Wings of War, Hulls of Wood

Its been half term week here in Brizzle and, whilst looking after the kids I've also had  a chance to catch up with some modelling.

First up, my Wings of War collection. I got a couple of Nexus Dr.1 triplanes from Dom Skelton and they've been repainted in "personal" colours. One is a pink Dr.1 (Liz has a pink 74 gun ship fo the line and we have a pink Curtis P-40 Kitty Hawk, so why not a pink Triplane?), and the second is in the black and silver colours of "Der Schwarzen Hand", my Prussian dogfighting altar ego - prizes for anyone who works out why he goes by that nickname!)

Other repaints were an F Toys Albatros D.III in Richthofen's overall red scheme and a captured Sopwith Camel  painted up as the machine used by Kissenberth. I also finished a Riviresco Junkers D.1, and I was lucky enough to grab the two "secret" models for the F Toys Biplane Collection (Baracca's Spad VII and Goering's Albatros D.III) for peanuts from sellers in the Far East.

My other focus this week was my 1/600 ACW naval collection. I've had a pile of models from Thoroughbred and Bay Area Yards awaiting some attention for far too long. First up - my favourite ACW ship, USS Mississippi. A favourite for no other reason than my old Navwar model has a suitably downbeat yet hardworking appearance, and hence  alot of character and this, I think, translated well into the BAY model.

Also completed were a Thoroughbred Casco (torpedo boat version), Queen of the West, a Confederate Cottonclad, USS Essex, USS Galena, USS Rhode Island, the centre wheel Jefferson City (quite an unusual vessel) and couple of Maury gunboats (oh, and a pile of mortar rafts).

I've made a few of the BAY models now and, whilst the detail generally isn't quite as good as thoroughbred's they still make up into very nice models - plus they have tackled some very interesting subjects and complement the Thoroughbred range very nicely. its worth saying that I was, up until recently, very much a 1/1200 ACW naval gamer, but I've grown rather fond of the larger models. All in all a very busy week!