This is a follow up to my first posts, a good couple of weeks ago, where I introduced myself and indicated my excitement at waiting for delivery of my first Airbrush. Well my Iwata Nero arrived and I decided that the project to use it with would be the Airfix Short Sunderland III as it is large and I thought would be a good place to learn!
As I'm sure most of you know this kit was from 1960(?) and thus is all raised detail and little cockpit detail. As for the gunners, well the less said the better really. However with the figures all painted up little can be made out through the rather thick glazing (so that is a blessing in disguise). The artwork on the box is fabulous and shows the 'flying porcupine' in full action; really whetting the appetite. There is a lot of flash to remove but as mentioned this is an old kit. What really surprised me though was the excellent fit of most of the parts.... really showing up some much more recent models I have built.
Now onto the painting. With all the major construction done I gave the whole airframe a coat of Airfix's acrylic primer. Then out came the airbrush..... White first..... Oh! Well that's not good. The coverage was bad... I mean really bad. I had followed the advice of my local model stockist and thinned the paint 3 parts to 1. But I couldn't see the white paint!! I decided to clean out the airbrush and cheat. A trip to Halfords and out came their white spray paint. Wow that went on a treat.
Next was I masked over the white with Tamiya tape and masking tape (a big mistake) and then as usual I sketched with pencil where the camouflage would go. Out came the Iwata and with renewed confidence after reading a blogg of a guy that didn't follow any given thinning advice; he just used instinct and played with the air pressure. A few practise blasts and I got the coverage I was after and attacked the model with a vengeance. To be quite honest I found initially that I had the pressure too high and mixture too thin as I was moving the paint around on the surface like you do as a kid with a straw.... But as time past I eventually got a decent, in my eyes, finish. I didn't mask the between camouflage colours, preferring to paint by hand. So off with the masking and oh dear.... paint bleed over my carefully painted white!!
I attempted to touch up with acrylic using a brush but the coverage was very poor. So I decided after failing to decant the halfords paint to go back to my enamel white and hand brushed the whole white area. I'm almost glad of those airfix raised rivets! After that I brought out the vanish so that I could move onto decaling and weathering. But next disaster.... The Lifecolor paint doesn't seem to like the Klear.... It left a very uneven swirly effect; much like water staining.... grrr! I was too far down the road in my book to consider retreat. Perhaps weathering will be my friend. So after a few more coats I moved onto the decals. Not many. Looks simple. Out came the Microset and dish of cool water and Nooooo!!!!!! The decal must have be from the 1960's as they disintegrated.... I spent a few hours nudging and feathering until I got them on in a reasonable fashion.
And that is as far as I have got! I must admit this has turned into a bit of a character building exercise. But am I pleased with the airbrush.... hell yeah!!!