Kevin Futter

I finished this build earlier this year as part of the Silver Jubilee Group Build over at LSP. In case you're not sure, this is a resin kit of the Fokker D.XXI in 1/32 scale by Silver Wings. I had a few issues with the build, but most of them were self-inflicted. The main markings were scanned from the decals and cut as masks using my Silhouette Portrait. Only the smaller insignia and stencils were used from the kit decals. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thanks for looking! Kev

It was a bit fiddly I have to confess, and they didn't turn out perfectly, but then the real things were probably a little agricultural too. I think they look OK. I painted them first and then masked them off for the main camo colours, which I thought would be easier than doing it the other way around. Kev

I started this kit a few years ago as part of a Group Build on LSP, but quickly stalled out. It made a couple of returns to the bench, before I finally committed to getting it finished earlier this year. Initially it was meant to be a quick build, so I elected not to rescribe it, or fix the inaccurate main wheel bays, but with a bunch of legacy aftermarket in the box, it quickly evolved into something more complicated. The main aftermarket sets were a Grand Phoenix resin cockpit, resin main wheels (True Details I think), Moskit exhausts, and a Squadron vac canopy (of which I only used the sliding section). The tail antenna and the windscreen rear view mirror were taken from the Tamiya kit. The main relevance for SMPM, however, is that the nose chequers, spinner, fuselage codes and serial numbers were all masked and painted using custom masks I cut on the Silhouette Portrait. I also tried to do the national markings, but wasn't happy with how they turned out, so I resorted to decals for those, along with the aircraft name and a handful of stencils. Thanks for looking! Kev

Welcome aboard, Mark! Kev

Welcome aboard, sir! The Oracal products are hard to find here in Australia, too. The one source I know of is a distributor, so you have to sign up as a faux retailer to order anything! Not helpful for you, but at least know that you're not alone. Hopefully someone can give you more useful information than that! Yes, I wish the site was more popular too. Kev

Welcome aboard, John! Kev

Lovely work, Duncan! I took the liberty of fixing your image links for you. The forum software no longer supports bbCode (the stuff in the square brackets), so you only need to paste in the direct image URL now. So instead of this: [url=https://duncanblack.smugmug.com/Box-art/Edit/i-vhmdK7b/A][img]https://photos.smugmug.com/Box-art/Edit/i-vhmdK7b/0/MZ4K8nhBNm4K7WLjPRK8Xh883GSmPvF7fjgC9pLDz/L/IMG_1978_zps6vdg9iwd-L.jpg[/img][/url] ... you just need this: https://photos.smugmug.com/Box-art/Edit/i-vhmdK7b/0/MZ4K8nhBNm4K7WLjPRK8Xh883GSmPvF7fjgC9pLDz/L/IMG_1978_zps6vdg9iwd-L.jpg Kev

Welcome aboard, Duncan! Kev

I had no idea those Arma files existed - thanks for the link, Milo! I'd be looking to scale them up to 1/32, but I do have a Hasegawa 1/48 Hurricane in the stash... Kev

Welcome aboard, Carl! Kev

Well, that does indeed look like an interesting machine. I'd never heard of it, so it will be interesting to see some reviews and comparisons with the more well-known brands and models. Kev

What's a "Siser Juliet"? Kev

There's a really good build of that kit (test shot, I believe) on LSP: https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/100173-north-american-f-86-a-5-sabre-148-clear-prop-models/ Kev

Welcome aboard, Jean! You could try superimposing the mask designs over your original scans, and making them match up. Not sure if that's actually possible in practise, but just an idea that popped into my head. Kev

Wow, that's annoying! If I were you, I'd take this issue directly to Silhouette, as this seems like a failure of the machine to perform properly. I think some tech support might be in order here. Kev

I meant to report back on this ages ago, but one of the updates released since I made this post fixed the issue, and subsequent versions of Silhouette Studio have all been fine - not that I've really had any time to test them! I've just (finally) upgraded from the Basic (free) edition to Business Edition, so being much more productive at the workbench so far this year (4 completions already), I'm hoping to be able to use the Silhouette solution for my projects more often. Kev

Yep, just upgraded from Basic to Business myself. Total cost was about AU$76, and I had a bit of trouble with the payment process, so Silhouette support helped me out nicely there. Now I just have to find the time to use it! Kev

That looks great, Dave! Kev

Thanks for posting these, Dave! Kev

Awesome! I know I could use them, at the very least. Kev

That looks great, Dave! Can I convince you to upload the cut files when you're done? Kev

Looking forward to seeing the results, Dave! Kev

Welcome aboard, sir! Kev

Probably, and probably not. Kev