AREA 88 : "A Plague of Locusts" (T-6 Texan)

What a big box for a couple of REALLY tiny little kits.

There's two in the box, but I only need one for this project.

Not a lot of parts, but there's one I need that isn't there, so I started cutting some sprue.

Morris' T-6G Texan is armed, so I fashion some gun pods to fit underneath the wings. The barrels will be trimmed to fit later.

Painted the cockpit green... did you notice I broke the antenna off already and had to use a bit of stretched sprue to replace it?

The secret weapon revealed. That’s one tiny little motor...

Of course the canopy has some serious sprue gate stress fractures to fix.

And, just for fun, I added a decal instrument panel. I don’t know why...

Morris really put on some weight... I had to put him on an extreme diet to get him to fit in the cockpit.

With a bit of squeezing, he’s in.

Masking canopies in 1/144 isn’t fun... especially something as complex as a T-6!

Painted aluminum. It’s pretty shiny, so I think I’lol wait a couple of days and try to sand/buff it a bit.

Took the scissors to a bit of synthetic sponge... does that look like a locust swarm?

Does that look like a swarm of locusts burning? What colour are locusts?

A few more adjustments. The smoke cloud is painted, and the locust swarm had a bit more colour added, in line with German standards... 😉

That’s some itty bitty soldering. It barely fits in the fuselage.

Now we’re getting somewhere...

I added guns under the wings, and there we go. All done!

Oh, I also did a tiny bit of rigging with the radio wire.

The smoke cloud covers the entire back.

Working perfectly... the tiny motor spins the prop, and the light looks enough like fire for me.

I’m happy. The mini propellor motor experiment is a success!

Disaster! The wires broke and I had to disassemble the plane to fix them. It was my own fault, I left them exposed and vulnerable to movement and one finally snapped.

New wires soldered on... let’s see about reassembling this troublemaker. I also seem to have lost a wheel in the process.

Reassembled, but will need new paint. May as well fix a couple of things with the base while I’m at it I guess...

I know most of it will be covered but the base looked out of place next to the other Area 88 1/144 presentations. Besides, it might help the locust representation.

At the insistence of the peanut gallery, i’ve added some bright green to the mix... because, despite reality, “all anime locusts are bright green” I guess. It does add some more contrast though, so that’s good.