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Okay- finally! Tonight I'd like to post a series of photos to try to give a comparison impression of how big the INAS Kittyhawk is:

Doom Pixie Infantry (Scout Snipers):


Doom Pixies in front of a Skat Kat Kitty Karrier Tankette (rigged for missiles):


Skat Kat in front of a Bagheera Tank Killer (things are getting bigger):


Bagheera Tank Killer in front of a Sirocco Wind Tank:


Sirocco in front of a Tom Cat war walker (not bigger, but certainly taller):


Rhino in front of a Baneblade:



Baneblade in front of Chonky Kat:


Another comparison shot:


And from a bit higher:


Finally (for tonight) Doom Pixie, Skat Kat, Baneblade, Chonky Kat:


I've some more shots of just the Kittyhawk, but will post tomorrow. I still have the video to crank out and I have a couple of ideas for shots of the zeppelin with terrain features that might be kind of cool. I need some popsicle sticks for the shadow box and then that should wrap up fairly easily and then I have to figure out what to tackle next!

Thank you for looking in. More follows soonest.

I was finally able to figure out how to get images and (especially) video from my phone onto my laptop, so I can actually try to piece together my little video of the Kittyhawk.

I also have some photos in a darkened environment to better show the running and battle lights:

From aft, showing the port/starboard markers, but a nice view of the running lights also:



The weapons gondola rigged for battle:



And what I believe came out the best- the bridge, also rigged for either night running or battle:



More (and different projects) follows soonest.

Great Northern lights!
Wow, you've been very busy.

How much fun is that!! Great work, mate! The squads and armour look really cool - I love the colours and their basing too.

Thank you Ragsta and Tommygun- I really appreciate you taking the time to drop a comment.

This whole project has been fun- albeit went on longer than ever I intended. And it used all my skills (as poor as many of them might be) and asked for new ones: wiring, soldering, lighting, weathering, plasticard construction, sheet metal construction, magnets, figure painting, decaling, the lot. The next one I build is going to be a bigger diameter hull with a removable side so that you can see the lift bags inside and the hangers, rooms, storage, etc as it would be in a more realistic dirigible.

I saw this short clip on the USS Macon and can't believe they don't make a cut-away kit of her and that there hasn't been a feature movie about her adventures made (although Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow has the scene with Angelina Jolie as the commander of a flying aircraft carrier, except the Macon was real):




I absolutely need to build one of these- some of her features I had in mind for Kittyhawk but she just wasn't big enough to fit them in.

I still want to get a short video of the 'Hawk up, but have already started prepping the next three projects (all much more limited in scope than the 'Hawk): a Smilodon MBT variant, an antique mule cast iron pull toy for refurbishment (a present for my wife) and the shadow box for poor Chip.

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.

Finally a chance to post- work has been happening but, as they say "screenshot or it didn't happen".

I've got three projects going on and over the next couple of days hope to get a progress pic up of each.

For tonight, here's a shot of some assembly for the shadowbox for Chip Marshal:



The layout will feature a section of barn stall, over which we hung a 'jolly ball'- very much like the balls we threw at each other in gym class for dodgeball, but with a handle molded on- horses love to play with them. Chip and his partner in crime Sammy (registered 'Sandtracker') would stand on either side of their section of stall wall and play keep-away with that suspended jolly ball for literal hours. And all that mouth action makes them salivate, so the rubber floor mats were covered in horse slobber and if you weren't careful you'd slip and then be covered in it.

A little more work buzzing up popsicle sticks with my Dremel and the stall walls will be cut, glued up and finished. They'll need to be stained with some washes to get a nice brown-grey color and then sealed with matte varnish.

After that, just a session with the hot glue gun and some time on the laptop printing off a couple of good pics of Chip and some painting of the figure to match his markings and then this one is done until Sammy passes (hopefully far down the road).

Thank you for looking in. More follows soonest.

Amazing. Simply put amazing, what colour scheme are you going for ?

Thank you for looking in and commenting, NotOnline!!!, I greatly appreciate it. I took a little bit to answer as I was hoping to have photos to show, rather than descriptions to make. I did get some time in today, but have also been prepping to roll out of town for work since last I posted, so time (as it is for everyone and everything) is at a premium.

As background, I picked up three colors of felt at Michael's on the way home from work tonight (poker green, black and light brown) and elected to go with brown, as reinforcing the whole 'inside the barn' theme we've got going on:



I elected to use the spray on Gorilla Glue adhesive, vice the liquid Aileen's Tacky Glue, both because I figured it would set faster and also wasn't apt to leak through the thin felt as easily. As it turns out, it didn't leak through at all. Sprayed the hardboard shadow box backing, pressed it onto the felt, placed an (regretfully) empty pizza box on to disperse the weight and added 14 years of collected Prince Valiant comics (published by Fantagraphics Press- terrific quality, I've been collecting them for years and have the whole story from 1935 through the most recent volume published- 1991/92):



Let it dry, trimmed the edges off, and then started seeing what things would look like:



It's missing the stall pieces of course, and that's the next bit. I used the circular saw blade on my Dremel to cut all the pieces for the three stall sections I'll need, plus the upright posts/beams, and assembled everything. Then selected washes to try to get the oak/grey/brown/yellow color that our barn's stalls have- the barn dates to 1848, but the stalls are much more recent- dating to around 1900:



Started with Umber:



Added Grey:





They may need a bit of touch up with the grey, and then I'll do a very light drybrush with Spearshaft Brown, or even Sand, to get that elusive top color. And that should be that.

Then remains just final positioning of Chip's momentos- to include a good photo of him, glue it all down, detail the horse figures to match his markings and his buddy Sam's (Sandtracker), add the Jolly Ball and Chip's side of the shadow box is done.

I'm in no hurry to add Sammy's things- at the moment he's doing as well as a 23 year0old horse that's had the life he's had can be expected. But as Sergeant Major Rawling's tells the little drummer boy just before the assault on Fort Fisher in the movie Glory: "We'll all be by directly."

All we can do is try to remain ready, however each of us defines that.

Thank you for looking in. More follows soonest.

I'm really impressed with the final result of the Kittyhawk. It looks incredible! I'm really proud of you for seeing that project through to its completion. And this new project looks like it is coming along at its own pace, too. Personally, I feel like most old wood has a tendency to become more grey than brown, but I have also never seen your barn in particular, so I do not speak from a place of knowledge. I look forward to seeing all your progress moving forward.

Thanks Warboss- video still to follow.

Yep, the wood is a bit odd- more of a blonde, with grey to it. Most barn wood does go grey, but this has been inside all its life, so maybe that's the difference. The color really doesn't matter in the long run- it's the suggestion of stalls that matters, not any misapropos attempt at a false realism!

So, was on fire tonight- getting things done, gluing up: at that stage of a project where all the sub-assemblies are coming together and everything just wants to fall into place. Took this photo early on to show how the 'stalls' look in the shadow box:



I was going to use the hot glue gun to start attaching things to the backplate, but thought I'd print off the pics of Chip Marshal I want to use, and glue everything up- this half of the shadow box would essentially be done.

Except the box of photo printer paper I keep on hand was actually empty. No problem, says I, there's a place just eight minutes down the road that carries it and I'll be back in a total of 20 and get on with everything.

Except that place didn't carry it any more. Neither did the next, nor the third, and now I'm out in heavy rush hour traffic with accidents every six feet on the highway and the compass is reading funny and the waist gunners are both down and I'm limping my B17G Dixie Girl in on three engines and...

Okay, no B17 but traffic was a heller. The reason all the clerks gave for why they no longer carry any specialty printer paper (no photo paper, stickers, labels, index cards, do-it-yourself greeting cards) is because everybody does digital and prints off on regular paper- if they print at all. Nobody apparently does 'real' photos any more, so why carry the paper?

I gotta tell ya, I'm tired of outliving technology. As example, I've seen movies in theatres replaced by movies on cable TV, to be replaced by laser discs, to be replaced by VHS and Betamax tapes, to see VHS win the Tape Wars, to be replaced with DvDs- supplanted by Blu-Rays and slightly by 4K High Definition discs all to be swept away by streaming. Which is fine, because most of the modern content does not appeal to me anyway.

But it is a massive feeling of displacement to look around for something that used to be so common, and find that not only can you not find it- the young person you're asking about it has never heard of using it and can't understand why you just don't do digital.

So, I'll have to order it online and whilst it's coming in move on to project Number Two: The cast iron Donkey and Rider pull toy refurbishment for my wife.

More follows soonest.

Kittyhawk looks awesome - I mean it's truly inspirational, thank you for sharing - and great army shots too.I have to admit admit I have no clue about your latest project with the horses but it looks cool. Also I echo your sentiment about technology. I don't have a smartphone, and i'm constantly being told to get an app to do stuff, even basic sevices.

The Kittyhawk continues to impress (I only just got the joke now...), but I have to ask is it painted white or is still a color to come?

I thought it was raw plastic card but then I saw the decals.

Thanks for looking in PaddyMick! I considered myself to be on top of the technological wave, right up until I wasn't. I'm no Luddite, but was pretty comfortable being old-fashioned. Unfortunately, my wife and I realized that things were changing, and if we wanted to be able to function and protect ourselves we had to learn the new stuff. We've only had smart phones for a few years and I only just on this last business trip put a 'wallet' on my phone because we were in the bush right up until it was time to head to the airport- so if I was to have a boarding pass, I needed a digital wallet. Some things I know I won't ever use, so for instance I can't tell you anything about setting up a Facebook 'wall' (if they even call it that anymore) because there just isn't any way to secure your personal account information. If I could only win the lottery, I'd be 'eccentric' instead of 'crazy' or 'addled'.

Howdy Kid! Thank you also for looking in. Believe it or not, the color of the hull and gondola is an off-beige, with two layers of wash on it already- one faint black and the other a medium brown (sepia). Here's a photo with a piece of plasticard scrap against her:



I'm tempted to hit the rivets with another brown stain (dabbed on, not flooded, so it catches the edges) and maybe hit the gondola again with a greyish, aluminiumy, dustish looking wash. I'm fearful to overdo it, because it would be a metric b**ch to redo all that! But it needs something, I agree.

Paddy, the thing with the horses is a shadow or memorial box. We rescue the ones that no one else wants, often ones with nothing left in them but to have a quiet place where they aren't hungry and scared and can just rest until their time comes. When it does, I build a box with some mementoes to remember them by and my wife writes them a poem. There's pics of the box I built for our little mare Ginger earlier in the blog- hers was what got me interested in incorporating lights and soldering and things in my projects: she was fascinated with the neighbors across the road blue lights on an outdoor tree at Christmas, so I built one to go in her shadow box.

This one will be for both Chip Marshal and Sandtracker (Sammy), two Standardbred rescues who came in together to our place. Chip passed last spring, but Sammy is still going strong (at 23 years old). They loved to play with the jollyball on a tether, so that's what their box will have them doing. Sammy's figurine won't go in until he passes.

I realized that I can make a start to arranging things even whilst waiting for the printer photo paper tos how up: tonight I cut out the foam board backing layers that the printed photos will go on and started painting their edges. They stack in layers from 1-3 deep and provide some relief/texture to the back of then box:



I also made a start on an antique cast iron pull toy that I found for cheap at a yard sale- my wife loves donkeys so this will be an 'allowable' piece of bric a brac (unlike all my models and figures, which are 'less acceptable' bric a brac ) and I'll give it to her for Christmas:







I'm not going to do much to the donkey itself- I like the 'antique' patina that it has, but all the rusted areas are getting new colors. I've already started by painting the wheels gloss black- I'm using acrylics but when done will heavily overcoat it with clear lacquer. I can tell it was intended to be pulled on a string or pushed with a stick (there's an interesting clean nodule of what looks like solder in the right just being the saddle where something may have been attached) because the front wheels are attached at a bias to the center of the hub- when you push, pull or tug it it undulates up and down as it moves, mimicking a donkey's gait.

Stumbled over these dull blades from our horse clippers set and they reminded me of another long-waiting project whose time I think has come:



More on these in a bit when the shadow box and the pull toy are done.

And finally, this was just out and I felt like taking a picture of it:



I think I may have picked this up with the Reaper 5 kickstarter, but I'm not sure. In any event, if I were a dragon, books would be my hoard. I've never tried to paint a dragon figure this large before- there's a wonderful breadth to be able to express some nuance with color- so I'm not sure if or when I'll tackle it, but tackled it must be because I need it on my desk while I work or read.


Thank you for looking in and the comments- more follows soonest (including some video of the Kittyhawk 'in flight'.

Glued together the phot backings for the shadow box tonight and will hopefully slap another coat of red paint in their edges.

Gonna sneak a 'before' photo of the cast iron toy, as the page wrapped and I'd like to show before and after (would do it side by side, if I was clever):



Also finished what I'm going to do with the cast iron pull toy; looking at the photos I'm half-tempted to go in with the Dremel and grind down the rough paint edges, but when you look at it from a distance of even a foot, they are not very visible so will leave well enough alone:



You can see on the right side of the figure several rounded points- these are cast into the figure, so they aren't attached lumps of solder like I first thought. I do believe they were attachment points for something- either the lanyard for pulling or the stick for pushing is my best guess- once upon a time. You can see them at the concho point of the headstall on the bridle, the rearmost point of the saddle blanket and midway on the hip or lower torso of the rider; the point below that is definitely a piece of scale or solder:



The paint was so badly corroded when I started that I didn't realize the rider was properly sitting side-saddle!

Next opportunity to work I'll try to get the shadow box wrapped up and then back onto the next Nekomimi tank- which is much smaller than the Smilodon super-heavy, so will be the Cougar- roughly the same size as a Leman Russ.

More follows soonest, thank you for looking in.

There are some very impressive projects on the go here- I really like your horsebox vignette one! May I ask what the background to that idea is?

I remember reading about the 20s and 30s airships including the Macon and Akron. Have you ever watched Laputa Caste in the Sky? I loved that film as a kid!

Thanks for looking in, Ragsta!

Yes- Castle in the Sky is an excellent film- I didn't think to watch that one to stay motivated during the long build time- now I want to watch it all over again!

The shadow box vignette reproduces a scene from our barn- Chip Marshal and his pal Sammy (Sandtracker) would play keep away with a jolly ball ( akind of playground type ball with a handle molded onto it so horses can grab it) hung from a beam literally for hours: they'd slobber so much sometimes that the floor mats were drenched and you'd slip if you weren't careful. So the scene shows a stall, the head of the aisle and the near wall of the stall across the aisle.

I got the photos we want to include printed out tonight, added another coat of red paint to the photo blocks/spacers and am ready to start gluing things into place. I do need to find a piece of string for the ball, it really bugs me that I don't have a bird's nest worth laying about already!

More follows soonest.

Almost finished with the shadowbox:







I need to add the jolly ball- just need a bit of string and something I didn't notice until I looked at the photo is that Chip's mane needs to be black. Otherwise, it's done until it needs Sammy (the black horse figurine) added, which hopefully won't be for a long time. He's going to be harder to customize, because he isn't black- he's a black bay, which means he actually has brown hairs underlying the black and he shows brown at the hocks, mouth and the major creases where the big muscle groups shape the skin.

And finished repairing the last of the damage from moving, with two exceptions:



There's a little bit of everything here- the move was indiscriminate in what lived and what got 'modified': a Sister of Battle Sister Superior, a lascannon team from the Lucky 7's (77th Imperial Infantry), three Doom Pixies, a Snow Pixie, some cargo under tarps/on pallets and a robo-anti-aircraft gun that's completely scratchbuilt from my 'interesting pieces of plastic' box.

Exception 1 is the piper from the Emperor's Own Scottish Space Borders (based on my own Clan Leslie's Kings Own Scottish Borders)- I'm going to have to fabricate new drones for his pipes, and I;ve come a ways since trying to paint his face, so may give him a make over and look less like a fentynal user.

Exception 2 is the mechanicus lady from an old kickstarter- I forget the company, but have a ton of their figures still waiting their turn. I have tried every glue known to man and that last stinking robo-octo-arm won't stay attached, so now the only thing for it is to use a tiny blob of greenstuff and do some touch up paint.

Next Monday I should have some time to work on the enxt project, which is the new Cougar Medium tank (Leman Russ equivalent)- with some comaprison shots with the Smilodon,

Thank you for looking in, more follows soonest.

New project- finally a straightforward, "sit down and just paint" job:



This is the Cougar, the Nekomimi Winterguard's medium battle tank. The photo is deceptive (aren't they all?): it's actually much smaller than the Smilodon behind it. I added the Leman Russ into the pic to show that the Cougar is also really much bigglier than it, so the Leman just became a scout/reconnaissance tank for the Empire.

Unfortunately, Resin Munitorum is still not printing and I'm running out of figures to adapt as crewcats, but I did find some 'Neko' head sculpts so will try to fit them onto the crewman figures that came with the tank and carry on. The sculpts are good, but they and the figures are much bulkier than the real Nekomimi. Oh well, this build is going to be winter campaign weathering and detailing, so bulkier means they're wearing their woolies.

The shadow box is still in the background on my kitchen counter because I forgot to bring a piece of string from the farm to finish off what can be done for right now.

More follows soonest.

Started pin-washing tonight, trying a new technique I saw on Youtube- careful application and then using water to dilute the edges and fade it out:



Going with a winter weathering scheme (lot of terrain materials left over from doing the ski-equipped BA-64 diorama) I wanted to try to do something different than the "all over" dirty washes I've used for most of the other vehicles I've done. Doesn't mean I won't pile a bunch of snow everywhere, though.

Also primered a new vehicle that will be for a different unit: Space Samurai:



More follows soonest.

Bit more progress tonight- finished pin washing (which for me I guess is more like detail outlining, as I'm trying to avoid actually 'washing'), added some base colors where needed and strted working on the crewcats:



Also finished basecoating the Space Samurai Sled:



The 'pin washing' didn't work so well, I think I let the wash dry too much before trying to feather it out with a wet brush. Fortunately, I had (mostly) applied it carefully and have a lot more weathering steps to try to get the winter campaign effect I want, so I think it will all be good.

More follows soonest.

Progress last night, couldn't post due to a problem logging into the site:



I think the Nekomimi heads will work on these figures that came with the tank- just a lot bulkier. I'll fabricate my own tail for the standing gunner.

More follows today, I hope!

Tonight's work:



The crew are essentially done- just need to start the several washes and couple of areas of dry brushing, plus fabricate two tails and paint them and the ears. The grey wash is mostly applied to the vehicle, and nest is the watercolor whitewash. On top of everything I have the AK Interactive snow modeling materials from the earlier BA-64 project, plus some doodads from Green Stuff World that I haven't tried before and am looking forward to adding and see how they work.

Thank you for looking in. More follows soonest.