Tamiya Swordfish Float Plane

[Bob S]

Bill, I'm still truly committed to motorsport modeling, but I do enjoy an occasional break - and building aircraft like this one is a good excuse to build scenery to go along with it. Once I learn how to use my phone camera better, I'll post some of my latest motorsport work on this site.

[Bill L.]

Pretty cool!  ... but yo're straying away from your cars. You might experience some minor withdraws LOL.

[Ryan K]

Looks good Bob.

[Bob S]

To start, this picture was taken with my brand new (and very first!) smart phone that I just bought last Saturday...
This is the Tamiya 1/48 scale  floatplane version of the Fairey Swordfish. Thought by many in government to be in it's last useful years toward the end of WWI, it actually enjoyed several more useful years into WWII, shuttling air crew and parts, as well as a few sorties of it's own. The highly reliable engine and airframe was legendary among pilots of the era. This most excellent kit was scooped from eBay for about $55, and worth every penny. I built this subject with the British service insignia and a sea camo paint scheme.
The diorama was as exciting to build as the aircraft itself...For the water effect, I used 1" attic insulation, traced and cut out the areas for the pontoons to fit in at "water level", then painted the insulation with Gloss Black latex house paint. Once that dried, I mixed Marine Blue and Green acrylic paint and swirled it on the black base in wide slow strokes to resemble calm at a deep water dock. Those colors were dry in about an hour, and then I proceeded to add crystal clear plumber's caulk as the top and final layer, gently dabbing it with the back of a plastic spoon. Once the caulk set up (about 4 hours later),
I set the pontoons in place, and added more caulk to fill in the slight gaps from cutting the insulation. I then left the pontoons in place and proceeded to build the dock with leftover balsa wood strips from my scrapyard. The mechanic and dock worker are resin Verlinden figures, and their dungarees are painted with Tamiya Metallic Blue with Testors dullcote applied to represent denim. The aircrew (waiting for their repair) were included in the Tamiya kit, and were painted with Tamiya acrylic colors for their uniforms. The munitions boxes, work table, and oil drums were from an old Italeri kit that was given to me to do something with. The entire diorama was set in a homemade box I built from oak scrap. The backdrop is a piece of $.99 black posterboard from Target that I rubbed with pale yellow and dark gray crushed pastels, and the lighting is from superhot Halogen bulbs to the right of the scene to give the lonesome effect of fog rolling in. As for the phone, I didn't go hog wild -- it's a Samsung J3 Achieve (you have to pass by the huge displays for the S9 to find it), but I think it does a pretty fine job as a camera! I've uploaded a photo editing app where I can change the hue, luminosity and saturation, as well as some other tricks - but it will take some time to learn.