spursn17

OK, 6 days into this and I'm getting ready for paint, my timescale for this is usually about 6 months! 😂 I wasn't going to do any mods or improvements on this, it was going to be a quick out of the box build. For a kit as nice as this one I was surprised that there wasn't any wingtip nav lights on the clear sprue, so out came the razor saw and the tips were cut. Two pieces of clear sprue were cut and squared off, then drilled and paint inserted into the holes. Sprue was then glued to the recess and sanded to shape, and finally polished. All good so far. The cockpit was masked ready for primer, this was then applied (Mr Surfacer 1200 aerosol). I forgot to mask the wingtip lights! Luckily I managed to wipe the primer off with thinner then polish with a nail buffer. It wiped off some of the primer from the wing but I covered that when I painted the wingtip white. Masking is now in progress for final painting. I tried something new for masking the wheel wells, I used one of those flat kitchen spongy things as it was just the right thickness, it worked really well!

Vlad, that's the one. I used a different pic as that clearly showed the two rectangular holes, the doubt crept in because the blanking plate didn't fit flush and I questioned that there was a mistake in the kit instructions. It showed me that after all these years I still have gaps in my knowledge and can learn something new! 😁

It's the boxing with the Romanian 109 on the front. It had the blanking plate but it wouldn't go in far enough to be flush, I didn't want to force it in case the recess was supposed to be there.

Hi all, after slogging away and building two armour subjects (Sug III, and a Sherman Firefly) I've decided to go back to planes for a couple of builds. This is the 109 G-4 that I'm going to do in desert cammo, it's a cracking kit and just falls together with no drama at all, and because of this I'm just posting pics of the completed cockpit straight out of the box. The PE in the kit is superb and really easy to fit!

Thanks for the quick replies, Milliput has been applied and the panel is now flat.

Thanks tank152, I should have worked that one out myself! 🙄

Thanks chaps. Bullbasket, I seem to remember that you helped with advice on the dark grey in the original post, thanks a lot for that as it really helped. I'm giving armour a rest now and going back to planes for the next couple of builds.

Hi all, I need some help with a Bf109 G4 I'm building (1/48 Eduard). It has two rectangles in the centre of the fuselage between the undercarriage legs just in front of where the drop tank mount would be, does anyone know what they are? They are dark coloured in the pic below.

Hi all. I started this in November 2019 (there's a thread in the WIP section somewhere) and have just finished it, this was a quick build for me! It's a cracker of a kit and a really enjoyable build. I had a few problems getting the dark grey the way I wanted it which involved a few recoats. The figures are mostly modified Miniart German artillery riders with Hornet heads. Paint used was Vallejo, although some Lifecolor was also used, especially for the dark grey.

Update time After some dark washes over the lightened base colour I applied several light grey washes of varying shades, RAF Dark Sea Grey seemed to work really well to lighten it even further. This was then followed up by more darkening of shadowed areas with washes of Lifecolor 207 Dunkelgrau, then even more washes of the lighter greys to the centre of panels and anywhere that would get faded first. I then applied some of the Lifecolor Dunkelgrau with some sponge as if I were applying chipping to show the original colour through the fading. Where I am now is that I've just used some Phthalo blue oil paint dots to filter the panels and add back in the blue tone of the Dunkelgrau, followed by some selective filtering with black and a very small amount of burnt umber oil dots. I found this blue to be a very strong colour and used it very sparingly. I'm finding this difficult to take pics of the Stug that show the true colour of it, every pic I take is different from the last one. Next up will be some pastels to dust it up a bit. Cheers Dave (spursn17)

Cheers Bullbasket. That sounds like it would be good for my Stug, and I've got a model shop (Masons of Spalding) not too far from me that sells Mig!

Yep Redcoat2966, you were right! The Lifecolor Panzer Grey (207) is a great colour for a fresh out of the factory vehicle but I couldn't do anything to lighten it, unfortunately I'd put the decals on and had to sand them off and re-coat those areas with the grey I'd already put on. I mixed the Lifecolor grey with some Vallejo German grey to lighten it and then sprayed another coat all over, concentrating on spraying from the top, now it looks a lot lighter! Next was a thin wash of the original Lifecolor grey so as to keep the blueish tone to the paint. I'm in the process of applying a wash of Vallejo Black Grey lightened with the German grey to darken the recesses at the moment. I won't post any pics as due to the colours it doesn't look any different yet in the photo's, as soon as there's any discernible difference I'll put them up. Cheers all Dave (spursn17)

Thanks all, I'll post more pics when I've done some more work to it. I applied the decals tonight and what a pig they were! Had to soak them for ages, and when they did eventually loosen up they stuck in position as soon as they touched the model, even using my favourite 'floating them on a pool of Kleer' method was difficult. Recoat2966; I've been thinking how to lighten the grey up and after sticking a dark wash and some dust on it I may use a method that I used for a natural metal P51 I finished recently, I dry brushed it with different grades of clearcoat so as to keep the finish equal between the aluminum and olive drab sections. I'm thinking that it may work with this dark grey as well.

I got fed up with my Firefly dio so started on a Bronco Stug III if anyone is interested? It's a nice kit with no need to buy extras as photoetch and a metal barrel are already in the kit, just going to add acoulpe of crew though. The track links were a pain in the bum, 93 links each side, and two 0.5mm pins to each link! They move so they should hang well when I get them on, they are so light though it was hard to paint them as the airbrush kept blowing them across the table 🙂 So far I've painted the interior and added simple representations of the radio gear and an MP40. I primed it with Mr Surfacer, which I used for the first time and is going to be my primer of choice as it sprayed so nicely. Base coat was Lifecolor German Panzer Grey, which also went on with no problems. hosting images

Thanks, I'll give that a try as well.