Lego Speed Champions: Ferrari 512 M

 My first Lego set! Well not the first, but the first one that i'm doing a little write up about anyway. Like I seem to say every time with these things, I've had this little set for a good while. It must've been a chrishtmas/bday present (they merge into one for me, so close together) from an old friend. But enough of that lets get to it.

Ferrari 512:

So a little history about the Fezza 512 then. Quite like doing these as it allows me to learn a bit about it as well :).

It had a very short career only spanning a couple of years 1969-1970 before they moved work onto the 312 PB, that seems to be the running theme with sportscar racing at the time however, with its main rival the Porsche 917 having a similar lifespan (albeit being a lot more successful, sorry Ferrari). It's quite odd that Lego decided to do a set of the 512 thinking about it, it's quite pretty but other than that it isn't particularly well known.

The 512 name comes from its 5 litre V12 engine which as you can imagine sounds pretty orgasmic. Putting out over 600hp it actually outclassed the early 917's in that regard, before Porsche decided to strap on a couple turbochargers to its 5 litre flat 12. The Ferrari however was heavier, and less reliable with issues affecting the suspension and transmission.

As is usually the case, the later M variant fixed quite a few of the issues faced with the first 512's but by then the plug had already been pulled and focus had shifted to the 312 PB because of the rule changes coming up in 1972, so we never got to see its full potential.

The Build:

I do quite enjoy building the little speed champions kits, there's something satisfying about getting it done start to finish in a leisurely couple of hours.

After the first bag

I still find the stickers the hardest part haha, the bottom of the doors are curved so that was fun. You've got one chance to get it right.

Not much to say really, it was pretty straightforward as these usually are. I'm sure there's more you could do with it re custom parts and lights etc but they have a nice simplicity all of their own without anything extra.

And there it is! overall a pretty fun build, no real tricky bits and I think the whole Lego aesthetic works really well with the 1970's blocky-ness and straight lines. It doesn't work well with some of the speed champions sets in my opinion, just look at the modern super car ones like the Koenigsegg or Huracan compared to this and the Audi Quattro. See what I mean? The older race cars look so much better to me.

A song about expecting too much from people and those expecting too much from you. When you're put on a pedestal and idealised by someone, there will inevitably come a point when you fall off it.

I must confess, I've made a mess of what should be a small success. But I digress, at least I've tried my very best, I guess.

Sheriff you want to

Wow what a couple of a few months! Busy is an understatement. I've been wanting to share this since I went in February (yea I'm that far behind) but just haven't really had time to sit down and write it out. I tend to write notes and stuff all the time, like oh this is cool take a photo and jot it down. But finding the time to properly sit down and put everything together is a another thing.

That and I don't like typing things out on my phone, formatting is an issue and I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I always feel like things should be done properly or not at all, but that in itself stops you from trying new things so that's what I'm doing with this post. You aren't going to be an expert the first time, and that's okay. You're not supposed to be! What's important is that you recognise your mistakes, what you did wrong and what you did right and use that knowledge going forward. A bit of self reflection goes a long way.

But anyway I visited the lovely city of Nottingham back in Feb, it was to see a band but that was not really the sole focus. Not a big fan or anything, it was just something to do. I've promised myself to get out my comfort zone and travel around more, so far I've been doing really well regarding that.

I Had a great time for the 2 nights I was there. Nottingham has a great music scene, arguably better than my home city (for rock/metal anyway). So between the different pubs and venues I also went to Warhammer world, I used to collect 40k when I started secondary school maybe 2008/9. It was actually pretty cool and I did enjoy it, never could understand how to actually play it mind, but the artwork and the whole aesthetic is second to none.

It was really hard to get decent photos inside. Photography was allowed but they had been very very cleaver with the lighting and the glass display cases so all I could really get pictures of was a reflection of my own face 😂, and no one wants to see that!

But it was a nice hour or two spent walking around, Lord of the rings and the 40k displays being my favourite, the coffee was surprisingly nice too. Got a couple of treats that I will definitely hopefully do at some point 😊. 

Today's song comes from one of my favourite bands ever, can't wait to see them live later this month. So hard to choose a favourite so I guess I'll go with the one that has resonated with me the most in recent times, Black was a close second. It has featured in a couple of the set lists, looks like they're doing something different for every show which is cool so hopefully they play it.

I Won a Thing! 🏁

The guys over at Mutiny Motorsport are celebrating the 1 year anniversary since their inception, and to mark the event the guys decided to organise a charity race at the famed Watkins Glen circuit in upstate New York. MM is a growing community on the fairly niche sim Automobilista 2 or AMS2 for short, I've raced a couple of seasons with them now and you would struggle to find a more welcoming bunch.

Thank you TTAR for the poster!

I've never felt completely comfortable on AMS2 although its a sim that I really want to enjoy to its fullest, I struggle to describe it but its almost as if the cars feel a little floaty compared to other titles. That being said I think it is absolutely excellent at simulating older formula cars and that's where it can really shine, add on the fact that it has a good number of official historic versions of famous race tracks and you've definitely something worth investing in.

For the anniversary race we were running the Formula Retro Gen2 cars which are based on late 1970s F1 cars, a time where aerodynamics were really kicking off with ground affect becoming the new fashion. Going off a few pictures I'd say they are copies of the 1979 Shadow DN9, and these things were crazy fun to race with. 

Every now and again you just have a car/track combo that you really gel with and this was certainly mine. Normally I can't really keep up with the fastest guys in MM (not without making lots of mistakes anyway) but I felt right at home lapping the Glen with this machine.

The charity that the community voted to support was the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is a global organisation set up to protect marine wildlife and our ocean ecosystems. Former F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel famously promoted this charity by wearing the "act now or swim later" shirt at the 2020 Miami GP and now lists it on his website where €30 from each shirt sold is donated to Sea Shepherd. We managed to raise $269, which I don't think is bad at all considering that it was only a small group of us driving pretend race cars. Thank you to everyone that donated, raced and the admins at MM for organising the event and for the t-shirt, it was a pleasure to take part in as always.

I've always thought of myself more of a winter person but these past few have got me questioning that, luckily today it seemed as though the sun had raised high up enough to be noticeable and that finally, spring is close. It's like I get to mid January and I just shut down, and while that is not unheard of for many people I don't like how it can affect me so much, and how as a result effect others in close proximity to me. I've basically had this album on repeat for the past god knows how many weeks, "Northern Attitude" is the first track but I would highly recommend listening to the whole Stick Season album if you have a spare hour, its a banger and highly relatable.

Not ded yet

 I've been wanting to come back to this blog and actually start posting for a while, but unfortunately life happens sometimes and you deal with it the best you can at that moment in time. I feel like now would be a good time to return to this place though as I believe that I'm definitely doing better but the journey is going to be a never ending one. I've been journaling for a good year or so anyway and while it won't be as personal I feel this will just be another addition to that, so expect some random posts like this every now and again, It's largely just going to be me rambling on about shite to no one 😅.

 I wanted to make the first post back about mental health seen as though it seems to dominate my existence like for so many other people. Over the past year or so I've learnt so much, mostly deep issues within my own self but also about other people, friendships, relationships, family dynamics and just the whole human populace. While this is only scratching the surface the naivety that I once had has gone as a result, not everyone thinks or acts like you do or would. You can't expect that of other people or force them to act like you think they should. One thing that I have discovered is that, co-dependency is in fact, a bitch. 

Jumping slightly but sort of sticking with the same theme I promise, I want to share the sort of things that have been helping me kind of figure myself out. There was a great post on Reddit recently (that I can't find now, typical) that asked something along the lines of 'What kind of advice do you wish people would stop giving you regarding MH' and one of the top replies explained that although the whole nicey nice empathic approach is needed some of the time, its not always helpful and that on occasion you need someone to say it how it is, to point out your flaws and ultimately use that as a tool to fix your issues. This just resonated with me so much because I don't think I've ever had that from anyone and I'd never really thought about things in that manner. When people hide things from you and never tell you your wrong doings how are you supposed to grow as a person? It's not easy to critique yourself in any sort of meaningful way, at least not for me. Sure I can say I'm a bad person and that I suck, but then what? cool I guess, thanks I already know.

So I've got a couple of videos from youtubers that helped with the whole constructive criticism stuff for me personally.

Crappy Childhood Fairy

This is a good example of what I mean in this nonsensical post, it's a long video definitely but it just gets you out of that victim mentality, helps guide it back towards yourself and tells you how it is but without being too harsh. Really need to get bingey on this channel because I feel like I could relate to a lot of it.

Another but from Cluster B Milkshake, this directly quotes the above video but with her own twist on things. I think her channels great and its actually super interesting to hear her unique point of view on certain things from being a self aware narcissist. Again super critical on a lot of subjects but its refreshing to listen to it.

I've lost the direction that I was going with this but we don't need one, its fineee 😊. Hopefully more posts from now on, I've got a couple of ideas and things I want to show. Maybe more of this stuff, I've got so many books, podcasts and youtube channels I could talk about its untrue so most likely will at some point. I'll put a little song at the bottom of each post as well because music's nice innit x

Tamiya 1/48 Panzer III Ausf.L Part 1

 

One of the real workhorses of the earlier half of the war, nearly 6000 built over 12 different variants before being made mostly obsolete by advances in tank design. I feel like the Panzer III may not get the recognition it deserves being in the shadow of its late war cousins. 

The L variant boasted an upgraded 50mm KwK 39 main gun, thicker armour and torsion bar suspension in an attempt to bring the aging design up to snuff, but ultimately it was regulated to secondary roles from the middle of 1943 onwards. However the chassis did remain in production as the basis for the StuG III assault gun right up to the end of the war.

What's in the box!?

As you can see the kit comes with 3 different sprues and the two identical sprues containing the tracks. It was a surprise to see the die cast chassis piece when I opened it up (I obviously didn't pay much attention to the box when picking it out at the hobby shop lol). That's something new to me and I guess the extra weight will give a more satisfying feel, I'll have to remember not to use my usual poly cement however. 

Winter Camo

In the battlefields of WW2 tanks and other vehicles were often roughly coated with whatever the crews could get their hands on to match the changing environments. In winter this meant roughly covering over the default German grey or "Dunkelgrau" with lime or chalk mixed with water. Using old rags, mops and brushes this wasn't a fine art but proved to be an effective camouflage nonetheless.

So I've acquired some German Grey by AK for the base colour and I'm going to attempt to do a whitewash over the top of that to hopefully end up with a realistic looking finish, we'll see how that ends up.

This is a Panzer III J  (you can tell by the different armour configuration on the front of the hull and turret) on the eastern front and it gives you a good idea of the whitewash used and how the paint underneath is beginning to show through.

First Post!

 For my first post I though I would share a few pictures of the models I have previously completed in the past 2 years or so and a little bit about them.

Tiger 2 Porsche turret 1/76:

This was the model that got me back into modelling. It's one of those airfix 1/76 starter kits which includes glue, a brush and some old dried up paints. I recieved it as a Christmas present and I really enjoyed it. So much so I purchased a vallejo oiled earth wash especially for it and a few more bits and peices to really kickstart the hobby.

Churchill 7 1/76:

Another Airfix kit, although a total opposite to the King Tiger. I didn't particularly enjoy this one if i'm honest. I believe its quite an old mold? It was quite frustrating getting things to line up properly, namely the main hull and the tracks on either side if I remember correctly. So mine is a little wonky and I don't think I ever completely finished the paint as a reult of being a bit fed up with the thing.

SU-100 1/72:

Really didn't know what to expect when I bought this Zvezda kit but the quality and the ease of building it was really impressive, although coming after the nightmarish Churchill I might've been easily pleased. Bought a set of MLG ww2 Russian paints as well for this model which finished it off nicely.

IS-3 1/72:

I love the style of these early cold war era soviet beasts and I just had to get my hands on an IS-3. This Trumpeter model has a great amount of detail even if parts were a little fiddly at times, finished again with the MLG paints it looks pretty smart.

T29E1 1/35:

My first attempt at one of the massive 1/35 scale monsters and I chose a T29 after loving the T29/T30/T34 set of tanks on WoT. This was a Hobbyboss kit which was fine, nothing bad to say apart from the tracks being a bit of a slog to put together (tempted to try some ebay diecast tracks next time). I used a Humbrol light olive spray can for the base and experimented a bit with Vallejo thick mud and splash mud around the tracks and some dry Revell weathering pigments roughly brushed on.

Jaguar XJ6 1/43:

First of my car model experiments is this Jaguar banger racer. Ignore the paint for the most part it was a really quick job. I mainly just wanted to try out simulating damage and it turned out alright for a first try. It was done by starting with a 1/43 die cast model and cutting the rear and front end out with a dremel and replacing it with a roughly molded shell made out of thin sheet aluminium, then crushing it up as much as was appropriate.

The end! Thanks for reading if you got this far and stay tuned for future projects.