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Catching Pictures in the Air


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This being 'Bring-Some-Custard-to-Work-Friday' I've matters jaunâtre to draw to your attention, but first - the postbag.

16 hours ago, perdu said:

O u t standing!

 

15 hours ago, giemme said:

To be completely honest, I'm also very intrigued by the early green stages - I suppose they would be appropriate for a dismantled/abandoned aircraft ..

Bill, Giorgio, my thanks gents. :thumbsup2:

I suppose the early green stage could also work on a build of the aircraft being assembled in the factory too...or even perhaps on a replica Martian? :whistle:

15 hours ago, Hamden said:

I'll make a note of that technique if you don't mind?

Note away Roger. :D

15 hours ago, keefr22 said:

I do like the innovative painting techniques you keep coming up with - great stuff!

 

14 hours ago, Spookytooth said:

But also an education on painting techniques too.

Keith & Simon: you are too kind fellas. I find each aircraft seems to have such a specific 'feel' and 'character' about it that it seems to suggest trying out different approaches each time.

14 hours ago, bbudde said:

For this one just in German: Hallo Tony. Großartig!! Ich liebe diese Art und Weise, wie Du einen kleinen Bausatz in einen prachtvolles Schmuckstück verwandelst oder dieses kannst. Meinen größten Respekt dafür, wie auch für die Genauigkeit bei der Farbwahl für den Laderaum hier!!  Sehr schöne Arbeit, wie sonst auch!! Viele Grüße Benedikt

Ich weiß nicht, ob es sich um Schmuck Benedikt aber möglicherweise die metallischen Äquivalent eines King Crimson Album...:lol:

14 hours ago, rob85 said:

And it’s good to see this labour of love and detail moving along.

Thanks for that Rob, and for the good wishes. Much appreciated pal.

13 hours ago, Mr Bowcat said:

I've spent the last few days reading through this entire thread. You sir are awesome.

You dreadful old flatterer Bowcat - you are most welcome to the thread! :D

Thanks for the good wishes.

13 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Wow!

Roger your Whiskey-Oscar-Whiskey Rivet Leader. :thumbsup2:

13 hours ago, Nigel Heath said:

Interesting and effective technique. I've not seen anything like that before.

Thanks Nigel. :thumbsup2:

Not the first time I've had that said to me - I used to cut my own hair as a student....

12 hours ago, CedB said:

Welcome back Tony and wow, what a return. I really like that effect, especially the Pac-Man :) 

Thanks Ced.:thumbsup2: 

In a different life I suspect I'd have enjoyed vandalizing railway carriages at night with aerosols, albeit in a confusing range of aircraft markings rather than gang tags...

 

To business then:

40225668915_a5448b603f_c.jpg

Removing the internal masking from the canopy reveals that the Silhouette cutter is now to become a regular guest to these threads - nice and sharp and much more regular than I was capable of producing freehand.

 

The next part is one I'm calling 'This went a bit bonkers but produced a result worth passing on'.

This was the flooring for the cable deck - basically a non-slip surface -  which I was attempting to produce by dumping black powder paint onto a wet surface, much in the same way I'd done previously on the Dornier seaplane. In this case I put too much on, which rather interestingly produced a dead ringer for rusted steel or iron:

41046606901_23966da106_c.jpg

There was no fancy playing around with various layers, costly stains and chipping fluids as you see in some weathering publications, simply cover the surface liberally with water and dump a loaded brush of this stuff onto it and leave to dry naturally overnight:

26175790907_26d2e91c34_c.jpg

Although of no use here, I'm filing that technique for future distressed subjects! The pigment is just a dirt-cheap art-store powder - nothing fancy. 

After buffing these back brieflywith a felt head on the Dremel, something much more appropriate in the non-slip line appeared:

40225669155_8aab604c5e_c.jpg

Once the custard was out the tin, time for some serious jaundice:

39311594750_32c9cf66ee_c.jpg

The above shot may look like zinc chromate but is in fact a heavily diluted layer of Tamiya yellow sprayed over Alclad steel. The yellow was then progressively build up over a couple of passes all round the various parts:

40225669165_e7999f2258_c.jpg

Not so much going for those mythological 'scale-effects' of colouration as trying to approximate what could be seen in contemporary photos by cutting the vividness of the yellow back a little with a couple of drops of khaki dumped in the airbrush cup from timeto time:

39311594810_7c9c348434_c.jpg

I've definitely become a convert to mixing colour 'on the hoof' like that, either introducing variation by periodically altering the mix in the airbrush cup, or by mixing colour variations directly onto the aircraft as a palette in itself.

The custard stage complete:

40225669225_f647e56843_c.jpg

Masking removed from the black areas of detailing, and testing out what exteremes to go for with some Payne's Grey washes:

40225669255_51a4fa6983_c.jpg

The fittings also:

39311594880_71e4745de4_c.jpg

A quick test fit, but one in this case in order to see what the different colours start to look like when place alongside each other:

40225669345_c3a25c22c3_c.jpg

It would be too easy to get tunnel vision painting the separate colour ranges for one of them to strike a jarring note when brought together with all the others in final assembly, given the ranges involved here.

In keeping with this, some Payne's Grey was also washed over and rubbed back on the yellow areas in order to remain consistent with the kind of tonal effects on the green areas of the interior:

40225669415_e84f3ba323_c.jpg

The supports for the recovery poles needed de-fluffing!:

39311595000_d24b2c0efa_c.jpg

One final addition for the cockpit later on is the obligatory provision of charts and other publications:

39237640080_1f0c23cc71_z.jpg

Clockwise from top left:

1. A Jeppeson flight computer for the navigator.

2. Playboy Dec. 1959 'For the Jack Kerouac article'...

3. Life magazine Oct. 1959, the infamous 'They don't like it up 'em Comrade Mainwaring' Kruschev cover.

4. American Modeller magazine June 1959. Drone cover article as a nod to the military surveillance complex of which Pelican 9 was a itself a component.

5. & 6. Contemporary aeronautical charts of Hawaii/Pacific Ocean.

 

I'm aware that by the time these are all scaled down to ther relative 1/72 some things such as the Jeppeson will be rendered almost invisible, but Britmodeller...

 

One particularly long session involved some overdue attention to cockpit painting and detailing around the IP and central console. All of the black instrument panels in the cockpit received a wash of Rubber Black over the original black primer, followed by some dark grey dry-brushing. Here the CRT in the radio gear also received a dollop of orange paint mixed in with Formula 560 glue to try and acheive a slightly translucenty screen-type feel:

40225669695_b472c6c240_c.jpg

IP and console also received some colour work:

40225669755_cd3c784bfa_c.jpg

The throttle and flap levers were built from brass tube, bent and flattened to produced the correct variations in structure:

40225669845_2ed33a62c6_c.jpg

I'm pleased also with the way that the Reheat rudder pedals fitted into the overall cockpit structure in the end.

 

That's probably enough for today - I'll have some more for you tomorrow chaps.

Have a good evening!

:bye:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Mr Bowcat said:

Tony, I freely admit to knowing little about aircraft. Would the throttle and flap levers be all the way forward in flight on this aircraft?

Mr.B,

My knowledge of particular settings on the C-119 are also likely suspect so I'm open to correction here. :D I've set the controls in the positions shown, based on the following:

1. During the recovery phase of the mission they generally seemed to fly in at full-bore once they'd spotted the capsule in order to maximize the number of chances to catch the payload should they miss the first attempt, hence the throttles here are all the way forward.

2. Flaps would be fully-retracted so levers fully forward also?

Like I say, open to correction by others more qualified....

 

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:wow: And I mean: :wow: 

 

Outstanding cockpit/IP details, excellent paint job. :clap:

 

Now, Payne Grey wash: I have that tint in form of oil paint, and it's very blueish. Have you actually used it pure (I mean not mixed with anything else) over green? If so, it obviously works, judging from your pics - I'm just wondering about the rationale behind this choice :hmmm: 

 

Ciao

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4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

2. Flaps would be fully-retracted so levers fully forward also?

 

Your manual should show the position of the flap lever in full up position Tony. I agree with the throttles being at full power, but would suspect the co-pilot or flight eng would have a hand on them ready to make any corrections demanded by the flying pilot. Should make for an intersting bit of figure modelling...:D

 

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

In this case I put too much on, which rather interestingly produced a dead ringer for rusted steel or iron:

41046606901_23966da106_c.jpg

 

That is an absolutely fantastic effect! I spent days recently trying to achieve a similar effect on a 'slightly' dilapidated Austin Tilly for our club competition using all sorts of powders and potions - & it didn't look as good!!

 

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

39311595000_d24b2c0efa_c.jpg

 

 

That looks like a NASA pic of a slightly strange looking deep space probe going about its business...!! :lol:

 

Fantastic work all round again!

 

Keith

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Hello Tony that looks great. Great work.  "Schmuck" doesn't always mean silver and gold or diamonds which are made of carbon. The same part as one of my sausages did look like the day before yesterday here on the grill! Sadly!!!. So, no need to get worried about the things, that (may) beckon to us all. For me then a well made "Currywurst"! A little gem of course. Cheers

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wow.  I sneak off for a couple of days and look what I missed.  We've had Fauvists, Colourists, Impressionists, and now we can add Baronists to the genre

 

immaculately non-immaculate paintwork there Mr Baron sir.    You have now thoroughly intimidated those of us who pour a dollop of wet colored stuff in the airbrush cup and hope we're pointing it in the right general direction when we hit the splurge lever.  You could have a second income setting up training classes in this art form.

 

the lunar landscapes are nice too, which for some reason reminds me of these folks from my formative years

 

elib_330307.jpg?w=748&h=448&crop=1

 

 

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Btw, Hello Tony I'm not really sure to post this now for you and not a King Crimson (sorry), but a very old one by BAP (a well known cologne band here.) They were/are very well at their lyrics to "ordinary life situations" and I still love them for that since the early eighties. The one after loosing a dear one, even years later:

 

http://www.bap.de/start/musik/songtexte/titel/helfe-kann-dir-keiner

Sadly no english translation. Hope you don't mind. Cheers Benedikt

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Sorry Tony, only just caught with the thread again.

Very sad to hear of your terrible news, and I know it is something that you don't entirely get over from.

 

 

Re the flaps, the selector lever has a very small movement through the gate and is pretty stubby, so I doubt it's position would show much if at all in this scale. 

It is fully forward for flaps up.

On your console it looks to be that small stubby bit behind the throttle pedestal itself.

In pictures of the Satellite catchers it appears the flaps were sometimes (lever middle) in the take-off position, which is something that I would have guessed, lots of power but also very draggy, a bit of flap would help with lift.

 

Great to see that you have picked up your work with the 119 again, and how!

Superb work, that colour rendering is just exquisite.

 

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3 hours ago, hendie said:

the lunar landscapes are nice too, which for some reason reminds me of these folks from my formative years

 

 

I almost mentioned the Clangers too...is that the Soup Dragon on finals....?!:)

 

K

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19 hours ago, perdu said:

From my limited experience I'd say they should be where they do be

Full bore flaps up

😱

Thanks Bill. :thumbsup2:

Like many a non-pilot I'm paranoid about publicly getting such details wrong so checked me references, at about the 2.54 mark here the throttle positions for level flight pretty much match those I've got on the kit:

https://youtu.be/3Z5T7xsZuEM

19 hours ago, massimo said:

I like the shade of green you're getting and how the detail is coming up

Inspired it has to be said by the Italianate painting-wonders that yourself and Giorgio regularly deliver Massimo.:thumbsup2:

 

Speak of the devil :lol: :

17 hours ago, giemme said:

Now, Payne Grey wash: I have that tint in form of oil paint, and it's very blueish. Have you actually used it pure (I mean not mixed with anything else) over green? If so, it obviously works, judging from your pics - I'm just wondering about the rationale behind this choice

You're right about the blue tint Giorgio, and this is partly why I favour it. 

 

I'd like to reply of course with something impressive along the lines of 'After years of research in human perception and cognitive psychology...' -:lol:- but the truth is simply a mixture of trial & error and instinct that leads me to use this for such tasks.

 

Having experimented with blacks and dark browns for such washes in the past I find these too 'graphic' in nature. Even when heavily diluted, in my hands these always ended up producing visuals on the kit similar to a photograph with too much contrast. At 1/72 I feel it important to avoid extremely dark and extremely bright areas of tone in order to avoid tonal over-exaggeration - it might show up the kit details better 'as a model' but to my eye strikes a false note in trying to reproduce an actual aircraft in miniature.

 

1/32 and 1/48 scale is of course another matter.:nodding:

 

By contrast, at 1/72 Payne's Grey for me yields a much more sensitive level of control over the total range of tones possible, whilst the blue component itself to it seems to 'merge' this staining in more sympathetically with any underlying colour  - certainly more so than blacks or dark brown allow.

 

In using the PG, I simply dilute the oil paint with white spirits to various concentrations and never mix it with other colours prior to application. Which brand do you use Giorgio? I find in the Daley Rowney 'Georgian' gear the blue is present but quite subtle:

40732247594_3db2e68c92_m.jpg

17 hours ago, CedB said:

and some great tips too

There's a thought Ced, it's the Grand National today!:lol:

10-1 that anything I backed would be running longer than a government enquiry....

17 hours ago, keefr22 said:

I agree with the throttles being at full power, but would suspect the co-pilot or flight eng would have a hand on them ready to make any corrections demanded by the flying pilot. Should make for an intersting bit of figure modelling

Figures have received some considerable surgery Keith and the whole ensemble will be debuted over the course of the weekend. 

Why is it I hear this music?

:mental:

17 hours ago, keefr22 said:

I spent days recently trying to achieve a similar effect on a 'slightly' dilapidated Austin Tilly

I once achieved that effect on an actual Toyota Corolla with no effort at all...last time I buy an ex-company car.

17 hours ago, keefr22 said:

That looks like a NASA pic of a slightly strange looking deep space probe going about its business

Or indeed-

 

16 hours ago, hendie said:

the lunar landscapes are nice too, which for some reason reminds me of these folks from my formative years

 

elib_330307.jpg?w=748&h=448&crop=1

Dang! He beat me to it! :lol:

16 hours ago, hendie said:

You have now thoroughly intimidated those of us who pour a dollop of wet colored stuff in the airbrush cup and hope we're pointing it in the right general direction when we hit the splurge lever.  You could have a second income setting up training classes in this art form.

I'm thinking of setting up a Nail Bar next year at Telford for the more liberated modeller.

17 hours ago, bbudde said:

For me then a well made "Currywurst"!

Sausage and curry?

I'm speechless Benedikt....:lol:

 

16 hours ago, bbudde said:

a very old one by BAP

I enjoyed that very much Benedikt - thanks. 

14 hours ago, rob85 said:

the addition of colour makes it feel like it’s shot forward!

It's why Chevrolet paint their cars bright colours Rob - it only looks like they're accelerating...

13 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Sorry I am late but I am so sorry to hear about your young relative.  Please accept my condolences to you and yours.  

 

The model looks flippin amazing what cracking work fella .

My thanks for those kind sentiments on both counts Chris. :thumbsup2:

13 hours ago, 71chally said:

Re the flaps, the selector lever has a very small movement through the gate and is pretty stubby, so I doubt it's position would show much if at all in this scale. 

It is fully forward for flaps up.

On your console it looks to be that small stubby bit behind the throttle pedestal itself.

I remain in total awe of your lore James. :worthy:

You are quite right and sent me scampering back to the manual - though being a maintenance one it's a bit thin on operational information as you can imagine so you have to match numbered parts to their descriptive listings. Here's a quick sketch of the relevant details, based on same:

26574818517_61597ecde7_b.jpg

From this you can see that whilst I've got both sets of throttle and mixture controls in place, I managed to miss the flap lever on the co-pilot's side of the pedestal....

13 hours ago, keefr22 said:

is that the Soup Dragon on finals

 

14 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Iron Chicken!

Oh stop it both of you. I'm getting all teary and nostalgic!

'Tiny Clanger....':

 

Pigmentations to follow in Pt.II...

 

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A subject of apparently infinite fascination on BM - toilet and cistern are in:

40225669985_e0d37a9137_c.jpg

Notice also how I managed to break off the top of the bulkhead for about the fifth time:

40225669935_278cee5f3c_c.jpg

It can stay off now until the interior is glued into the fuselage.

As an aside, worth noting that both of the above shots were taken with the same shutter speed and depth-of-field under identical lighting - look how the greens change according to point of view of the observer...

 

Perforated inner panels also fixed to the side-doors of the BT as well:

40409775624_a5092095fa_c.jpg

From this point onwards it was a case of starting to assemble the variously-coloured components of the cargo area and cable deck, starting with the central 'tray' that the cable is coiled in prior to recovery:

27265592808_f26a062faf_c.jpg

Anyone needing to build rusty JCBs might be interested at a quick peek underneath to where the yellow overspray mixed-in with left over powder paint to produce some interesting 'deteriorated paint' effects:

26267312347_2400c58356_c.jpg

As previously, this is just the result of the two sets of physical materials interacting and drying out naturally, with no mixing, chipping or staining help from me.

Ladder reinstated on the rear ceiling, alongside the overhead pulley:

41139060561_94865c0e16_c.jpg

The soundproofing material was coloured with a diluted dark grey sprayed over the black primer, with some more Payne's Grey to bring out surface relief.

 

Cargo bay O2  tanks and central paratainer rail (the latter a permanent fixture from previous variants - despite re-purposing of J's for more specialized recovery tasks - and indeed from crew testimonies, not apparently being used very often for operational paratainer dropping at all):

40427310734_17ba3728b5_c.jpg

The mounting for cable winch and roller against the large internal housing for the long-range fuel tanks:

40427310904_614368126d_c.jpg

And with the rollerin place:

40427310984_d06cdfe216_c.jpg

The roller at the rear of the cable tray:

26267312427_4bae2e4101_c.jpg

Both of these rollers were painted with a blend of steel and white aluminium Alclads, as is the cable tray itself:

41139060661_8617b2ecf7_c.jpg

The winch itself:

26267312587_6751139247_c.jpg

Diluted dark blue over original black primer, with some faint dry-brushing to accent various edges. The cable is simple khaki sewing thread, dry-brushed with white for variation.

Added to the ensemble:

41139060831_06569b81a3_c.jpg

Having reached this stage the fun stopped whilst I tried to work out the best way to reproduce the run of cable from the winch, along the cable tray, to the recovery poles extending from the rear of the aircraft. Not unfortunately the simple matter that sounds, as the where it  sits in the tray the cable winds back and forth all the way along it in what can only be described as a 'complex' fashion:

39638529430_a7f4358cef_m.jpg

The reason for this back and forth patterning is that each of these compressed loops was attached to the side of the cable tray with tiny hooks, the whole run effectively acting as shock-absorber so that when the capsule was snagged, these loops would progressively  - and extremely rapidly - tear-off (with a sound likened by one crew member to the report of a machine-gun), absorbing any stresses on the cable that would otherwise have snapped it. Basic belt and braces engineering that seemed to work reliably.

 

My problem was to imitate this 'back-and-forth'. Initially I tried sewing thread held out and stiffened with PVA:

41139062391_6f626d66b1_z.jpg

This did indeed stiffen nicely, but did not was too clumsy and unsatisfactory when attempting to glue it to the cable tray. In theory you could probably have done this if you had about three days worth of time and patience to spare but sometimes

the returns 

they just ain't worth it are they?

In the end I compromised upon tweezers and fine wire, initially bending these freehand like this:

41139062521_359d20f065_c.jpg

...prior to squeezing them closer together to fit in along the length of the tray:

41139062661_2b544b4e66_c.jpg

The wire was then dry-brushed with white to match the visuals of the line around the drum on the winch.

I'm conscious that this is slightly 'exaggerated' in effect compared to the fineness of the loops on the actual aircraft but at 1/72 if you go any finer, the effect would in all likelihood be wasted by disappearing altogether when viewed in through the back of the aircraft at the very end of the build.

 

This angle gives a better idea of what I mean:

41139062741_b24d7296f7_c.jpg

With that done, back to yellow then and fixing of the hydraulic actuators for the recover poles:

27364705448_cc5cc1690c_c.jpg

These aren't the actual poles being used but full-length 0.8mm pieces - this is because being longer than the actual poles, these 'stand-ins' let are long enough to meet at the apex in order to help get the arrangements symmetrical.

 

As worked out previously, at 1/72, pole separation to allow for the diameter of the parachutes supporting the capsule should be about 10.1cm:

40342143665_18555d87a8_c.jpg

I used white-tak to hold the actuators the actuators in their correct orientations and glued them in place using epoxy for strength:

41238935311_59d7eb6f22_c.jpg

The excess length gets trimmed off later but was left there to provide some necessary purchase to hold the parts in place whilst the glued was hardening.

That was left for 24hrsto harden:

39428312870_05890ae183_c.jpg

The following morning I then added the various rollers to the rear of the cable deck, again with epoxy:

40524001654_0272d9167a_c.jpg

If these look particularly metallic it is because they are...errr....made from metal. One of Mrs. B's various sewing machine acoutrements to be precise, cut into sections and polished with the Dremel.

Reason?

I lost the original plastic set I'd lathed up and these fitted the bill perfectly in terms of diameter. It's a tribute to Alclad also but I find it hard to tell the difference between the actual metal rollers and the lacquered ones:

39428313100_fe9d868f99_c.jpg

Can you?

40524001964_3b3e3c36fc_c.jpg

Join me tomorrow when Dr. Frankenstein gets to work on the crew figures....

:bye:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tony I think a quote from Howard Carter is appropriate:

 

"...as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things."

 

23 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I'm aware that by the time these are all scaled down to ther relative 1/72 some things such as the Jeppeson will be rendered almost invisible, but Britmodeller...

Yeh but the little 1/72 scale humans that you've cloned will be able to read em ok.

 

 

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wonderful stuff Tony.  The interior is looking very nice - a bit used, but not overly weathered. Those moody shots up above show that the colors are working together

 

I really must try and emulate your carefree abandon approach with paint techniques. 

 

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4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Which brand do you use Giorgio?

An Italian one, Maimeri. But I tend to use more and more tempera for washes these days, as I have better control and can modulate the effect with several reiterations - and if I screw up, cotton bud and water are all I need to get back to the starting point.

 

I'm impressed at how everything is coming together, and as usual at the level of detail you put into this :worthy::clap::clap:

 

Ciao

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