I have always liked to create things. I like to draw. I like to paint. I write things. It is no wonder that I came to like the idea of assembling model planes. I believe I realized this first after watching Top Gun in cinema sometime in late 80s. Until then, I did not pay too much attention to airplanes. My collection of toys did include a very crude model of an unarmed MiG-21 fighter, but I never played with it until after the movie. Inspired by the highly unrealistic dogfights, I would fly my MiG around, blasting enemy jets. But it always bothered me that my MiG did not have any weapons. So, I used to make my own missiles, from plasteline, cardboard and toothpicks. Still, they were ugly and not very detailed.
I mustered enough courage a few years later. I built my first kit in 1992. I had no proper tools, no adequate paints and definitely no patience. I glued the 100+ parts together in less than an hour. The result was ... disappointing. Parts did not fit properly, some having been left out altogether. Tears of cement were smeared all over. I used blunted scissors to cut down the edges off the pieces, leaving them scarred. And worst of all, only after assembling the module did I realize that I should have painted the hard-to-reach pieces first.
After that, my models became prettier. I was still very much short of professional tools, but I managed to improvise rather fairly. I made precision brushes out of big oil-paint brushes by trimming off their hairs save only a few whiskers. I used thin strips of adhesive tape as casts for painting. I would even sand off bits of plastic off landing gear tires to make them look as if they sagged under the weight of the planes. I also used highly thinned copper paint to trace out corrosion lines on naval and marine planes. Oh yes, I painted the parts before assembling them.
My planes never came close to being the uber-perfect examples you could see in magazines. Then again, they were never meant to be. I did not have a garage with a special ventilation system and 34 types of airbrushes. I did not have an oven, a laser drill or tens of thousands of dollars needed to make my planes look like fashion models.
I built my best and last ones from 1998 till 2001. Since, I have not made any models. I have dedicated my passion to other things. Nevertheless, I think I have made a few very nice examples. You will be able to read about each one of them in their individual galleries.
A word of caution for 56K dial-up users: For enhanced experience, I thought it would be best if I did not use small-size thumbnails to link to enlarged images, but rather to display them in their full glory within the gallery pages. This might cause a bit of a delay in the loading.
Galleries are sorted chronologically, with the newest at the top. Or you can click these fine little previews to jump into each gallery ... I hope you will enjoy them!
