Finished model 2025-VIII

In L'Affaire Tournesol Professor Calculus gets abducted by Syldavian security forces (as well as Bordurian security forces, in turns). I have always been confused by this—just a few years earlier Calculus successfully masterminded the Syldavian Moon landing project and should by all rights be a national hero rather than tossed around like a buzkashi goat. Come to think of it, in spite of their headstart, we never hear about the Syldavians continuing their space programme in the Tintinverse. Seems a massive waste of effort if they don’t even use it to bring tourists to Syldavia.

Anyway, the Syldavian spies stuff Calculus into a Beech Bonanza and escape the pursuing Tintin and Captain Haddock in the nick of time. In my Tintin aircraft building project this was an iconic scene that had to be reproduced. Now, as for most civilian subjects, there aren’t all that many model choices. There is the Eidai model from 1972, though in my case in a later Arii reboxing. Now, this represents a Bonanza V35B, which was the current model when the Eidai model was created, but the Syldavian aircraft seems to be a Bonanza A35 of 1949 vintage (the book was published in 1956). There would be some work to be done to backdate the model, but as it turns out the basic Bonanza outline has remained more or less the same even as the aircraft has become heavier. I changed the following:

• The cabin is shortened to a four-seat configuration. This also requires covering up the rearmost pair of windows. The instrument panel got a single throw-over yoke instead of the kit’s double yokes. The seats were cut down to lower backs and equipped with safety belts. The right-most front seat is folded down to give access to the back seat. The door is positioned open with an arm rest added. The handhold for getting up on the wing has been added. Professor Calculus and Boldov the pilot have been added, by modifying figures from my anonymous Chinese set of passengers.
• The tail section is reshaped with Milliput to the rounded tail of the early models. The rear air intake is removed.
• The wings are reshaped to the early rounded wing tips with navigation lights from HOBBY + PLUS. The landing lights have been cut out of the wing leading edges with Crystal Clear Tape as covers.
• The characteristic covers/deflectors for the exhaust stacks have been opened up and thinned to plausible thinness. The ends of the stacks have been drilled out. (The kit suggests just sticking the stacks on the underside, with no covers.)
• The kit landing gear is a disgrace—sticking the main gear legs right through the gear covers, the entire landing gear much too tall, so I have scratchbuilt most of the landing gear and the wheel covers with their well visible stiffening channels.
• The aircraft in the comic has no visible aerial (even though one would image a spy aircraft should have advanced communication options) so my model has none either. (We note that Hergé, as usual, has neglected to draw any engine exhausts.)
• The unnamed head spy and the driver “Stany” have been recreated with repainted Preiser figures from the sets Gehende Reisende and Japanisches Bahnpersonal.
• The lot have been glued to a section of Model Scene’s Cut Meadow—Late Summer. In the right light, one sees the wheel tracks of the aircraft in the grass. The frame is a Clas Ohlson Helsingfors. Its glass has been painted brown to represent the soil under the grass.
• For a change, I used acrylics to paint the aircraft. The cream shade is a mix of Vallejo Deep Yellow and White. The petrol shade was difficult to recreate. In the end I went for a bottle of Mission Models Aotaki Blue Green Clear Coat.
• I printed my own decals for the registration codes. Even though I realised Hergé just drew the code letters by feel I spent considerable time looking for a suitable font, but in the end I came to the conclusion that fonts that have a rectangular (or octagonal, really) O will not have a Y with the arms terminated at right angles, so I modified a suitable typeface by hand in Adobe Illustrator.

In modifying and accurizing the Bonanza kit I had invaluable help from Leonard Wieczorek’s three-plan drawing in Model Airplane News, December 1949; the American Bonanza Society; and Graeme Molineaux’ Bonanza walkaround.

Finished model 2025-VII

The Old Town Bridge Tower, i e the eastern end of the Charles Bridge in Prague. The model is card scale. There is a little diagram showing how to assemble the pieces, but even so it requires quite a bit of thinking to figure out how the pieces fit together.

Finished model 2025-VI

I’m not sure if Tintin et le lac au requins is considered canon, it is not an Hergé script, but the final comic book was produced by Studios Hergé and it is close enough to the spirit of the original Tintin books. And, there are quite a few aircraft in the film, and it just so happens that the first finished subject in my project to build all aircraft shown in Tintin books became the Aero Commander in which Tintin, captain Haddock and the Thompson twins crash in the Syldavian mountains.

Aero Commander, yes… The closest fit is an Aero Commander 680, but the animators have taken considerable liberties with the layout. While the cabin is not exactly cramped, it is not the airliner cabin with room to stand up and a lavatory at the back depicted:

Aero Commanders have their doors on the port side, but in the film there is a prominent door on the starboard side, so that the plane can move towards the right (forwards, according to Western image conventions) while the pilot makes a dramatic exit with the parachute he’s suddenly wearing:

Aero Commanders normally don’t have wheel well covers either (though some have had them added as rebuilds).

There was only a single seat for the pilot (as opposed to the double-command of the real aircraft), so apparently captain Haddock is kneeling on the floor next to Tintin when the latter takes over the command:

The livery of the aircraft, as well as the inside colour, is inconsistent between different shots, compare the front view above with a distance shot:

I decided to go for the bare-metal underside, as that fits with the general airlinerness of the subject.

Up until recently, there was only one choice if you wanted to build an Aero Commander, Aurora’s venerable offering in 1:81 scale. There is now a resin kit of an Aero Commander 560 from Croco Models which perhaps could be converted into a 680. But, I ended up with the Aurora. The kit is considerably older than I am and rather simplified. It does not have an extended undercarriage option, so it has to be mounted on a stand. Worst of all, it has the affectation of many models at the time that the outlines of the decals have been engraved in the surface (who came up with that idea, and why!?). On reasonably flat surfaces this is just a matter of puttying, but with the corrugated tail of the Aero Commander it was just about hopeless to get a decent surface. I spent considerable time creating an interior approximating the one in the film aircraft, scratch-building seats and modifying a set of random scale figures I had purchased from a noname Chinese company for a couple of crowns to look like our heroes (I found a nice pilot in airline uniform in my spares box). I even managed to replicate Snowy in Tintin’s lap. Needless to say, none of this is visible through the windows.

I also scratchbuilt the wheel wells for the undercarriage, including the engine exhausts that are routed through here in rather prominent ducts, but had to cut off large parts of the laboriously constructed parts as they wouldn’t fit in the very narrow wheel wells of the model. At least I did manage to create some rather neat landing lights with little-lenses and Kristal Klear, and navigation lights from the HOBBY + PLUS offering.

Finally, I decided that the aircraft had to have registration codes, as that is legally required. From other albums, we know that Syldavian aircraft have a SY prefix followed by three letters, so generating a random registration I came up with SY-UJU in a suitable typeface.

The less said about the painting with my nemesis white, the better.

Finished model 2025-V

Hawker Sea Fury T.61, by PM Model, 1:72.

The Hawker Sea Fury was the last propeller fighter used by the Royal Navy¹, but as such things go, things are more complicated than that—the Westland Wyvern was actually in service longer, though classified as a strike aircraft; then again, the distinction between a strike aircraft and a fighter-bomber, as the Sea Fury was used as, is mostly arbitrary. The Mark 61 Trainer was a de-navalised (without tailhook) version of the Sea Fury, of which a handful were delivered to Iraq and Pakistan. The sources I have consulted give contradictory information on when the deliveries to Iraq were made (around 1950±some years) and if they actually were the same version as the Pakistani trainers, but this is the assumption PM have made.

I built the model as aircraft number ٢٦٣ (263) of 1 Sqn of the Iraqi Air Force.

The kit is about the quality of a 1970s Matchbox kit, in particular it has very shallow wheel wells with overscale detail. I did not do anything about that, but spent a bit of time creating transparent navigation lights. I also ended up having to scratch build the undercarriage covers that had gotten lost at some point.

Kit donated by Tankman, who considered life too short to spend on it.

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¹ The RAF cancelled their order for the landbased Hawker Fury towards the end of WWII as being surplus to requirements.

Literature

Aircraft Archive: Fighters of World War Two, Volume 2, 1988, Argus Books.

Finished model 2025-IV

Finally something in plastic: the ancient 1:28 scale Revell SPAD XIII in the markings of 2nd Lt Frank Luke of the 27th Aero Squadron of the US Army Air Service, based at Saints in August 1918.

I have made no effort to make the model correct, but have basically followed the instructions, interpreting the colours “tan”, “dark earth”, ”olive drab” and “gray” as Humbrol 9, 29, 116, and 40, respectively, with 49 as matt laquer. The fit wasn’t awful, but some amount of putty has been necessary. I added clear plastic panes to the windshield, which was just empty frames otherwise. For some reason the struts have had a tendency to mysteriously disappear, so I’ve had to reconstruct a few of them from scratch. I decided my usual fishing line was too thin to use as bracing wire at this scale, and didn’t want to use sewing thread, so I decided piano wire would be best. Approximately 2 m of 0.5 mm wire turned out to be needed. Somewhat to my surprise the decals were good and hadn’t even yellowed. I did my best to cut away clear decal film and think I mostly succeeded in avoiding silvering.

Finished model 2025-III

Yet another palace: Skokloster in paper. The double curved turrets were utterly painful.

Finished model 2025-II

On a paper roll. This time the fortress of Vaxholm in its stand of 1706, model by Cardboard Cut-outs AB. Actually quite good fit, in spite of the many angles and levels.

Finished model 2025-I

Another cardboard kit: The Royal Palace in Stockholm. Presumably card scale. Halfway in I realised the building, in spite of appearances, is not exactly mirror symmetric, so had to do a quick tear-off, rotation, and regluing. The curved wings were again hopeless to get right. I’m thinking that perhaps I should print dowels with different radii to wrap the cardboard around. Possibly there is also a technique to make the paper keep the proper curvature. I will need to continue exploring this.

Finished model 2024-II

For various reasons I was teaching from home today, and in the breaks I fiddled with the 1:64 Tatra T-87 model from VRKY I had received as a travel gift from the Royal Guard. It soon fell together before the end of the session.

Finished model 2024-I

Yet another Games Workshop Wood Elf. Painted in Humbrol paints, as only they seem to work with the metal figures. I started with the intention of making it for a Winter theme, but the leaf pattern on the cloak suggested an autumnal design to me. While for this particular model it actually was possible to add a string to the bow without it snagging the rest of the accoutrements, the arrows in the quiver are shorter than the distance between bow grip and string, so the arrow I have added is outsize, but what can you do?

Finished model 2023-III

A souvenir from a friend who visited St. Petersburg some years ago: The protected cruiser Aurora, known from the October revolution, as a snap-together carton model by Umbum. The scale seems to be 1:900-ish. I put this together in ten minutes or less – the sturdy carton is pre-cut and the fit of the pieces is almost good enough that the kit just falls together—but you must follow the instructions carefully. The printing is excellent, and results in a good-looking model with minimal effort.

Finished model 2023-II

I did use the photo-etch tool to bend the paper. It bent, but the results still look horrible. Then again, the design of the model, with those slits in the towers, did not help. The Liebfrauen-kirche of Munich.

Finished model 2023-I

This is originally a 3D model of the statue depicting Admiral Yi Sun-sin in Seoul, printed on an Ultimaker 2+ in some suitable resolution, and then brush painted in Vallejo colours. Yet another of those models that looks best at a distance, actually at some considerable distance.

Finished model 2022–III

Another Wood Elf Wayfarer. Painted with Humbrol Enamels—they seem to be the only thing that sticks to the metal surface. Intended for the “Paint it black” theme at C4-Open, but was not considered worthy of judgement.

Finished model 2022-II

Another horrid paper model: The Royal ship Vasa. Box scale, or rather, post card scale. The double-curved surfaces were impossible for me to bend correctly, I wonder if there is some magic trick to make the card stock more pliable. By the stern there were several very thin wedges the were to be cut and glued to make the curved shape. Only afterwards did I realise I should have just cut away the tiny triangles intended as glueing surfaces and instead glued a wider piece of card onto the back. One may note that the bowsprit, which carried a quite sizeable sail, is not represented in the kit. I could perhaps have used a cocktail stick to add it, but couldn’t be bothered.

Finished model 2022-I

As mentioned long ago Pilot 13/1977 contains 3-plan drawings of the Cavalier Turbo Mustang III, and suggestions for how to build one, based on a P-51D Mustang kit. I thought this was a cool-looking aircraft that should be built at some point. Later, I decided I would build it in 1:160 scale for a train modeller friend of mine. When I found a 10 mm scale Minifigs white metal model of a P-51C Mustang, I thought maybe I could use it as the base for a conversion and started collecting references. A fellow modeller, whose name has been unfairly and unfortunately lost in time, mailed me his entire collection of magazine clippings on the Turbo Mustang III. I designed decals in 1:160 scale and had them printed by Al Superczynski. Then I spent several years angsting over how to do surgery on the metal model. I had studied the Heritage Aviation Models conversion kit and had some ideas, but it seemed a daunting prospect anyway, so in the end nothing happened, until I recently noticed that the Shapeways Marketplace contains a number of aircraft models of varying quality and wwitalik has a Turbo Mustang III model which is printable in 1:160. (The model claims to work as a Piper PA-48 Enforcer as well, which isn’t true—there are numerous differences between the two types, not the least being that the Enforcer’s engine exhaust is on the left side of the fuselage.)

I ordered the model printed in “White Natural Versatile Plastic” and it soon arrived. In order to be printable, several features of the model was grossly over-scale and I did my best to adjust these. The propeller blades and tailwheel were cut off, as they were mostly just plastic lumps. The main landing gear is also overly thick, but I felt uncertain about replacing that with anything sensible, but maybe I should have tried. The trailing edges of wings, stabilizer and fin had to be sanded down, which turned out to be difficult—the plastic is rather elastic and tended to just follow the sanding stick and then left grainy fibres along the edge. In the end I had to call it a day and consider the edges as thinned as I was likely to succeed with. In contrast, drilling out the exhaust was actually quite easy. Another things I left off was milling out the landing gear wells, as I wasn’t convinced I would be able to do it well—I would need some kind of way of carefully steering the cutter. Likewise, I briefly considered heatsmashing a transparent cockpit canopy, but apart from the technical difficulties of that, that would also have required milling out the cockpit without accidentally going through the sidewalls. There is a not-particularly expensive milling attachment for my Dremel, maybe I should invest in that.

I fashioned thin propeller blades out of Contrail profiles, cutting and carefully twisting them in warm (not too hot!) water to get blade shapes, landing gear covers were fashioned out of Plastruct sheet, tail wheel covers out of a slice of some aluminium can I had lying around, and a new tail wheel was made from a bit of Plastruct rod and piano wire. I primed the kit with Mr Surfacer 1200 and eventually started painting it. The Turbo Mustang III was intended as a COIN aircraft and at the time it would have meant deployment in Vietnam, so was painted in the then-current South-East Asia camouflage. This meant Humbrol 28, 116, 117, 118. I tried Maskol, again, to mask the colour fields and it seemed to work better now, but the Tamiya masking tape I used to mask off the bottom colour managed to lift a bit of the paint, and even some primer. With the uneven surface that the Mr Surfacer hadn’t managed to improve, airbrushing didn’t make much of a difference, and since I had to touch up scuffed paint at several points, I finally gave up and just brush painted the lot. The control surface hinge lines were accentuated with a pencil. (I need to get me a 0.3 mm pencil again, it has its uses.)

The result will not win any prices (I tried), but it felt good to finally get the old project out of my system, even if in a somewhat different form than originally envisioned.

Women and attack helicopters

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle about the short story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter”. I don’t have the skin in the game to judge if the story is hurtful to trans people, but for a number of reasons I was intrigued enough to read the story and found it, at least from a literary perspective, to be quite good. The author is, I understand, suggested to be using a pseudonym. Quite possible; the quality of the writing suggests at least some prior experience with writing (science) fiction. In this case, perhaps twenty years ago this would have been characterised as a story of cyborgs, while today such close coupling between humans and machinery is taken for granted. The way this melding is described I associate with authors such as Charles Stross or Peter Watts (and yes, I realise those are male authors). I struggle to identify precisely what it is in the writing style that ties them together; perhaps something about wars fought remotely, but where the machines at the front have their own ideas about it.

Murray Leinster’s “The Wabbler” can be seen as an early predecessor, but reads, at least now, as more detached. It may have had a stronger impact in the 1940s when semi-autonomous fighting machines were just emerging.

But, to return to the original subject: when the modelling club used to participate at the Hobby Fair in Stockholm, we offered plastic models at cost for families to sit and build together at our table. An observation we made at the time was that the mothers tended to choose attack helicopter models. Perhaps it is indeed true that they have a very feminine combat style.

Finished model 2019-III

I find paper models to be scarily difficult to build – the paper is hard to shape and utterly unforgiving of the slightest mistakes. Still, I got challenged to put together a postcard model of Drottningholm palace. Which I did. The results, as I had feared, were mostly horrible, but as soon as it was done, I got supplied with a postcard model of the Liebfrauenkirche in Munich, so I guess I have to start on it. An idea of mine is that I will use my photo-etch bending tool to bend the paper into sharp corners. We shall see how that goes.

Finished models 2019-I and II

Well, compare with my earlier dryads. This did get a honorable mention for skillfully executed atmosphere at Warszawski Festiwal Modelarski 2019, but I’m not convinced it’s all that. However, the wash lent by a friend definitely brought out the surface texture much better this time, but the Vallejo paints insist on flaking as soon as you look at the figure, no matter how carefully it has been primed. I shall try using surgical gloves when handling the figures and see if that makes a difference.

The Orc Druid, well, you can see the difficulty I’ve had with the colour demarcations; that is definitely something that I have to improve. Possibly I need to dilute the paint more, but also feather the areas more.

Both figures old Games Workshop items.

Reading foreign languages

While competition is coming from new Chinese companies, Japanese model manufacturers are still among the most appreciated ones in terms of model quality. The English translations of the instructions are not necessarily always to the same high standards, but usually are sufficient for getting the model built. Still, there is obviously more written in Japanese than has been translated, so, while gearing up for building Fine Mold’s Savoia S.21F (i e Porco Rosso’s flying boat), I thought it would be interesting to find out what all the text in Japanese actually said. A little exploration found two tools: NewOCR, an online service to convert images to text, handling multiple languages and alphabets. So that let me scan the text from the instruction sheet into Japanese text, which I of course still couldn’t read. The next step was to use Google Translate. There is a cool feature in Google Translate, that I discovered then, which is that you can actually draw, in this case, Japanese characters in an input window. This let me correct characters that had gotten corrupted in the scanning. Of course, the characters most likely to have been misread are also the most complex to draw. 翼 (wing) appeared quite a few times, and had to be redrawn manually.

Well, so now I should have a text in English that I could read? Well, of course not. As shown by earlier examples, machine translation is an inexact science, even for languages within the same Indo-european family, but translating Japanese into English tends to render nonsense, like: “Rui is distinguished simply referred to as "F-type" In that, but the repair work Whatever You're in which was whether to follow the Detection Ichiru Suppose that you try.” “In such Ime temporary, please enjoy the Italian machine of power Rahul ma one King between War.”

Interestingly enough, names, that should have been the same string of characters in every place, got translated differently in different sentences – sometimes as the correct Italian name, sometimes as whatever Japanese expression matches the Katakana transcription of the name. Presumably this has to do with the algorithms of Google, that sometimes recognise the context and insert the correct name, sometimes don’t realise there should be a name. I had hoped for at least useful translations of the colours, but “power over key” is the rendition of what we know as ”khaki”.

So, still not entirely helpful.