My 1/72 scale collection

[Ofanim]

Hi everyone !!
It has been a looooooong time ! Been strugling with life and jobs because of the pandemic and the aerospace crysis that followed.

The last paper model I completed was the Su-33 and it was two years ago !!

After building a few 1/100 scale planes I've decided to improve them a bit with scratchbuilt cockpit but after a few models I realized this was really too small and if I wanted to build a plastic model it would have been difficult to find models at the same scale (I found some kits but 1/100 is really rare).

So I've decided to switch to 1/72, bigger but not too much and easier to build.

Let's start this thread with a Star:
Lockheed F-104J Starfighter
Bu.No. “46-8629”
206th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (J.A.S.D.F)
Hyakuri Air Base, 1973

Original model by Scissors & Planes.
I recolored it myself (it is available at ecardmodels.com at 1/100 scale) and when building it I decided to do some scratchbuilding, it was pretty easy because this model is well designed. I created a cockpit, the landing gear bay and some open maintenance panels.

I used 100gsm paper sheets for this kit.
The wheels are made of laminated cardboard sanded with my Dremel and painted with Vallejo tire black.
The pitot probe is made of optical fiber from an old lamp. It's easy to paint and is really flexible. No risk of bending or broking it.
Since the main colour was relatively light it was not necessary to paint the edge of the paper except the dark grey area or the olive green anti glare panel. I used Vallejo paint there too.
The canopy was vacuum formed using a plaster mold.

I hope you are fine !
See you soon (I hope!),
Ronan

[Rata]

Now that is one impressive model Ronan. Is the framing on the vac-formed canopy cut from the original design?

[gomidefilho]

Very impressive my friend! Glad to see you return to forum

[Draco]

When I started to make paper models, I already have a small collection of plastic ones. So I took the original 1/33 and rescalled them to 1/72.

One advantage was that a lot of guns, bombs, pilots and even spare parts from my plastic models were available.

So I think that your collection will give a lot of options that any other scale can't!

(This picture includes plastic and paper models, and only the 727 is on another scale)

[Ofanim]

Thank you very much guys !

It's good to be back, for sure i won't be able to build as much as I used to do a few years ago, but I hope it wont be zero.

@Rata, Indeed, I printed a spare canopy (actually two, in case of trouble).

@Draco: Exactly ! In 2015 I built a 1/72 Gripen made by Revell, the model has been damaged and was to be honest not that good compared to my current builds, So Isalvaged the canopy and some parts for a future Gripen but in paper !

[paperengineer]

An excellent model to return with! Looking great as ever Ronan, glad you're back