In a Hurri?

Er, not really. These things can't be rushed, especially when using enamels. I had the basic kit bashed by yesterday, then gave it a priming with Humbrol mid-grey. By this morning it had dried and showed up flaws that I had missed, including a gap that had opened up between the two halves of the tailplane:

The gap is visible in the photograph above. It strikes me that photographing models really exposes them to a harsh, critical light, which makes me all the more impressed by some of the quite amazing aircraft models to be seen in the modelling magazines. I bought one yesterday, and read it in an admiring and despairing fashion. Although these super-modellers explain very carefully how they manage the various effects, I can never seem to replicate them. Bother! Still, that is why I class myself as a 'kit basher'. Anyway, there is enough stress in daily life without ruining one's hobby time.

Anyway, I filled the offending gap with super-glue dribelled in with a cocktail stick, gave it, and some other flaws a quick sand, then applied the main upper surface coat of Humbrol 225 Middle Stone. The first coat was straight from the tin, but the second coat was mixed with white and applied in a slightly uneven fashion. My reasoning here is that the model is to represent a Hurricane in the Western Desert, and I expect that being constantly blasted by sand, grit and a strong sun would very soon begin to strip colour from the aircraft. I was worried that I was overdoing it, but the photograph below hardly seems to show the patchiness:

If you click on the image to enlarge it, the effect is slightly more apparent.

All this flying stuff hasn't meant that I have forgotten the little men. You may remember the Roco Minitanks M41, well, the plastics to go with it turned up yesterday from the ever reliable online retailer 'Drum and Flag'. Tradgardmaster has had a go at identifying the nature of the project, but does anyone else have any more ideas now? Here are the fellows from their washing:

The evening has just passed into night here in West Mercia, and the male blackbird that is nesting with its mate in the privet hedge out in the front of my house said goodnight to anyone who was listening with a few bars of blackbird music. Sanity.