Hi modellers! This is the first in a weekly series of modelling news, previews and events and happenings that are occurring or about to be in the near future. WE know that many modellers love osprey books and thought you would appreciate some modelling content on the site as well. We hope to keep you abreast of the newest releases every week and give an independent view of the modelling scene now.
First up this month we have some industry news - for those eagerly looking forward to the 1/32 Wingscale B-25 series it looks like there has been a snag. Word from the modelling forums is the injection moulders from the Asia region have taken ownership of the research and decided to put out their own version of the kit (which was 90% finalized) without Wingscale's consent. The end product of this being the first Wingscale kit being taken from under the fledgling company's nose, and maybe their planned 1/32 Meteor and massive B-17 kits as well. There was a lot of talk about this as the C.E.O. Martin OudeVrielink has been pretty gracious about the whole affair, but the consumer base seem to be a little up in arms about the whole deal (probably rightly so). Hopefully there is better news in the future for Wingscale, their work on the B-25 and their injection moulding knowledge shows they will bounce back stronger with their next release. For the record, Martin urges everyone to still buy the kit as it is his baby. We will keep you posted.
Better news however now from Eduard. The well-respected Czech company have just released their new 1/48th Mig21MF. This kit is made up of Eight sprues with one clear sprue for the transparencies. Included are aircraft masks, two sheets of photo etch and markings for six aircraft. To top off this kit there are two of the company's newly branded "Brassin" UB-16 rocket pods which are just amazing to see in their fine detail.
After many ultimately disappointing Mig 21 kits from other companies it's good to see such a finely detailed and well appointed kit come from Eduard. The excellent cockpit brass etch combined with the Brassin pods and decal choices from many of the former Warsaw Pact countries make this a good choice for the modeller who wants a quality kit and who just isn’t sure which version of the famous fighter to make. Don’t worry they have planned a full line of all of the major variants so you will have plenty more to choose from!
From Alpine Miniatures this month comes a new double figure set of two G.I.'s 35116 1/35 WW2 US AFV Crew Set, each of the figures (which are available separately) have two different heads both with and without helmets and which offer a contrasting look of your choice to the figures you make. The tankers are in winter fatigues and have the choice of the softer padded headgear that tankers wore under their helmets or regular tankers 'lids. Both are sculpted with extremely realistic young looking faces by the master sculptor Taesung Harmms. Again, the others in the figure field follow Alpine's example.
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Hot on the heels of their latest kit of the German Arado 196 seaplane which was both cheap and lovely to build comes their latest the 1/32 Royal Air Force Red Arrows BAe Hawk T.1A Hawk. You should find this in your local hobby shop now. I do remember making one of these in 1/48th as a child and this kit like the one I had (about 1000 years ago) is moulded in Red styrene which to me is a hard colour to complete the kit in - you will have to completely undercoat it before the top colour is applied and sanded completely smooth as the finish on these Hawks has to be immaculate.
For a RRP of £16.99 you get an excellently detailed kit of the aerobatics machine with 143 parts and an excellent thin canopy with marking for two of the Red Arrows aircraft. This would be an excellent kit for veteran modellers as well as people getting into larger scale aircraft. It has broad appeal, not too many confusing options and straightforward construction and simple engineering. Also in this scale the aircraft still isn’t too big at 368mm long x 295mm wide.
For those fans on a budget how would you like a free kit??? Well Producers Silverwings from Poland has a good proposal for you – just send them an email with suggestions for five of your "Wants" in aircraft from the Inter-war Period and you could be the lucky one to be picked as the winner of one of their kits– this text is from their site..
"At Silver Wings, we specialize in high quality aircraft kits of the "Inter-War" and Early-War" eras (1919 to 1940). We are also a company created by, and ran by, modellers. As such, we are continually working to improve our products and efficiencies in an effort to bring kits to the market that are of interest to modellers, and that offer excellent detail and value for money.
As we work on our plans for future subjects, we are very interested to know what you, our customers and potential customers, would like to see us produce in the way of 1/32 scale aircraft from this period. Note that future kits may be resin, or injected plastic with resin details. Please email your top 5 suggestions for new kits to us at: newkits@silverwings.pl by April 15th, 2011. Please include your name.
As a thank you for your time, we are going to randomly pick one submission for a free Silver Wings kit of their choice. The winner will be notified by email and posted on our website.
Wojtek Kulakowski, CEO"
Just send Wojtek an email with your five proposals and where you found the poll to their email and you could be a winner! Wow - With kits like the Gladiator and Hart just becoming available this month this would be an excellent prize to win.
That's enough for me for now, I will have the review of the excellent little Zundapp K800 Motorcycle from Vulcan in 35th scale this week. Please don’t hesitate in sending any of your own news, model kit submissions requests or reviews to us at blog@ospreypublishing.com
Till then – have fun modelling - Adam