Greg Baker You think Choppa Nutta will notice the engine cowling is slightly askew? Better not mention it..

Choppa Nutta haha, too late you already did
Looks fine to me though
Anyhow, you know I love your work though Greg, right ?

Greg Baker Heh. I'm just impressed by your mental telepathy and ability to discover the part of a project I'm not happy with... sometimes before even I Know!

Choppa Nutta haha, a most amusing way of framing it

Greg Baker Ok... I know have all the parts I need. Next up is priming and painting.

Choppa Nutta shaping up nicely

Greg Baker After a lot of sanding touche ups, it was finally done, primed and ready to pain.... and that's when I cracked the leg nearly off... le sigh

Greg Baker Ok... I screwed up the masking around the cockpit a bit, but my attempts to fix it started making it worse... so I'm moving this project into the "done" column before it rolls right down hill.

Spanjaard very interesting Greg

Greg Baker Thanks Spanjaard! It's finally starting to look a bit like I imagined it. Scary

Greg Baker Okay, so the interior is almost all done. Just a bit of a wash for depth before I seal it all up inside.

Antonio De Girolamo I look forward to the completion of this jewel, Greg!

Greg Baker Let's hope so. I glued the two halves together tonight and for some reason the sides bowed in a bit and I couldn't close the gap. I had to do some emergency surgery with a bit of thin plasticard and some putty. I hope I can sand it into submission without wrecking any of the interior by accident.

Kerry Cox How wonderfully creative Greg.
The wheels turn and the imagination has it all worked out.
Sheer enjoyment to see the end product 'appear' and turn into something mystical and magical. I love it. !

Greg Baker Thanks Kerry! It's amazing what getting a coat of paint on does for the morale. It starts to look like what you envision and suddenly you get a burst of energy. I'm glad you like it.

Kerry Cox I love it mate.

Choppa Nutta Seems this album is .............

Greg Baker Can you guess? I'll give you a (major) hint... the car is a Fiat 500 (it's even yellow!)

Choppa Nutta it's Lupos car

Greg Baker Yes indeed! Super easy. Lupin III's Fiat 500 from the Miyazaki-directed Castle of Cagliostro

Greg Baker I was super-stocked to find a cheap (less than $2!) answer to my Fiat 500 scratchbuild shell problem. For a 1970/80s throwaway pull-back toy, the detail is amazing and the size is spot-on accurate (41mm).

Greg Baker Added up a couple of pics. Did a layout for the seating/engine and chopped up the Kubelwagen soft-top to fit on the Fiat. Also threw together the little motorcycle.

Greg Baker I successfully made a resin cast of the body shell... now I can screw up a few times if necessary.

Acki Cute! I love this!

Choppa Nutta Clever stuff Greg !

Greg Baker Thanks Choppa! Some bright spark has pointed out to me that this car is actually a Fiat 600 not a 500... So I'm going to try to do some surgical procedures to try and bring it more in line.

Choppa Nutta A collection of Tintin scratchbuilds ?

Dave Flitton Watching this one!!

Greg Baker Well, as much as I'd like to build a 1/72 scale Tintin Rocket... this time around I'm just doing the little blue jeep. I couldn't make up my mind about doing this one or the red one from The Land of Black Gold, So I'm doing both!

Greg Baker I already did one Tintin 1/72 scratchbuild... the Shark submarine... which started from a 1/100 Tamiya Me262A. You can. Heck it out here strobez

Greg Baker I don't know why, but I seem to love taking pictures of that box... oh well. With all the Studio Ghibli mini projects recently, my Tintin shelf seems a bit bare. So I decided a couple of quick jeeps were just the thing!

Greg Baker I just added the completed pics... including the tape/wire seatbelt as a finishing touch. Despite my grumbling, I'm much happier with this build over the first one. It looks a lot better (Not to mention now in scale) and is now probably the central showpiece in my growing mini-build collection.

Thanks Choppa!

Btw... now that the Mehve is off the table (although I'm still working on the stand) I started another mini project... stay tuned!

Choppa Nutta "I'm much happier with this build over the first one"

says it all

Choppa Nutta may we have a photo of everything finished thus far, you know, like a family photo ?

Greg Baker Yep. And I knew that from the beginning... you just pointed out what was bugging me and that shoved me over the edge. I just like harassing you... however if you start pointing out anything more on the redo, all you're gonna get is "lalalalalalalala... I can't hear you..."

Choppa Nutta I figured, which is why I aint said nuffin
looks good though mate
I applaud your efforts

Greg Baker Whew! I can rest easy now that I have your stamp of approval.

Choppa Nutta Good, more than anything I am pleased you've ended up with a model you are happy with
Also note you have inspired me to have a go at this myself and I always appreciate it when someone inspires me

I've been eying up my wood stocks as I am contemplating 1/6 scale scratch build in balsa wood with brass and ali tube for the fittings, also fancy having a go at doing a 1/6 figure sculpt too

Greg Baker Now THAT will have me ringside and throwing popcorn.

Choppa Nutta ................. the same as this one

Greg Baker Weird... I couldn't find the album after I created it, so I uploaded twice... grrr...

Greg Baker Oops... I added the album before the project... so the album was hiding all the way at the bottom under "Other"

Choppa Nutta lol

Choppa Nutta I use super glue smeared over the area, stiffens it up and fills the gaps etc.

Greg Baker I've never tried that. Can you sand it cleanly to a smooth shine?

Choppa Nutta yep

Greg Baker Ok... stay tuned.

Greg Baker I didn't try the CA glue trick yet, because I decided to add some styrene strips and sand down one side so they act as panel lines. I also got started on building the wings using a bit of brass. Next up is the tail, and then the cockpit. I realized there was still too much body work to be done to start worrying about a final finish. Adding putty for the panel lines alone would've ruined it.

Choppa Nutta coming along sweetly

Greg Baker Alright. The paint is on and this one is done, but for a final clear coat. Since I'm redoing the Mehve from Nausicaa, I gave the stand I build for it the first time over to the Laputa Flapter. It seemed a better fit, so I was able to just repurpose the original Flapter stand for the Aero-Kayak with very little modification. I basically just snapped the end off and touched up the paint.

Despite the u-turn for a scale adjustment in the middle of this build, I'm quite happy with the result. The paint was a bit darker than I was aiming for, but not enough for me to want to redo it (no matter WHAT Choppa points out!). I also might have toned down the rivets, but once you start putting them at 1mm intervals, you're pretty much committed.

Choppa Nutta Looks good mate,
Btw, I hope haven't given you nightmares

Choppa Nutta cool and watching

Greg Baker I've done a bit more work on it... but I didn't take any pictures 'cause he doesn't have any pants on yet, and this is a family site...

Dave Flitton is it an Orangutan ?

Choppa Nutta No it's the robot gardener

Greg Baker Yes indeed. He's a 1/72 scale robot gardener from Laputa. I'm going to try a two-stage project. First up... wire, epoxy putty and sanding it into submission.

Greg Baker Since I'm more or less trying to incorporate one 1/72 vehicle from every Studio Ghibli film, I decided to include a new project based on the film, Arriety. The obvious choice was to 100% scratchbuild the boat the family uses to leave in at the end of the movie. It was a very quick build and all the parts just fell together. Quickest build I've ever completed...

Martin Oostrom Invisible boat?

Choppa Nutta I've got a cupboard full of them Martin

Choppa Nutta Will there be a diorama to go with it ?

Greg Baker Well, a 1/72 scale teacup is a little hard to see...

Choppa Nutta not seen the film, is it invisible too ?

playtime 222 Teapot?

Greg Baker oh, right. It was a teapot! Whoops. I suppose a 1/72 might be a tiny bit bigger than the spec of dust at the centre of this pic...

I was mentally listing off the Studio Ghibli movies that I haven't had a scratchbuild from yet and was just sort of thinking about what might be included. When I got to Arriety I was giving it some semi-serious thought until I realized that to keep it inline with the rest of the 1/72 scale how tiny it would be...

Then I laughed, put a spec of plastic dust on my cutting mat, took a pic and called it done!

Patrick Hagelstein Cool!

playtime 222 Surely something in photo-etch... *runs *hides

Bart Goesaert that's a clean build

Greg Baker snicker... I think it needs a bit more PSR

J W Got to be watching this beauty too!

Greg Baker Yeah, well let's just hope I don't screw it up. This was in my "to tackle once I'm good enough" stash... and for some reason, I'm now cocky enough to believe I am... I'm just waiting to quickly and inevitably be proved wrong.

So I bought the Curtiss R3C-0 as well today..l just in case.

If it REALLY goes to hell, I'll just say I always wanted to build the Savioa S.21F instead... and that one will go in my "when I'm good enough" stash...

J W Just put on some of your favourite French/Italian crooning to listen to, sip on a glass of Chianti and let your undoubted mojo flow Greg ... but don't forget the odd photo for us mortals observe your progress and for Choppa suggest improvements !!!

Choppa Nutta Popular plane to model recently I've noticed

JOHN THOMAS Greg, Nice start. Glad to see some added detail

Julian Herrero aka Yuri Good work so far , congrats

Ekki Following.

Greg Baker Thanks Guys! I sprayed the cockpit with Tamiya primer to get ready to paint it, but it went all runny on me for some reason, so I think I need to clean it off and try again.

Marcel Klemmer I am in.

Greg Baker After a bit of a break due to work-related travel, I'm back at it. Not much of an update, but got some paint down on the cockpit and the air intakes.

Greg Baker Well... it's done... enough. This project was a Murphy's law of errors. I'm not sure why, but the painting was a mess, i kept getting these little sparkles... I killed a bunch of the decals... including the control panel... sigh... sometimes done is done. I still like this weird plane, so I may have another crack at it someday if I run across another kit.

Stephan Ryll Good lookin bird

Greg Baker Hey Thanks, Stephan!

Choppa Nutta cool

Ekki Very nice work.