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Kit: Pegasus (1:72)
This was my first ever build of a Pegasus kit...and after building it I was hooked on their kits. Being a short run kit it requires more work and a deal of scratch-building, but the kit is remarkably accurate in outline and detail. I substituted all the kit strut material with brass Strutz, decals are homemade on Testors decal sheets using my HP inkjet printer (my kit was missing the decals). The "stained woodgrain" effect was done by first painting a base coat of Testors acrylic radome tan, then scuffing it up with some sandpaper to simulate wood, and finally painting a wash of Citadel brand "Flesh Wash" over that. I was pretty happy with the look of the wood effect, and its quick and easy to do!
Kit: Eduard (1:72)
This is probably my favorite kit to build, the non-profipack version of the Albatros D.V...a wonderful kit that falls together with no real vices. Cockpit interior, all control surface hinges and rear rudder are scratch-built from Evergreen styrene. As with all of my models, everything is completely hand painted with Polly Scale, Testors and MisterKit acrylics. Since I could never find a decent 1/72 decal to represent the skull motif used by ace Kurt Monnington, I just made my own decals with a HP inkjet printer. The upper wing radiator was put together from odds and ends from a HO scale train grill (I love to dig through the local model train store for various fiddly bits!).
Kit: Eastern Express (1:72)
An ex-Toko kit, it's molded as a bit of a fusion of the three different series 28 variants, to build an accurate airframe I suggest you examine photo's. I decided to build 28.02, the personal mount of Frank Linke-Crawford. Being an early Phonix built series 28, I repositioned all the engine access panels and scratch-built an all new tail unit and rudder (what were the Hansa Brandenburg engineers thinking when they designed that rudder?). Toss out all the struts, they don't fit nor are all the cabane struts even provided. Despite these minor points it was a fun build and I really have to give thanks to any manufacturer that produces injection molded Austro Hungarian subjects.
Kit: MAC (1:72)
I love this kit, it has extremely clean moldings and beautiful decals. But it has alot of inaccuracies as well. The upper wing cut-out is too deep, but easily fixed with scrap plastic to fill it in, and for some odd reason there are footsteps molded on both sides of the fuselage, even though photo evidence shows there was not. The prop is wrong as well, since photo's of this particular aircraft show it having the sharp angled Oeffag "scimitar" style, but fortunately Roden AH Albatros kits have spares to substitute. MAC has kindly supplied both types of tailskids that the D.I's used, a very nice attention to detail on their part. I scratch-built a new engine, exhaust manifolds and struts, and painted the "mottled cloud" camo with a sponge dipped in thinned acrylic paints, then dabbed over the kit after first dipping the kit entirely in water (to get a "saturated paint" look).