Any Tips on how to paint this? Quickboost Content.

[TPReggie]

Hi All,

I am looking at building the new Revell 1/32 kit for the Spitfire MkII and have been going through the extras available this morning.

The Eduard PE set contains harness and so on, but I am quite intrigued at this quickboost seat..

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/QB32110

This looks lovely, and has a great looking harness already in place at a cheaper price than the Barracuda seat without the harness (http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/BCR32172) - BUT having never used this kind of setup where belts are included before I have found myself wondering...how the heck would I paint this so it looked realistic.

I have done a google and not really come up with anything that explains how this would be done. I just wondered - is anyone on here a frequent user/experienced with this kind of part and the painting involved who could give a breakdown or tips on how they do it?

[wellsprop]

Ive dealed with things like this in 1/72, particularly Spitfire seats.

Personally, I would start with the most dominant coulours before working to the smaller colours. I.e. I would paint the seat structure cockpit green before painting the cushion reddish brown. After that, I would paint the seatbelts khaki then the buckles silver. The belts can then be highlighted with different shades of khaki. Oil wahses can be used over the whole seat (a dark wash would highlight the ripples in cusjion and so on).

Ben

[ben_m]

That Quickboost seat (e.g. seen on seat sides) looks very thick for 1/32 scale. The Barracuda one looks much thinner. Also the flare rack may or may not be suitable for your aircraft/time period.

As a reformed wargaming figure painter, I have painted a lot of straps and things already in place.

(just seen Ben got his reply in before me, I'd do it in a very similar way to his method)

The way I do it is the paint the base colours of the big parts- so the brown leather for the padded back, the interior green of the seat (if depicting metal seat, red brown for the composite ones), biscuit-colour for belts.

I'd then do a wash or two over everything (e.g. Citadel tan coloured and brown washes)- allowing small pooling of wash in shadow areas, and using a brush wet with water to remove overly dark areas of wash left on high areas.

Once that is completely dry, drybrush the leather with a lighter leather-coloured mix (even up to near white will work if you use nearly nothing on the brush- literally use a dry brush, I find using it on the skin of my thumb as a test is good- should just highlight the highest points in the skin texture.

For highlighting the belts themselves, I find you can get more punchy contrast by using a superfine brush and painting (wet brush with thinned paint, but tiny amount on brush) very carefully lines along the edges, and where there are bumps with a lighter shade, working up to tiny areas that get spots of white. Shade the low areas with very thin brown pin wash (not everywhere).

To make the belts really stand out from the brown leather back (they will tend to blend in, particularly if you weather heavily with the washes), paint really thin lines of black around them, with well-thinned paint. You generally have to touch these up with the base colours to get super thin lines. I normally do buckles and eyelets in brass, or sometimes silver, not sure which would be right for when and what actually! These can also get black-lining to make the stand out

Here are examples painted like this (Typhoon in 1/48 and 1/32): I tidied up the black-lining around the belts, as seen in the second photos of the 1/48.

[Edgar]

That seat is not suitable for Spitfire II, since, apart from the Very cartridge rack (which was rarely, if ever, fitted,) the hip straps, attached to the corners of the seat, were a late-war modification designed to stop the pilot rising out of the seat during negative-G manoeuvres.

!939-1943, the belts were thigh-straps, attached to the seat supports and coming over about halfway along the pilot's thighs, in fact the starboard strap came through a slot in the seat wall.

[TPReggie]

Thanks for that guys, appreciate the heads up. As a couple of you have said the seat probably is not really suitable so I will leave it buy have definately saved this thread as a how to for painting the pre-moulded type.

[Breaker]

Ben, thanks for that, it's an area i've always struggled in and you've put it all across brilliantly!