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Old dog, new Airfix


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Like many here, I've come back to kit-bashing after a fair old hiatus. IIRC I stopped building plastic kits back in 1993/4-ish when in my mid 20's.

 

In late 2016, while visiting a local aviation museum I saw a little red Airfix box containing what was purported to be a Spitfire 22. Uh-oh... I should have known red stands for danger!

It came home with me and by early 2017 had been joined by about half a dozen others... Okay. How to address this problem when all my Humbrol enamels are 20+ years old and my brushes and tools rather worse for wear? Also the missus (who didn't feature two and a half decades back either) probably wouldn't be too pleased with the smell of solvents in the house. Potential solution: Tamiya acrylics, Windsor & Newton varnishes and new tools & brushes.

 

So with a plan in motion I actually extracted digit and got down to some building in 2017.

Four kits were completed that year, the first was very much an experiment using an oldie from my 1990's stash, a 1/72 PM Models Fokker D.XXI which I shall not be posting images of here. It came out okay, but it was definitely a learning experience with respect to brush painting acrylics vs what I remembered of enamels!

 

Anyway, to cut through the waffle (lest you be falling asleep) here are the three new purchases and builds that I finished in 2017:

 

1: 1/72 Airfix Tomahawk IIb , the starter kit and yes, I did use the paint stuff that came in the odd little pots provided... :huh:

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What an eye opener! Lovely engineering by Airfix. If this is modelling in the 21st Century I'm glad I rediscovered it!

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I tweaked the brightness on this image somewhat as the shadows being thrown by the sun were hiding the detail a bit.

 

2: 1/72 Airfix Spitfire 22, first new kit to be bought but the second to be built as I was a bit intimidated by attempting a NMF with hairy stick applied acrylics. :worry:

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Another lovely kit by Airfix, perhaps not as tidy to assemble as the Tomahawk, but no complaints for sure!

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I'm not sure what the odd rainbow patterning on the canopy is. I wonder if it is something to do with the polariser on the camera? The missus will know. It isn't apparent on the actual model.

 

3: 1/72 Airfix Typhoon 1b, I did this one with a sky spinner partly as both the previous builds had red spinners and this might therefore look a bit like a job lot. I imagine it is as issued before 'Stapme' Stapleton personalised it. Or something! :wink:

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Yet more impressive and ingenious engineering from Airfix. I really like how these models go together!

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Yet more weird rainbow patterning on the canopy. I've got to work out what is causing that on the photos. The canopy on the model looks crystal clear to the naked eye.

 

The photos are a bit naff and I apologise for that. I have no real idea how to drive a camera, although advice from some of the esteemed members here and the missus should solve that. They were also taken in a bit of a hurry, outside on a 42C (106F) day to take advantage of the light, which would probably have wound up melting them if I hadn't kept the session short! :speechless:

 

 

 

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Thanks lads, I'm quite pleased at how they came out. They won't remotely win any prizes but I'm happy to have them. Each one has been a bit of an experiment in its own way.

 

Steve, the trick to brushing Tamiya acrylics seems to be: really dilute them out and then use many, many thin coats.

I use their X-20A thinner as a diluent although apparently water or isopropyl alcohol works as well. The ratio I've been using is around 50:50 paint to thinner (it varies a bit depending on the actual colour being used) but this is usually my starting point. I'm sure you've heard the infamous 'consistency of diluted milk' phrase. Well that is sort of what you want to aim for. The trick is to get it so that it goes on and actually adheres to the surface as opposed to beading together under its own surface tension. Let dry and cure between coats or all sorts of weird things can happen.

The first coat or two, or three will tend to look right naff and you'll really be wondering if you're doing it right. However, persevere and by coat five or six it will be starting to look quite acceptable, with very little evidence of brush strokes. Camo colours usually need only a couple of coats over the base colour to look effective. Perhaps three at the most. (This even worked with the little Humbrol pots that came with the starter Tomahawk although they were a bit more fiddly, the middle stone going on very grainy and the dark earth looking and behaving like gooey chocolate...) Metallics seem to be the trickiest to get to behave, always looking just sightly sort of translucent. Pests.

So far matt varnish seems to be my bugbear. The gloss varnish is fine, but having experimented with a few matt varnishes the one that causes me the least grief seems to be the Windsor & Newton. (I'm doing my best to forget my Humbrol matt clear debacle!) :wtf:

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Superb results there. When I got back into it a couple of years ago I went the airbrush/ Vallejo modelair route and am fairly happy with the results so far, but your brush painting efforts are stunning!

Like you I'm impressed with the new Airfix toolings, have only done the 1/72 Defiant so far though. There are some great models out there, I've built up a canny stash that I'll never live long enough to build!

 

Good job.

 

Davey.

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They look great.  I like the new airfix but the quality control is crap, warped parts, including the new walrus.  

  The paint looks great, brush painted!! Would have  thought they where airbrushed if you had not told us. 

  

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Welcome back, they all look great!

I started again about 6 years ago, and I too love the new Airfix kits. My problem is that WWI is my chosen era, and that pretty much counts Airfix out, although I do have a few in my stash including my current He111 build.

 

Ian

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