Category Archives: Modelling Tips & Ideas

James May is Spitfiretastic!

If you didn’t get to see James Mays’ Toy Stories last Tuesday then please go immediately to the BBC iPlayer site and watch it NOW!

I’m not sure how long the link will last, so in case you don’t get a chance to catch this programme, in this episdode, James May ( of Top Gear fame) explored the wonderful world of Airfix kits. He tried to convert a group of young kids to the hobby and actually did a very good job. The grand finale was putting together a life sized model of a spitfire and showing it off to Veterans from the Second World War. It was my favourite TV show of the week and not just because James did a superb job of advertising Spitfire kits!

The show was a lovley blend of humour, nostalgia and interaction between the generation that grew up building Airfix and the Generation that spends most of their time on their mobiles & nintendos! All delivered with James May’s laid back, knowledgeable charm. James explained exactly why building Airfix kits was so pleasurable to my generation; from the way that you learnt to patiently build a model and over come the challenge that each kit presented to how we used to blow them up with bangers or shoot them to bits with air rifles when we were ready to cull our collection! Oh! and you also learnt all about history along the way, as each kit came with it’s own set of written instructions and facts about what you were building. I think that I have mentioned before, the instructions in every kit started with the words ‘locate and cement…..’

So if you fancy a bit of nostalgia yourself, I have Spitfire kits in stock now.

spitfire spit stater

The starter set is a great introduction to scale modelling as the set includes the glue, Paints and a brush. The glue comes with a precision applicator to help ensure the glue goes on the kit, not on you and the paints are acrylic and they are water based, so you can wash your brush out in water. A great present for the newcomer or those returning to the hobby, suitable for age 8 upwards.

If that isn’t enough nostalgia for you, try the ‘Boys Book of Airfix’, subtitled ‘Who says you have to grow up’. I’ve reviewed this item before in a previous blog entry, you can read it here. It will make an ideal Christmas present for any fan of Airfix.

boys book

Talking of Christmas, why not do a James May yourself? How about buying an Airfix kit for one of your younger relatives and even better, sit with them on Christmas afternoon or Boxing Day and put the kit together. Make sure that you dont hog the glue and dont get too picky if theres a few badly aligned pieces! I guarantee that you both will have more fun than the usual Christmas routine of TV & snoozing on the sofa!

Mantic Games Launch Kings of War Elves!

Yes, the Mantic ‘Kings of War’ Elves range has now been launched and I’m delighted to say that Arcane Scenery is an official stockist and we will carry the full range both in our ebay shop and our webstore all despatched post free to UK addresses.

Just before I give full details of the sets that are available I thought that I would show you the Spearmen set that I started in a previous Blog entry. The last time I showed you a photo, the figures were assembled and waiting to be painted. Well, they’re now finished and waiting for reinforcements!

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I’m really pleased with the final result. This is my first Fantasy unit that I’ve done in recent times. I went for a fairly straight forward colour scheme. The figures were first undercoated in black, then dry brushed with gun metal, then a second dry brush of Silver to highlight the armour and I picked out some of the detail in gold to finish off. I then painted the the faces with Flesh, the boots with graveyard brown, the hair with desert yellow and the spears with gold. All of these colours were given a quick highlight in either a lighter tone or with a dash of white added to the original colour and that was the painting done. Oh, the shields were simply painted matt white and I ‘cheated’ and used the stickers supplied with the figures. I think that they look pretty good although you could paint your own design onto the shields if you prefer.

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The bases were finished in Bestial Brown, coated with Forest Brown Scatter and then detailed with spring colour static grass.

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So I have my first unit of Elven Spearmen ready to take to the battlefield. A unit like this will cost just

Getting the best from Spray Paints

They say that bad luck comes in threes and I suppose that it is one of those truths that I would prefer not to keep proving but this week it happened again. This time the culprit was spray paints. Myself and two customers had bad experiences with spray paints this week. I should have known better but despite all my experience, I still managed to ‘forget’ the basic lessons of using aerosol spray paints. I felt bad for my customers to. One in particular, who had a coat of varnish go bad on his model, had my sympathy. I knew exactly how he felt, he had spent 20 hours painting his model only to find that the final coat of varnish had ‘bloomed’ spoiling the shading on his masterpiece. Fortunately, you can usually cure the problem but it involves more work and of course it would be much better if it didn’t happen in the first place.

My problem occurred with the final spray coat on my new forge world Necron Pylon. Now just to be clear here, the model costs

Cheap Paint!

This hasn’t been a great week for me, modelling or blogging. Sometimes I feel as though I have achieved very little other than to run to stand still. However, that said, it is often times like this that you learn the most. The main cause of my frustration, apart from turbolister, has been a leaky toilet cistern, which has not only meant that the toilet was put out of action but the water leaking from it has found it’s way through to the lounge ceiling. The problem with these minor domestic maintenance problems is that I find it difficult to sit and paint or make my models when clearly, there are other priorities. Well, the other priorities are actually only clear because my dear Wife likes to make them so….

Apart from the obvious inconvenience of having a leaky convenience, the damp spot in the lounge could have turned into a major redecoration project and that would be a disaster when I have so many models to make, so the plumbing had to be done. The upside of this was a trip to B&Q to get the bits and of course a chance to have a nosy around the aisles, pretending to look for plumbing bits whilst investigating parts for my next scenery project. In fact, hardware stores are a brilliant place for stocking up the bits box and I’ll revisit this theme in future blog articles.

There was another reason for my trip. I had heard that B&Q have a clever paint matching machine. You just supply them with a sample colour and they will produce a fairly good match. Now, I am working on a piece of Scenery for my necron war gaming board and I wanted the base to be the same colour as my Necron bases, that is Foundry Terra cotta brown. If you use Foundry or Games Workshop paints over a large area, it will cost a fortune, but those nice people at B&Q have mixed me up a sample pot of 250mls of Terracotta( thats about ten times bigger than a Games workshop paint pot) for just £2.08! Now, I wouldn’t use this paint on a model ( mind you, I might try it on my figure bases) but for scenery, it’s ideal. So there you are, big pots of  paint for your scenery or dioramas that will match your Games workshop or Foundry paints at a fraction of the cost.

Oh! and the good news is that the leaky toilet is fixed as well, so this week I hope to get back to the modelling board with a clear concience, Hurrah!

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