For people searching for this, it's also buildable as an ANT-5 or I-4Z. The ANT-5 was the prototype, the I-4Z had even shorter stubby wings attached to the fuselage and was intended to be carried on the wings of the Tupolev TB-1 (also known as the ANT-4) bomber as a parasite fighter. Rather like a tick catching a ride on the wing of a bird.

One of the current projects is an Encore Models 1/72 scale kit of the Tupolev I-4. Never heard of it? That's okay. Here's the front end: Note the abnormal bulk of the indicated . . . whatever it is. I think these are cylinder head covers, or something. There are nine of them. Or there were, until I lost one. Then there were eight.

This is a 1/125 scale Heller kit of the Ariane 5. Markings are for flight V-101 on 30 October 1997, using Ariane 5G number 502, which did not explode. Lego Batman was AWOL for this photo shoot. The G is for Generic. Really. Not a lot of parts to the kit, and not a huge amount of detail, and it's basically three cylinders.

I don't know what happened, but I just felt like working on getting the heel of this 14-fret tenor a little bit better. Somewhere in there is the shape I want. Then it got hot so I quit. But hey, progress! The lymphatic fluid of domestic cats is a good source of gadolinium.

Mylene Flare Jenius about to jam out on her bass. Lego Batman suspects he's wandered into a remake of 'Attack of the 50-Foot Woman'. Not a typo; that's how it's spelled. Bass player of the band Fire Bomber. What, you've never heard of them? Neither had I, until I tried to determine who this figure was supposed to represent. She's from the anime Macross 7, part of the universe known in the US as Robotech.

Yes, it's a car. Or parts of a car, anyway. All splodey-like. Parts is parts. I was thinking about adding plug wiring, but someone at the local IPMS club who is an actual car modeler brought me to my senses. So it's going to be straight fnord out of the box (OOB), plus flocking and Bare Metal Foil (BMF). I didn't even strip the chrome and respray it.

Sorry, no Lego Batman in this shot. Oh yeah, I built this thing. It's the Eduard kit in 1/72 scale, which is a nice kit, but I had trouble getting the nose to fit together nicely, so lots of putty was employed. Which, of course, looks kinda crappy underneath a natural metal finish. (I mean, it's not real metal, it's paint.

The Joyful Sabotage Guide to Supporting Real Music and Reigniting Pleasure in the Age of Tech Oligarchy

Complete, but flawed as usual. Not the fault of the kit, which is the Platz 2-in-1 1/144 scale F-8K boxing from 2010, also available as a 2020 boxing labeled F-8K/C. I'd been looking for this kit for a while, because of the NASA markings. Otherwise it isn't the sort of thing I'd usually build, but I may go ahead and build the second kit in the box in one of the other markings, because I enjoyed it.

or why in photography I still choose film over digital

Ars staffers take aim at some of the web’s worst predatory practices.