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opus999

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Everything posted by opus999

  1. I masked the Hinomaru and sprayed white over them. I did all white on the bottom because I figured the orange yellow would work much better on white than on black. Last night I took the masks off and then remasked with bigger circles to get the white outline. That was a bit of a pain, and a Cricut or Silhouette may be in my house sooner rather than later. Tonight I was able to paint the orange yellow. I had Nick MIllman's pdf of the "Orange Yellow Enigma" up on the laptop screen for comparison. Mr. Color's orange yellow starts out just plain yellow with the first coat, but gets more orange with subsequent coats. So the trick is to do a coat or two and then compare to the pdf. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. And even more happy when the masks came off! I didn't paint the orange on the bottom of the fuselage, because I think it will be easier after the green goes on. Hard to explain, but it makes sense in my head. We'll see!
  2. Thanks! I actually think it looks pretty neat... I'm just more grumpy with myself than anything. Thanks Mark!
  3. Ha ha! Turns out I have a Ventura models Seafire XV that was going to be turned into a Spitfire Mk. XII. I got my hands on the xtrakit Spitfire Mk. XII, so that Ventura models kit is just waiting to be built as a Seafire! Thank Alistair! I'm really happy with the color.
  4. Funny you should say that... It was one of my first thoughts. The trouble I thought I'd run into was the white crosses and "Don't walk" lines on top of the wing. You bring up a good point. I'd forgotten about the timeframe. It's close enough now that it's dull-coated and in the cabinet... I feel much better about it now.
  5. Wow Chris... all of these look terrific! Makes me think I want to build a Seafire myself... I blame you for this!
  6. I think the cockpit looks great. I've become pretty lax on cockpits since I've been disappointed with not being able to see all my hard work. Now I can't see all my lazy shortcut work! 🤣
  7. Hmm. Fascinating wing fences, I wonder what they were for?
  8. I love that mottle on the fuselage. It's an interesting technique I wouldn't have thought of... I'll have to give it a try.
  9. What a great build so far! I love the idea of modeling an Iraqi Bf-110. I've always wanted to build a 110 and have usually eyeballed the Eduard kit.
  10. First things first... here's the box: Yesterday, I cleaned up seams. It didn't take too long because this kit is pretty well engineered. It took a couple of swipes of sandpaper on the fuselage seams and the only filling I had to do was where the sprues attached to the part. In all it took maybe 45 minutes. I also had to add putty to the wing roots and where the wing assembly meets the fuselage on the bottom behind the wings. The wing roots were interesting: the gap was about the same as the rest of the panel lines, so I suppose I really didn't need to fill them, but they were much deeper, so I thought it would look funny. In the end I put Tamiya putty in there and cleaned up with Mr. Levelling thinner. They came out looking nice. It's a little unfair to Airfix that I am building this not long after building Tamiya's A6M3, which may have been the best kit I've ever worked on. When I look at it objectively, this kit is actually an incredible value considering it only cost me $8 or $9 at the time (probably $15 today, which isn't terrible). The fit is actually really nice, the detail is quite good, if not as fine as the Tamiya offering. The panel lines are a bit deep and wide, though. I'd thought about filling them and then penciling them in afterwards, but didn't feel like going through the effort because there is a lot going on on the surface. Some of those panel lines are complex. I sprung for the Eduard canopy masks a while ago and I'm glad I did. Here it is all cleaned up and ready for paint: So, then I sprayed primer on all the parts: I'm going to go on a limb and paint the front like a trainer aircraft, with black anti-glare going from the windshield down to the cowl. I'm applying logic and not evidence because the one picture I've seen of Tsu-134 you can't tell either way. Sprayed the metal parts with Tamiya TS-30 silver leaf. I'm going to try something new that I've been turning over in my head for a few builds now. I'm going to spray silver under the top color and then sand the top color away on high traffic areas on the wing root to make it look like the paint has been abraded off by walking on it. I'm going to have to be careful because a little goes a long way in this case, but I've seen it done elsewhere and the effect is more realistic that what I'm doing now. Besides, this will be practice for my Aleutian Tiger P-40 I have planned, because those planes IRL looked like they'd been sandpapered! I didn't show it, but I also sprayed silver leaf on the gear doors and landing gear bays. Then I mixed 2 parts Tamiya transparent blue to 1 part Tamiya transparent green and sprayed over the silver to emulate aotake. I think the color came out nice, but I was getting pretty irritated with the Tamiya paint because it wanted to pull away from the raised detail. So at the base of the raised detail it is still silver in some places. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it will probably mean going over those areas with a hand brush. Finally, I sprayed insignia red on the areas that the Hinamaru will go. Then I called it a night.
  11. I've read interviews with them and they are really offended by the Neo-nazi accusations. As Giorgio mentions, they were raised in East Germany and tend left. Apparently, they wrote the song "Links... 2, 3, 4" as a rebuttal to the rumors floating around (as you probably know "links" is German for "left", which they emphasized in the song). As for the other questions... I'm afraid I can't help. A friend of mine (active in his church, no less) took his 18 and 30 year old daughters to see them here in the US and they had a great time. I like them, but I don't delve too deeply into the lyrics because I know they really love to go for the shock value... like Kiss or Alice Cooper to the 10th power!
  12. I'm late to the party with this one, since everyone else did it at least 10 years ago! Still, I've heard it's a good kit and have looked forward to doing it for quite a while now. It's the original boxing of the A6M2 with the famous, or infamous, Tsu-134 markings. I've decided that there's enough evidence to convince me that it needs an orange-yellow bottom as it was a training plane, so that's how I'll proceed. I will also build it as a Nakajima machine. I've forgotten to take a picture of the box. Well, maybe tomorrow.... I started mid-week on the cockpit: Cockpit was painted with FS34087 olive drab, although it should be lighter. I made the seat belts out of tape and painted them. Last night I dull coated the cockpit and got everything buttoned up. My other plan is to paint all the markings possible, which will take a little coordination. I'm also really unsure of how much weathering there should be. Were training aircraft heavily used with not much time to maintain? Or, were the not used as often as combat aircraft and got lots of maintenance, because... let's face it... the ground crew need to be trained too. I'm very uncertain. The one picture I've seen of Tsu-134 is in flight and far enough away that you can't tell if it's worn or not (plus the sun is from behind). That's all for now!
  13. I had one other task last weekend, and that was to paint the starboard side air intake. I mixed up the brown according to the ratio I gave @AdrianMF above and got this. Hmm. Significantly different, and frankly better looking. But why? I had an idea about where I goofed up and I mixed a new batch of 2:2:8 red:brown:Rlm 81 (instead of the 1:1:8) and it was nearly a perfect match. I suspect as I was experimenting I got the math wrong. Several times I've had a nagging feeling that the brown I mixed wasn't green enough but I never thought to re-mix and see if it came out the same. So really, the brown I have on the aircraft isn't right -- it doesn't really match the swatches I've seen for the "Brownish RLM 81" but the air intake does. So I am extremely disappointed in this build. It looks good, but it looks wrong and I'm just not happy with that. Still, nothing I could do about it but finish and learn to listen to those little nagging voices for next time. Just so its clear: The greenish brown color (which I think is correct) is 1 part insignia red, 1 part propeller brown and 8 parts RLM 81, all Mr. Color. The more brownish brown (which is on the aircraft) is 1 part insignia red, 1 part propeller brown and 4 parts RLM 81, all Mr. Color.
  14. Thanks! Yeah, I'm pretty happy with how much I've learned about modelling! I see you're just over the mountains from me! Hi Neighbor!
  15. Got a couple hours yesterday to get this past the finish line. Here's the seat all cleaned up with PE applied: Here it is after all the painting was complete: The seat fit like a glove, but sat very low in the cockpit. The pilot wouldn't even be able to see over the dash. So I cut a couple of "phone books" to put the seat on and raise the seat to the appropriate level. Here's the finished product; The seat and cockpit are clearly visible through the large canopy, although it is a bit fisheyed. I'll post a link here when I get the RFI done. Hope you all enjoyed this one!
  16. I love how that nose piece turned out! The canopy looks to be shaping up well too. I think I need to look into vacuforming -- I know nothing about it and it seems like a useful tool for the modeling toolbox.
  17. I just found this thread and I have to say that looks pretty spectacular in red on silver! Can't wait to see this one finish. Nice work Martin!
  18. I love those metal turned parts. For my Su-22 I ordered brass pitot tubes and guns and they looked terrific. I wish I could use those on every build. Its really starting to come together now!
  19. Really? Thanks Adrian! I like to write down what I do so it might help other people... and because I can't remember squat and this is a great way for me to remember how I did something. Just to be clear (since my post wasn't) it was 1 part Mr. Color Insignia red, 1 part Mr. Color propeller brown and 8 parts Mr. Color RLM 81. Despite the majority of it being dark green, the end result is still really brown. Hmm. 🤔 I put a few decals on every night this week and then gloss coated it on thursday. Lots of little painting details to catch up on now!
  20. Didn't work on this during the week, but my seat finally arrived and I got it on its feet last night!
  21. Wow, what a bummer! Those exhausts were really bad, but I'm sure you'll whip them into shape. Nice save with the canopy!
  22. Just found and caught up with this one Mark. Absolutely lovely paint work! I like the B/W comparison to original photos to get an idea of how they may have looked IRL. It's a shame about the nacelles and the short shot canopy. I always expect some sort of ill fit in any kit, just because of the nature of plastic, but when it's that bad, I really get bummed because I feel like I shouldn't have to work that hard to make something look decent. Luckily it seems most Eduard kits require very little work to look nice and you just got one of their more... unfortunate... efforts. Still, you cleaned them up quite nicely. Also glad to hear that the customer service is excellent. I have a 45 year (or more?) Revell 1/32 P-51B in the stash that my dad bought new and discovered it was short shot just behind the pilot's head (fuselage, not canopy). His answer was to buy a new kit, I guess because customer service didn't come through (There's actually written information about the claim stashed in the box).
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