Super Trees and AeroGarden Pt.1

I have enough of Super Tree material for at least a decade, but little scientist/farmer in my head is still wanting to grow it. I think, I have mentioned before that the weather in Georgia is not suitable for the plant. It likes milder temperature. Higher temperature makes it to mature too fast. The only option is to grow it indoors. I have tried that too but without good light source so the end result has always been less than acceptable. This time I am using AeroGarden unit. I didn't buy it just for the purpose of growing the Super Trees though. I thought I would grow sage and other herbs for my tea. I am not sure why but my herbs didn't do too well. They were fine for a while but then rotted at the base and died. Then instead of planting other herbs I decided to give STs a try. They started sprouting nicely, but then all but one died off. The one that survived though has turned into a nice plant and has also moved into the neighboring space. Hopefully, it will keep going.

Building Graves Elevators by Bar Mills Pt.5

I admit, I have new distraction. Back in NYC I saw few stands at the markets selling beer making kits and that reignited my interest in home brewing. I have always thought that some semi-serious
equipment was needed for that. I turns out that 1 gallon batches can be done without investing too much so I bought a starter kit and several beer making mixes. So far I have completed one batch, bottled two, and last night I brewed the fourth. This whole deal doesn't impact my modeling because I do it when I usually don't build models. However, it impacts my blog. It seems my brain is preoccupied with beer recipes, ideas for the brews, etc.
Bar Mills kits go together relatively fast and smoothly but not the Graves. It is quite difficult kit and it was clearly rushed to have it out before Christmas. Despite all that, I think I did a decent job on it. Would I build another one? No way. Don't get me wrong though. It is fine to build it once but two would be way too excessive.

FOS Winger Paper Bag Co. Pt. 1

Yesterday I posted the list of unfinished kits. I have posted about some kits from the list here in the past, but there are few kits I haven't mentioned before. I will fill the gap over the next few weeks.
I am starting with FOS Winger Paper Bag Co. This was "quick" project of the past summer. I made it nearly to the end in a very short period of time. I have the details and the figures ready, but I got stuck doing scenery. I had some cracks that I needed to fill and over did it filling them. As the result, I got to much dirt on the track. All I need to do here is to clean the track and finish the scenery but lack of inspiration for this kind of work is my main obstacle.

Started kit list

Due to several inquiries regarding availability of my built ups that I received over the past few months, I have decided to publish the list of all kits I have started but never finished. Please see it here http://viliussm.blogspot.com/p/started-kits.html

Building Green Dragon kit by FOS Pt.1

When it comes to the lunch breaks, I am having some chaotic phase right now. I don't have a single project that I can work on for few weeks straight. If you remember, I have about 30 unfinished projects but none of them qualify as full time lunch break project. They all need something that can be done at home only. I am trying my best not to add any new kits to the shame list so I am working on one kit for a day or two until I hit an obstacle, then switch to the next. It works for the most part but one day it failed and I had to dig into my box of shame. I ended up pulling out FOS Green Dragon Restaurant. It had all walls painted and weathered, the windows installed. I don't remember why did I put it on the back burner but I remember the reason why I started. It was one of the guilt builds after I bought a number of FOS kits. The intention was to construct it quickly and use it later as part of larger diorama. I wanted to extend it a little by adding a dragon sign and a pigeon coop. I added the dragon. I used a charm which I got off of eBay. The pigeon coop is still under consideration. It all depends if I have enough room on the roof. Also I had a happy accident while applying a "painted" sign. I messed it up and after I removed it there was some ink left that resembled faded sign. I decided to leave it as is instead of gluing another sign over. That kind of summarizes the past.
Looking into the future, the intention this time around is to do one structure diorama. I already have an idea for the figures and I am determined to go all the way. However, if someone approaches me with a reasonable offer to buy just the structure, I don't think I will decline it.

Building Graves Elevators by Bar Mills Pt.4

I keep track of all completed kits and so far I have built 60+ of them. Today I had courage to count all of the unfinished. I came up with about 30. That is some serious effort wasted unless I turn them into finished models. I may need to make a shelf of shame and put them all there.
The Graves is taking the shape. The visible progress may slow down over then next week or two because I need to build first several sub-assemblies, like the elevators, the fire escape, etc., and clean up and paint the resin castings. That is the part of the process with very little feedback and somewhat demotivating. I am hoping I won't grab another kit from the shelf and start it. I have done that on several occasions.

Building Graves Elevators by Bar Mills Pt.3

Few years back I obtained the Bar Mills Money's Plumbing kit. Since I am model builder and not a collector, I opened the box. To my disappointment there was no dry transfer included. The instructions mentioned the fact and the explanation was given that it was due to the difficulty of application. It has been in the back of my mind ever since. After I saw that Graves had three and even more intricate dry transfer signs I was very worried. Mess up one and the look of the building isn't going to be the same. It turns out I worried for no reason. It was repetitively easy to get the signs off the carrier sheet and onto the wall. It is all possible I had no problems because the transfers were new though. Perhaps the story could have been different have I had old ones. I guess the moral of the story is, build your kits, don't keep them in the boxes until dry transfers go bad.