Vietnam-era Flying Boxcar

I have two of these Disney Planes Cabbie toys. They are a wonderful compromise on scale for table top use. Shorter wings and thicker fuselage fits in well. One of them will be a mercenary plane based on the seaplan from The Expendables, and the other will be a Vietnam-era transport.

Paint is mostly done (it still needs a red prop warning line on the fuselage), and I began applying decals - from a number of different sheets - today. I need a decent day of low humidity to clear coat and I probably will add a few warning decals still. Cockpit windows, weathering, prop magnets, and landing gear need to be finished up.

Markings and paint scheme are fictional. I decided to do a Marines C-119 painted in a manner similar to the AC-119 gunships with black lowers and "South-East Asian" camouflage upper surfaces. GreenStuff World's decal sheet had an appropriate name, "Rice Pattie [sic] Hattie", that seemed something a Marine aircrew might paint on the aircraft. The scorpion tail marking is from Gnomish Workshop and is a call out to a fictional squadron from a t-shirt I got at Target years ago.

Weathered Buildings

This is a tenement from TT Combat. It's not a particularly detailed MDF building, but they are extremely affordable. It went together quickly and I modified the garden appartment to place the balcony away from the street. Basic paint, and then lots of washes. Added some grafitti, both decal and hand drawn.

I also built and painted a few of the Sarrissa Precision South-East Asian building I got. Its just a basic brown undercoat with lots of washes to make them look aged and weathered. Going to cut up some old towels for the thatch roofs.

Patrol Boat, River and two Fiats

Built and painted a PBR from Sarissa Precision today. Modified the roof with some hemp twine covered with crumpled paper sealed with ModPodge. Created a better feeling of canvas over metal supports.

It has some interesting proportions, probably not quite to scale but allowing minis to be placed on the deck. It is missing a forward dual-fifty turret, so I'll have to figure that out. I also changed the order of the rounds for the radar, and sanded the top-edge to make it look more accurate.

While I had the paints out I finished up the windows on two Fiat 500Fs I bought at the car museum years ago.

Card-Craft Old-West Barbershop

A short bit ago I came across a series of card-craft punch-out building models by a Russian company, with the unfortunate name of Umbum. Listed as "1/56" I decided to order one to see what it was like. Finished building it today.

It is a little small for 28mm... perhaps about S-Gauge - which is absolutely usable for gaming. They are very nice builds, straightforward, with detail inside and out. Registration is consistent and the artwork is rather attractive.

The only issue is the clearance on the board walk; the roof is a little low for some minis. You find this issue on the inside as well, which is cleverly accessible through swing-out walls and lift up roof sections that latch in place.

Overall I think these are great little buildings if you dont mind them being just on the small side.

Building the Library

My first four purchases from Folio Society. To give my Japan-based library (and the new house) some literary cred.