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Really superb work!

Really fast and good looking build, Ced! It seems you're always ahead of me... I have this kit in my list of future builds... Cheers Jaime

Nigel, This is really excellent work! The aircraft is awesome and your attention to detail and skills are admirable. I'll keep this WIP bookmarked as a reference for when I build this kit. Hopefully , it'll come out half as good as yours... Jaime

Congrats for finishing another great build! I'm also curious about the tools you mentioned and I'll take a look at the websites. Jaime

Great results Ced, congrats! This scheme is really good looking! I agree with others: the final result is lovely and shows no hint at the build issues you found Jaime

Thanks PlaStic! Your words mean a lot.

Val, many thanks for your kind words

Excellent finish and great looking scheme. Congrats! Jaime

Hello again, As said in my recent post on the RN Phantom, I've been quite busy working also in the Alcock & Brown Phantom in parallel since mid last week, with detailing work on the cockpit parts. This update represents several days of work. With the side consoles on the cockpit tube painted black, I finished painting the remaing black items on the cockpit side walls and the cockpit edges on the fuselage. First, I masked around these areas to be painted. On the inside: IMAG2027 and on the outside: IMAG2026 In the above picture you can see that I had already painted black the end of the air intakes and the area in front of the cockpit. I didn't mask at the time, so some overspray resulted. After painting the black areas, the results were the following. Inside: IMAG2059 and the edges: IMAG2053 For convenience, I repeat here the links to pictures of the instrument panels and side consoles of British Phantoms. As can be seen, they were mainly black on grey: http://www.projectoc...com/vox-07b.htm http://www.f4phantom...hp?plane_id=253 http://www.f4phantom...hp?plane_id=254 http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/phantom/walkaround.php Taking these pictures into account, I moved on to detailing the lateral consoles of the cockpit tube. First, I applied a dry-brush of Tamiya's XF-19 Sky Grey: IMAG2029 Then, another dry-brush of flat white: IMAG2031 This made the buttons and dials really stand out. To finish with, I applied a final dry-brush with silver, in order to give a worn metal appearance. A coat of gloss varnish was applied in preparation for a wash: IMAG2073 Then, I detail painted the instrument panels, which were already painted in the base grey. First, using a detail brush, I painted the dials with flat black: IMAG2057 Next, I painted the other few colours (a mix of Tamiya's Desert Yellow and Gunze's Clear Orange for the radar scope in the front IP, and a few red spots). I also applied a light dry-brush with a lighter grey in order to make the dials' edges stand out: IMAG2062 This was followed by a flat white dry-brush to enhance the dials' edges further: IMAG2064 To finish the IPs, I dry-brushed with silver and applied a coat of gloss in preparation for the wash (the control column, on the right, was also dry-brushed with silver): IMAG2074 I also decided to detail the seats, since these are complex systems with lots of details and colours, as can be seen in the pictures in the walkaround here in BM http://www.britmodel...aker-mk7-seats/ I used a detail brush and about 7 colours to detail the sides, top of the seats and harnesses. Here is the result with the parts still on toothpicks: IMAG2048 The ejection handles were finished by painting the black stripes: IMAG2055 After all paints dried, I glued the parts together. Here are the two seats: IMAG2068 IMAG2069 IMAG2070 To finish these, I applied a light silver dry-brush to the metal areas of the seats (didn't manage to photograph these properly), followed by a gloss coat in preparation for a wash. That's it for now. The next step is the application of a wash to the cockpit parts. Thanks for looking. Jaime

Ced, John: you're both being very kind. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it

Hello again, I've been quite busy with detailing work on the cockpit parts of the British Phantoms since mid last week. Here's an update representing several days of work. In my last post I had painted the black side consoles on the cockpit tube. However, there were some other black items in the panels on the cockpit side walls and the cockpit edges on the fuselage were also black. So, I started by masking around these areas to be painted. On the inside: IMAG2024 and on the outside: IMAG2025 In the above picture you can see that I had already painted black the end of the air intakes and the area in front of the cockpit. I didn't mask at the time, so some overspray resulted. After painting the black areas, the results were the following. Inside: IMAG2058 and the edges: IMAG2051 As can be seen in the pictures in the following links, the side consoles and instrument panels were mainly devoid of any colours, being just black on grey: http://www.projectoceanvision.com/vox-07b.htm http://www.f4phantoms.co.uk/details.php?plane_id=253 http://www.f4phantoms.co.uk/details.php?plane_id=254 http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/phantom/walkaround.php Taking these pictures into account, I moved on to detailing the lateral consoles of the cockpit tube. First, I applied a dry-brush of Tamiya's XF-19 Sky Grey: IMAG2028 Then, another dry-brush of flat white: IMAG2030 This made the buttons and dials really stand out. To finish with, I applied a final dry-brush with silver, in order to give a worn metal appearance. A coat of gloss varnish was applied in preparation for a wash: IMAG2071 Then, I detail painted the instrument panels, which were already painted in the base grey. First, using a detail brush, I painted the dials with flat black: IMAG2056 Next, I painted the other few colours (a mix of Tamiya's Desert Yellow and Gunze's Clear Orange for the radar scope in the front IP, and a few red spots). I also applied a light dry-brush with a lighter grey in order to make the dials' edges stand out: IMAG2060 This was followed by a flat white dry-brush to enhance the dials' edges further: IMAG2063 To finish the IPs, I dry-brushed with silver and applied a coat of gloss in preparation for the wash (the control column, on the right, was also dry-brushed with silver): IMAG2072 I also decided to detail the seats, since these are complex systems with lots of details and colours, as can be seen in the pictures in the walkaround here in BM http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/33782-martin-baker-mk7-seats/ I used a detail brush and about 7 colours to detail the sides, top of the seats and harnesses. Here is the result with the parts still on toothpicks: IMAG2046 The ejection handles were finished by painting the black stripes: IMAG2054 After all paints dried, I glued the parts together. Here are the two seats: IMAG2065 IMAG2066 IMAG2067 To finish these, I applied a light silver dry-brush to the metal areas of the seats (didn't manage to photograph these properly), followed by a gloss coat in preparation for a wash. That's it for now. The next step is the application of a wash to the cockpit parts. Thanks for looking. Jaime

Hello again, Yesterday I did the chipping on the Spit. I had applied a coat of silver paint over the areas to be chipped, covered by chipping fluid, before painting the camouflage. Now that the decals were on, I used the tip of an x-acto blade (and sanding paper on same areas), to chip the painting. As said before, the D-Day stripes were painted over the camouflage in the field, in a hurry. I believe there was no time to repair the rest of the aircraft's painting, so there should be chipping left on the worn out surfaces not covered by the stripes. I decided to chip the wing roots, cockpit and engine access areas and the machine guns and cannons access panels. The final result of this work is shown in the next pictures. I think I've overdone the chipping on the panels covered by the roundels... Top of the port wing, with chipping on the edges of the machine guns' access panels (any existing chipping on the cannon access panel was "repaired" by application of the D-Day stripes): IMAG2077 Similar, for the top of the starboard wing: IMAG2079 Port wing root, cockpit access area and canopy frames: IMAG2080 Starboard wing root and canopy frames: IMAG2081 Under-surface of the port wing, showing the machine guns' access panels: IMAG2084 Under-surface of the starboard wing, showing the machine guns' access panels: IMAG2085 After this, I applied a good coat of gloss varnish, in preparation for a wash. I'm not very happy with the chipping, because it is overdone on the roundels. I found very few pictures of real Spitfires where chipped roundels could be seen. Anyway, I won't replace the roundels now... Thinking about the chipping process, if I would go back in time, I'd do the chipping as a two phase process: 1st round of chipping right after finishing the main painting and before applying gloss varnish in preparation for decaling 2nd round of chipping right after decaling, on the roundel areas, with the roundels still wet from the solvents. This would have made chipping on the roundels easier and, probably, less exaggerated Well, maybe next time it comes out better... That's all for now. Tonight I expect to apply a sludge wash and a flat coat. Thanks for looking Jaime

Thanks a lot for the information. It will be very useful when I build this kit. I'm not sure when will be able to build it because right now I'm finishing a Spit XIV, I'm building three British Phantoms for the Phantom GB and a Fokker triplane... And will be participating in the Battle of Britain GB with three kits... Too much work, probably... Let's see if I can manage all this.... Cheers Jaime

Looks great! Looking forward to seeing it with decals. Jaime

A really good looking spitfire and diorama! Congrats! Now it's finished, what are your impressions on this kit? I intend to build one and would like to know what to expect. Thanks Jaime

Excellent!

Really coming alive with the decals, Ced! Looking great!

Thanks for the kind words, Ced! The ejection ports were opened before I started painting the model and, now, I just cut the roundels to keep the ports open. In fact I should have opened them before glueing the top and bottom wing pieces... they would come out better. Jaime

I'll be doing a 109E4 and a Do 17z (if my LHS manages to get this one on time...)

Looks great Ced! The Mediterranean / Desert camouflage is really good looking!

Hi Roger, thanks for your post. Yes, I hope to finish by the weekend. The weathering still takes some time.

Hello again, Here's an update on the latest work on the Spit XIV. In the last post I had finished painting the aircraft. I intended to chip the paint, but noticed that the roundels on the wings would be over some of the chipped areas, so decided to apply the decals first. After applying a good gloss coat of varnish, I left the Spit to dry for a day. Then started the decaling job. Here's the decaling set-up: IMAG2032 The aircraft I'll be modelling is from RAF's 91 Sq., West Malling, with the codes DL-F and NH698. This aircraft was flown by Flying Officer Kenneth Roy Collier, of the RAAF. Collier became famous when, on 23 June 1944, tipped a V1 flying bomb with the the tip of his aircraft's wing, making the bomb loose directional control and crash on the ground without hitting its target. This technique was then adopted by other pilots when chasing flying bombs. Later, on 5 December 1944, Collier was shot down and killed in a dogfight with FW 190s and Bf 109s over Germany. He rests in the Rheinburg Commonwealth War Cemetery, Nordrhein-Westfal, Germany. This model is a small homage to a brave young man. There weren't many decals to apply but it took me two night sessions. I had to remove and apply again one of the underside roundels, because the first attempt wasn't symmetric in relation to the roundel of the other wing. This took some time... The following pictures show the end result. Top view: IMAG2034 Underside view: IMAG2035 Starboard view: IMAG2036 Port view: IMAG2037 Front view, with the red patches (decals) over the machine gun locations, on the wings' leading edges: IMAG2038 Since the D-Day stripes were painted over existing stencils and other markings, the day before the invasion, there was only time to paint the lateral roundels over the stripes. The other markings remained totally or partially overpainted by the stripes. I had to take this into account when applying some of the stencils and the aircraft codes. The following picture shows the port side of the aft fuselage, where most of the squadron code (sky coloured letters on the left) was obstructed by the stripes and only the trailing "8" of the aircraft code remained visible (on the right, over the sky coloured band): IMAG2039 On the starboard side almost all the squadron code was overpainted. Only a small tip of the "F" remains visible (between the rightmost white stripe and the cockpit). On the left, only the "N" from the aircraft code is visible and, above it, part of a stencil: IMAG2040 On the top surface of the wings, most stencils and markings were overpainted by the stripes. Only short sections of the black line delimiting the walking areas remained visible: IMAG2041 The last picture shows the underside of the same wing, with the roundel and stencils. The cartridge ejection hole in the centre of the roundel is already open: IMAG2042 I've already started doing some chipping (see the underside roundel in the above picture, notice the chipping along the panel edges of the machine gun access panel) but I still have to finish it. After that, another gloss coat will be applied in preparation for the wash. I hope you liked it and thanks for looking. Cheers Jaime

Excellent work! The paint finish and weathering is superb! I'll read your WIP with great interest. Jaime

Excellent build, painting and weathering. I can't understand why it's below your expectations... it is really excellent, congrats! Jaime

Joe, I'm really stunned by the quality of the build and esquisite finish! Just brilliant! Jaime