al_the_drummer

Great build - interesting subject. Very much like this...

That is absolutely beautiful. It looks real, plain and simple. Blow-away good modelling, and superb finishing. So many subtle touches bring this to life...wonderful.

Just had time to catch up with the board after a couple of weeks away - many, many thanks for all the positive feedback...really helps motivate the next build (1/48th Italeri Ju-87B) in to something like completion!

Lovely build - great comparison with the real aircraft too - top work!

Absolutely love this - terrific build and fascinating scheme. Great job... The tonality in the painting give a great depth to the finish and the figure gives a fantastic sense of scale.

I think that's absolutely lovely... Superb painting and a very solid build. Love it!

Great result - a model to be proud of. Great weathering, very good build...

What a great group of builds...they look excellent together. Very nice modelling work and a fascinating piece of history...

Hi Duncan, Thanks for the lovely feedback... the exhaust stains were airbrushed - a few passes of highly thinned tamiya smoke, and then a deeper brown/black mix again highly thinned over the top. I've seen conflicting photos if there should be some white residue in there too, but I decided to leave as-is. The white backdrop is actually very very simple - an A2 piece of white card, half flat (taped down) on my desk with the other half propped against a stack of books to give a curved 'fall-off' surface, and then a big Lastolite diffuser over the top to soften the illumination. The key thing with white backgrounds is to compensate for the way in which camera meters work - they evaluate a scene to be (as an arithmetic mean) 40% grey - so when you've got so much white going on any camera will tend to underexpose quite a bit. I ended up adding +1.66 stops exposure compensation to get a clean background. PM me if you want any more info...

Well - my second post to RFI...gulp. First off, some thoughts about the kit itself for anyone who hasn't built one... The level of detail straight from the box is superb, especially with the PE included. There's been a recent build by Vanja #66 that shows what you can do with this kit with imagination, skill and patience, but sadly for me I'm somewhat lacking in all 3 of those vital areas. The surfaces are extremely crisply moulded, and as this is my first kit moving away from the locating pins and trench-like panel lines of basic Airfix models, I was very very impressed by how restrained and 'in scale' it all looks. The build took quite a lot longer than I thought it would, but that's just the nature of these things. I've learned an awful lot from building this (now my 6th complete effort) including when and when not to use C/A, which I think is a valuable finding! Nothing proved exceptionally tricky, apart from the PE aerial under the fuselage which I broke off more times than I care to remember, and now looks rather mangled. As I'm still learning a huge amount from each build I'm just going to let that - and the vast number of additional flaws I've introduced myself - lie. I've been taken by the idea of doing a whitewash scheme for a while, and I'm sort of happy with how this has turned out. I tried the hairspray technique and found it, if done carefully, to actually be pretty easy and very effective. It is - however - where I nearly binned the whole thing, as it's a real lesson in restraint, stripping the paint off, trying again, going too heavy again, stripping the paint off...you get the idea. I reached a point with it where it's probably 70% like I hoped, and just wanted to get it done and on the shelf. Next time I whitewash I'll know a lot more where to go with it...hopefully with less head-scratching. Painted with Mr Colour, odds and sods of Tamiya and a little Xtracrylics, weathered with the airbrush and an oily pin-wash. Many thanks to Colin and SaintsPhil for the advice about Alclad Klear Kotes, which I've found to be stunningly good. Enough of the waffle:

Very lovely build indeed... beautiful finish to the model and great paintwork!

That's absolutely beautiful. Seriously - wonderful modelling skills and a fantastic finish. I honestly don't know if I'll ever have the patience required to produce something like that, but it's such an inspiring build that it might get me thinking! I doff my hat to your skills - stunning work.

Fantastic story, great to hear the personal side of a build - and a fabulous build to go with it too! That looks wonderful - I'd love to see some more photos of it to be honest. Top work...

That's a lovely clean build - very nice work, beautiful.

Thank you both - that's much appreciated advice! Once the order is through and I've painted up the Eisenseiten I'll pop it in the R-F-I with thanks to you both!

That's lovely - I'd love to see some more photos! Very very neat rigging.

Hi BM'ers... Just a quick one which I'm hoping someone out there might have tried - I'm thinking of taking the plunge and ordering some Mr Hobby Color Aqueous paints from ModelsRGo - I'm tired of clogging nozzles with Xtracrylix (my fault for not ever finding the sweet spot of thinning) and am frustrated by Tamiya's lack of range in RLM tones without precise mixing. I've got hold of an RLM02 Mr Hobby Colour and am hugely impressed by how it sprays and it's depth of colour. I'm also planning on getting some Alclad Matte and Gloss (Klear Kote) after being amazed how lovely their grey primer is. I have an 80% built Eduard Bf 110E that I'm planning on chucking all this at...with a whitewash. SO - waffling aside, here's my question (in two parts): Am I going to ruin the Mr Hobby Colour by putting Alclad Gloss Klear Kote over the top (I plan on thinning with Mr Colour Levelling Thinner)? Any advice on drying/gassing out time for Mr Hobby Colour thinned with Mr Colour Levelling Thinner before applying varnishes and then hairspray? If I had the paints I'd just test it, but any advice in advance of a costly order would be much much appreciated. Thanks, Al

Lovely looking build! Looking forward to pulling mine out of the stash - that's very inspiring. Great weathering.

That is quite honestly the best diorama I've seen. Absolutely stunning, and I've just looked through the WIP - unbelievable quality and attention to detail. Seriously, that is wonderful, wonderful work and worth all the time, love and attention you've lavished on the project. Humble thanks for posting such an inspiring build.

Fantastic build - looks absolutely wonderful. Love the subtle details.

Absolutely extraordinary work at that scale - I'd be proud of that at 1/48th! Wonderful little creation...

Absolutely beautiful - a real inspiration.

Lovely stuff - the weathering looks great, I particularly like the faded panels. Top job.

That's absolutely lovely - great weathering. Superb build.

What a lovely little beast - beautiful build, the rigging is simply superb.