in anticipation of a second coat of paint. I was able to buff out the canopy relatively well with some fine grit sandpaper and another coat of Future, but hiding it in the crowd at the back is a good idea I think.

Greg Baker It was not part of the story that was translated into English by Viz/Eclipse. That series ended with issue 42 (although there was the equivalent of about 7 more issues (up to 49) published later in Animerica). This sequence would have been issues 60-61. It is adapted in the Anime though... so it may seem familiar.

Chip H Ah, that explains it. I'll have to see about getting the other issues then. Thank you!

Greg Baker Put some primer on... and as expected, it showed me EVERYTHING I still need to do... it's a long list apparently. I really hope at the end, this looks better than it did when I started... no promises though.

Greg Baker I dunno... I put in a lot of work on the engine intakes... but I'm not sure it looks much better. At least they're wider/thinner now... and there's no seam.

Chris Greathouse It's another bent gas pokey

Matthew A Should those pilots be flying whilst legless

Greg Baker LMAO... possibly not recommended... snicker

Slavo Hazucha For Pirates & Buccaneers, the absence of a leg is a sign of prowess & seniority! Everything as should be I´d say...

Matthew A Looks like you mean business

Greg Baker It's getting serious now...

Matthew A I see you're not flying anymore

Patrick Hagelstein

Martin Oostrom Is it better? Is it worse? No, it's super different Greg

Matthew A The picture must be from when he had the stress of the last build

Martin Oostrom Sleepless nights. No shaving, hollow immaterial look. That's our Greg

Greg Baker LMAO... Ok... I'm gonna find a better image of Greg Gates from Area 88 to use...

Peter Hardy Pretty sure I saw that pic in the post office with "WANTED" written in heavy type above it.

Wim van der Luijt I have that picture on my driver's license

Peter Hardy So, you have a twin brother that even your mother doesn't know about?????

Kurt Reichert I love this hobby, I love scalemates, i love this display too! Awesome Greg!

Chris Greathouse ^ same

Slavo Hazucha It looks superb, I like all your Area 88 style builds a lot, including the cool bases. This one is just great, including the "personal touch" on the Kfir

Nils Steyaert it fought you during the building progress, but you won.
it absolutly looks great, and the lighting really ads extra flair to it .

Greg Baker Thanks mates. I'm a little overwhelmed by the positive reaction to this build, but it really adds to the feeling of victory. There's more to come though, so stay tuned~

Cortex amazing, awesome project!.

Clint Mecham Truly outstanding display!

Bob Hall Another Gem ! Truly Amazing work ! Bravo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greg Baker Ok. So, after some careful looking and studying, I've come to the conclusion that the 4 little bits I couldn't figure out are, in fact, un-used extras. They don't appear on the website/eBay parts photos (although apparently I didn't get a full complement of brass wires either... but I can work around that easily enough). The only one of the three kit versions to list the parts is the Daisy Cutter, but their location in the mould leads me to believe that there was no real point in trying to remove them.

With that settled, everything else now makes sense. So I glued a few more of the bits on, lest they become wayward snacks for the carpet monster, and I kept doing surgery on the cabin windows. So far (SO FAR) I've only snapped one bit of framing, but it was easily replaced with a bit of styrene and some CA glue. Still some more windows to drill out, so... fingers crossed!

Matthew A Good work!?!

Bart Goesaert looks good so far...

Spanjaard Wie, no instructions.....but you will figure out

Greg Baker Ok. Back at this one now... got some of the clear parts cut out CAREFULLY and glued in place with the resin parts. It's some tricky patient business, but so far so good... (famous last words!)

Matthew A Well done

Greg Baker Thanks Matthew. It's getting there...slowly.

Matthew A Can't be any slower than my projects - I've a star wars A-Wing I started in 1996

Greg Baker The same way I do all my Area 88 1/144 project bases... I buy a cheap wooden coaster for a dollar, flip it over and sand down the "Made in Vietnam" mark. Then I make homemade decals of the scene from the Area 88 manga and then print them off from my inkjet printer. After I spray/dry them, I cut them to fit and then slide them on to the wood using a low flat plate full of water. It's tricky to get large (especially homemade) decals on, but it comes easier with a bit of practice. Then, after the water dries, the decal usually lifts off the wood (because no matter how much I sand it, it's always just a little bit uneven). So then I peel it back carefully and apply a coat of future to the wood and press the decal back down and smooth out the bubbles. Then I use a sharp knife to pop any leftover bubbles under the decal and apply another coat of Future on top. Then I usually take a hairdryer to the whole thing. Usually after all that, it's very hard and sturdy.

Spanjaard Almost missed it, amazing job, as usual

Spanjaard Almost missed it, amazing job, as usual

Dave Flitton excellent finish!

Greg Baker Thanks guys! I appreciate the kind words.

Greg Baker Just a final update - I've added this build to my blog posts - strobez.ca/wp/index.php/2019/05/29/kanzaki-returns-area-88/ - my musings, and 4 pages of the (never before seen in English) manga!

Matthew A very cool

Donald Dickson II Turned out fabulous sir!

Matthew A I'm a big MiG-21 fan - the misses won't let me have one in the back garden, so I have to make do with a pair of these [img1] PLAAF F-7 pilot's boots from 1989

Matthew A I was fiddeling with the laces at a bus stop in Farnborough the week before the 2016 AirShow and a Chinese chap came over pointed at them and went "WOOSH" making the gesture of a plane taking of at 60 degress - it was realy cool

Nils Steyaert ive seen some GDR decals on Ali Express:
https://aliexpress.com/item/..08.1000001.12.557bdbf5LYHjQN

Nils Steyaert i have a couple of Trumpeter/Crown Mig-21PF's and J-7II's from aliexpress aswell, they are cheap and easy to come by.
on one hand the Mig-21 has the right landing gear length but lacks detail, and the J-7II has lots of detail panel lines but its landing gear is freakishly long. i would recommend a combination of the 2 kits for wheels down, but if your planning on building them wheels up, i would go with the J-7.

https://nl.aliexpress.com/it..s.8937460.0.0.4d7f2e0ejkmZPo

Greg Baker Thanks Nils... it'll be wheels-up, so the J-7 seems like the right choice. Those decals look like just what I need too.

Matthew A those decals do look good - do you know the make - ebay says Bell-MODELS

Matthew A Nroth Korean people's army M..g (Bell-MODELS 63067, 1:144) according to a chap on britmoddler they are inkjet printed

Greg Baker Thanks guys. I ordered the Mark I decals and the Learjet off eBay and ordered the J-7s off Alixpress.

The scene for the manga is pretty neat. it's a flashback from Greg's earlier days as an "underground air charter service" helping people defect from the Eastern Bloc. On this mission he's spiriting a world-renowned Soviet violinist to England and runs afoul of East Germans when his compas is damaged. It's a real Cold War adventure tale. So I'm excited to build another unusual pairing.

Greg Baker Ahhh... so you HAVE watched Future Boy Conan...

The electromagnet is now assembled, but as expected, things are not running smoothly. While it seems to be working (based on the hum it makes), I can't seem to get the magnets stable and sit properly. There are two dials (30-turn potentiometers) that are supposed to centre the magnets front to back and side to side (x/y axis). I started at 15 for each, but no amount of fiddling seems to work. I also tried to re-solder the sensors in the middle and move them down a bit as the instructions warn if they're too high it will be unstable, but no luck so far.

The fiddling continues...

Tom There's nothing like debugging electronics! Good luck.

Greg Baker The debugging continues. Maybe there's a loose connection somewhere, I dunno.

Anyway, in the meantime, I had to finish off some details for the top part - basically the four little bulbs on top. I just happened to find some tiny little spoons at the local arts/crafts market - basically plastic cutlery that's intended for the "scale modelling of cute deserts". I'm pretty sure the lady that sold them to me has no idea I intended to cut the the stems off and use them as a detail pack for my flying jar project.

Matthew A Perfect I had wondered how you would that bit.

Matthew A Dare I ask how this one is going - have you chopped it and made it into bread?

Greg Baker We're "taking a break"... I needed one after fiddling with the magnets for so long with no success. I'm not even quite sure how to debug it. I thought the problem might be the sensors were sitting too high (which can make the magnetic field unstable), so I lowered them, but it didn't seem to do much.

Perhaps I should try again... use the old "stare at it long enough and it fixes itself" technique.

Tom Remember to "jiggle" the wires....

Greg Baker If you do that too long, you'll go blind...

Bob Hall Rough estimate LOL , was Stationed there 3 times ! Oh the Food ! (Homer Simpson drool MMMMMM) !

Chris Greathouse It'd be wasted on me, I dislike most foreign food. But I'd love to see, hear and experience Seoul. But I'd be all about that Pizza School

Kerry Cox It is wonderful what we create for the indulgence of our hobby. I just love the bar fridge. !!! Awsome.

Holger Kranich Very very nice man cave!

JOHN THOMAS Very nice indeed

Alec K Snappy young man you have there

Spanjaard Congrats to your wife, she is certainly talented. Never been in Korea , would love to

Matthew A I've friends in Korea but can't fly due to ear trouble (not big enough to flap?)