Thanks so much John! Yeah I found the kits a bit tricky in some spots but nothing too bad, and of course I can see how one could loose themselves in aftermarket detail sets to add to the authenticity.
Welp, I finally finished the other Kingfisher! I was planning on giving it to its new owner on New Year's Eve, but I ran into some complications near the end!
Plane:It's straight out of the box. No frills (except the aftermarket decals from the same set the Arizona bird came from). The paint scheme was a bit hard to spray and mask at that scale. Not to mention the design is a bit delicate in my meaty fists. The figures are aftermarket from my bag of 1/72nd(ish) people. I originally thought of including more but scaled it back. The wires were a last minute decision and I was successful in stretching some of the sprue from this kit fairly thin. Getting it glued into place, then painting it in situ was on the other hand... frustrating. I then had to paint the side wire first, and glue it into place. I also scrtchbuilt the wheel chock.
Base:I originally was thinking of having it in a flying attitude, or at least water landing, but for simplicity sake, I went with a ramp and water base. I built the angled ramp out of spare sheet styrene and covered it in putty. I let that dry and used a palm sander to smooth it out in short order, thinking I was saving time. I was a bit too heavy handed and forgot I was sanding thin sheet plastic, and ended up cracking it and breaking, which required more repair, glue, putty, and sanding. I tried to not sand all the putty down smooth so I left some of the craters and crevasses to allow colors and washes to get in them. After various wet and dry color passes, I used some chalk colors, and eventually earth tones to get a well rounded concrete color look.
Water:As stated, the Woodland Scenes "Realistic Water" effect was tricky and I now know more of it then I did. Which makes me eager to try a different water based diorama to achieve even better results. Due to the shrinkage of the water, I had to reapply 3-4 layers. Once level and dry I applied mod-podge, followed by a 50/50 white glue and banking soda mix to make the water breaks.
Thanks for looking!
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