Month: September 2025

Military Modelers Club Louisville 2025 IPMS Model Show

Always one of my favorites, the Military Modelers Club of Louisville 2025 show was held yesterday at the Paraquet Springs Convention Center.  This is an excellent venue, easily accessible and even the lighting is great!  The weather was beautiful which was a stark contrast from last year’s show.  There were 408 model entries, slightly down from last year.  The quality of the entries was outstanding, there is a continuing trend of everyone stepping up their game and there are several top-notch modelers in the Louisville area.  The club is justifiably famous for their outstanding raffle which is always a highlight.  I vended and also entered the contest which kept me busy, I did get to see the models but didn’t get to scour the vendors’ room as thoroughly as I would have liked.  I was able to pick up a few more books (like I need more books!) and won a few nice kits at the raffle.  A great steak dinner with a few good friends and then it was back on the road.  As always, a fun day out and a great way to spend the day!  Here is a sample of some of the models which caught my eye.

Women Warriors 339

IDF
Ireland
LCDR Danielle “Purple” Thiriot F/A-18
Serbian EOD
Ukraine
US ARMY in AFGHANISTAN
IDF
WRENs with PomPom
Norway
Norway
Norway
B-52 Pilot Maj Christin “Sparta” Hart
IDF
Germany
Belarus
WRENS
Norway
IDF
Portugul
USMC LCPL Angela Cardone
LTJG Suzelle Thomas
USAF with Reaper UAV and Hellfire Missile
Norway
Norway
India
Navy WAVE codebreaker Julia Parsons
IDF
Norway
Ukraine
Lt. Dana Kaduri, IDF Iron Dome battery commander
Lithuania
RAAF Flight Lieutenant Hayley Moulds, KC-30A
Airman 1st Class Natasha Libby examines the barrels of a Gau-2 mini gun mounted on an HH-60 Pave Hawk
Albanian Soldier with mortar
ATS operating searchlight
ATA pilot Lettice Curtis boarding the Spitfire
ww553_Russia
Russia
ww553b_IDF
IDF
ww553c_KurdishYPG
Kurdish YPJ
ww553d_Norway
Norway
ww553e_Norway
Norway
ww553g_Poland
Poland
ww554_IDF
IDF
Women in israel defense forces IDF military girls
Israeli Defense Forces IDF
ww556_NursesFrance44
US Army Nurses in France 1944
ww556Poster
ww353
ww354
Russian Mounted Police
ww355
Swiss Air Force F/A-18
ww356
Katherine Hepburn as Amelia Earhart
Poster089
ww153
IDF
ww154
Netherlands
ww155
Norwegian Soldier in Afghanistan
ww156MaureenDunlop2
Maureen Dunlop, ATA Pilot
Poster039_NeverWaveAtAWAC

To see more Women Warriors, click on the tags below:

Fine Molds Star Wars TIE Advanced Diorama Build Part II

This is the interior all painted up. The base color here is Mr. Surfacer 1000, the Copper colored wiring is one of my sister’s broken guitar strings.
The cockpit got the same treatment. Foot pedals are spare Luftwaffe parts, much of the rest is Evergreen dressed up with PE and instrument decals from a Hasegawa F-14. Surprisingly, it appears TIE fighter pilots have magnetic posteriors as none of these ships have seatbelts!
Some masking fun on the “wing” panels. Much easier to treat these as separate parts as the angles would make them very difficult to paint after assembly.
More masking fun on the transparencies. The kit has a set of masks but they must be carefully cut out by the modeler. They stick pretty well to flat panels but not so good to curves so the measurements were transferred to Tamiya tape for the “canopy” part.
Turns out Star Wars fans dispute the proper colors for TIE fighters, seems the studio models were painted in blue-grays but the ones on screen have the blues washed out and appear as a light gray. I used Mr. Color 337 Semi-Gloss Grayish Blue FS35237 for mine, so you can learn from my mistake if that’s wrong.
Here is the assembled model, the access panels are Evergreen sheet with Revell Ju 88 dive brakes for the interior panel surfaces. The black panels on the wings are Tire Color with Tamiya panel line wash in the recesses to bring out the detail.
Time to get busy on the base. The OneTime joint filler is from the hardware store, this is a light mixture and can be easily shaped and sanded. The base is an old awards plaque.
I blended the spackling compound with a wet finger and added rocks from the driveway. The craters were pressed into the mixture using my Plastic Model Mojo tumbler and other items from the bench. I pre-shaded the features with black and built up the finish coat with Alclad gray primer.
The astronaut is a resin print.
The finished composition.  The idea is an astronaut making an unexpected discovery on the Moon.  What is the ship doing here, how long has it been here, and where is the pilot?  I wanted to leave some opportunity for the viewer to fill in the blanks so I have left the hatch open and footprints leading off the base to the right.  I will add a nameplate saying “Houston, we have a problem!”  I hope you enjoyed it!

More completed photos here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2025/09/29/fine-molds-star-wars-tie-advanced-diorama-in-1-72-scale/

Aichi E13A Type 0 Reconnaissance Seaplane Jake Part III

The heavy cruiser Mogami was heavily damaged during the Battle of Midway on 06JUN42, bomb hits by SBD Dauntless’ from Hornet and Enterprise destroyed her two after 8” gun turrets. As the Japanese had identified a lack of reconnaissance aircraft as one of the contributing factors to their defeat at Midway the decision was made to rebuild Mogami as an aircraft cruiser by extending her flight deck aft. When she emerged from the Sasebo Naval Shipyard in April 1943 she could embark up to eleven floatplanes. In this excellent photograph she can be seen carrying four Aichi E13A Type 0 Jakes and three Mitsubishi F1M2 Type 0 Petes. Several interesting details are visible here, including the three white rectangles on the leading edges of the aircrafts’ starboard wings which indicate Mogami’s assignment as the third ship in her division and the battens clamped to the wings to prevent wind damage to ailerons and flaps.
The Myoko-class heavy cruiser Ashigara launches one of her Jakes while cruising in the Java Sea, May 1943. While it is not clear in this photo, the tail code prefix should be KII- at this time. In the foreground is a 12.7 cm/40 Type 89 twin gun mount, one of four carried, along with its associated director.
A Jake at the moment of launch from a ship’s catapult. Noteworthy are the unusually large Hinomaru on the aircraft’s wings.
The heavy cruiser Aoba recovers one of her Jakes while at anchor. The Aoba’s secondary battery consisted of four 12 cm/45 guns, two of which can be seen in this photo.
The Japanese converted several freighters into seaplane tenders, here is Kamikawa Maru as seen from Kimikawa Maru with one of her Jakes in the foreground. Visible on the fo’c’sle of the Kamikawa Maru is a F1M2 Pete with a pair of E8N Daves between the forward kingposts. Aft of the superstructure are a pair of Jakes. Further aft is a Daihatsu landing craft which were in general use as ships’ boats by the IJN.
Seaplane tenders generally carried their aircraft on the weather decks as seen here. The wings of the Jake could be folded if necessary although it was much more common to leave them extended.
Aircrew board their Jake on Kimikawa Maru. She has her catapult trained out in preparation for launch.
Crewmen cheer while the aircrew stand on the float of their Jake aboard Kimikawa Maru. Kimikawa Maru was active in Japan’s northern waters and in the Aleutians early in the war, given the crew’s attire this is likely from that time.
The pilot boards his Jake, likely from the same event as the previous photo. Jakes were painted an overall hemp (light gray-green) with a black cowling for the first months of the Pacific war, by the Summer of 1942 the upper surfaces of most Japanese aircraft began to be painted dark green.
The “X-2“ tailcode identifies this as one of Kimikawa Maru’s aircraft seen at the moment of launch.
A fine aerial photo of another Jake from Kimikawa Maru’s air group. Float markings are displayed to advantage, while the lack of yellow identification panels on the leading edges of the wings dates the photo to September 1942 or earlier.
On 26 and 27FEB42 this Jake from Kimikawa Maru conducted a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union’s Ust-Bolsheretsk harbor on the Kamchatka Peninsula. As the Japanese and the Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact the Japanese concealed the identity of the aircraft by painting out the Hinomaru. The X-5 tailcode of the aircraft remained in red. Here the Jake is being hoisted aboard at the conclusion of one of these missions, note the ice on the sea below.
Another view of the same aircraft being lowered onto the deck which shows the over-painted fuselage Hinomaru to advantage. Painting out the national markings was not uncommon on Imperial Japanese Navy floatplanes during recon missions over enemy territory, this was especially true for submarine-launched aircraft.

Part IV here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/aichi-e13a-type-0-reconnaissance-seaplane-jake-part-iv/

Star Wars Complete Vehicles Book Review

Star Wars Complete Vehicles

Hardcover, 224 pages, glossary, and index

Published by Dorling Kindersley (DK), Penguin Random House 2017

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0-2413-2479-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-2413-2479-0

Dimensions: 10.0 x 12.0 x 0.8 inches

The original Star Wars movie release is approaching its fifty-year anniversary.  Episode IV: A New Hope has captivated generations of movie fans and has grown into a multi-Billion Dollar franchise.  One of the more valuable intellectual properties in the Star Wars universe is the vast array of vehicle designs which have inspired a seemingly endless procession of toys, Lego sets, and even quite a few model kits.  Fans have long sought details of the interiors of these vessels as the movies only provide brief glimpses of limited areas.  The Star Wars Complete Vehicles book steps in to fill this void.

Inside this book is page after page of cutaways which show the interiors and mechanical details of every sort of Star Wars vehicle from speeder bikes all the way up to the Death Star itself.  These are presented in full color and large formats with smaller complementary illustrations filling in the gaps.  The illustrations generally span two pages with four having double gatefolds.  Whether one is a fan of the franchise or not, the drawings are meticulous and fine examples of the draftsman’s art.  The book is arranged into five chapters: One chapter each for Episodes I – III; the original trilogy (Episodes IV – VI) is treated as a single chapter; and Episode VII The Force Awakens is the last.

There are at least seven earlier versions of this book and two subsequent versions which contain portions of the material in this work.  Basically, as new movies were released new material was added to the old and the whole thing was published again.  This book depicts ships and vehicles from Star Wars Episodes I – VII.  The chapter for Episode VII The Force Awakens is shorter than the others and the artwork is computer generated which gives it an entirely different feel.  In 2014 Disney infamously redefined what is and what isn’t canon, this book does not contain material from the time between Episodes III and IV or the secondary publications, games, or series which related events not shown in the theatrical releases.  There are also some familiar ships which received new artwork for Episode VII.

Star Wars is a cultural mainstay for those of us of a certain age and remains a popular subject for modelers.  Star Wars Complete Vehicles is a great reference for those wishing to detail the interiors and equipment areas of their models, plus the book is a fun browse.  Most versions of this book are available at reasonable prices, just check the contents first to make sure your favorite ships are included!