spitfire

Looking just like a Spitfire, nice work. Cheers Dennis

Thanks Troy, what I might do is after painting the undersides I would normally airbrush the complete uppers in Dark Earth then mask and airbrush the Green. What I could do is airbrush the outer wing panels, (outboard of the metal gun covers) in a slightly lighter Dark Earth and mask it off and airbrush the fuselage and wing centre section in the neat Dark Earth. Then apply the camouflage masks, airbrush a slightly lightened Dark green to the outer wing panels mask off again and airbrush the neat Dark green to the fuselage and wing centre section. From the photos it is quite a contrast in colours on "mine" and L1940, so is worth a bit more thought And another one Cheers Dennis

Not much progress but some at least, I've pretty much made up my mind to do the undersides in Night and White, split down the middle even though I think the Night, White and Aluminium looks nicer, and I will give the fabric wing sections a lightened version of the green and earth though that will be a bit tricky. The landing lights were not as nice a fit as I first thought and gave me some headaches but they are fitted now and while not perfect will have to do. The wing tip lights were drilled and a spot of green and red paint applied to represent bulbs and the back painted silver, these were then fitted and masked off. The windscreen fouled the gun sight so it was carefully removed shortened and replaced, using some masking tape to stop it disappearing into the fuselage. The windscreen was then fitted and gaps filled with Mr Surfacer. The underside amber lamp was made up using an amber Little Lenses lens with the silver backing disc removed, the dimple in the fuselage was opened out a little to make it fit. The radiator front and rear, landing lights and wingtip lights were masked off ready for painting the undersides. Cheers Dennis

This coming along nicely, great work. Cheers Dennis

Might give it a go then Troy, with some lightened green and earth, I usually do give the top colours a dash just to break it up a bit. Cheers Dennis

I'm an enamel guy and my two favorite paints are Colourcoats and Xtracolour, though I do have a healthy stock of Humbrol and MM enamels as well as some Revell, I treat them all the same, thin them with Xtracolor thinner at 50:50 and airbrush them. I do not know what the supply situation is over there now as I used to live in Sydney and got my paints from Snowy Mountain Models or from Hannants. I believe both of those routes are now closed though. Cheers Dennis

Thank you Iang and Troy, I've not seen that photo Troy but if you do come across the full sized one I would love to see it, the fading of the paint on the fabric wings is quite obvious but probably harder to pull off as my weathering skills are a bit lacking and it might look a bit strange on the model so I will have to have a ponder on that one. The demarcation between the camouflage colours on L1940 also looks to be quite soft, so I might forgo the camouflage masks with their hard edges and go back to the blue tack and paper masks route that I usually use.. For the undersides from the write up above I could go either down the black, white and silver route or the black and white route, the latter is simpler and easier but the former would look more interesting, still not sure either way. Iang, the kit is definitely worth building, I also have their metal winged version and will also build that one, plus the FLY kits in my stash, the gaps in the wing are pretty much the same on the PCM G55 which also gave me a headache but turned out well in the end. My next series of kits are planned as WW2 USN but I may switch to Hurricanes as I only have one in my display cabinets and that is the old Revell kit. Thanks for the input Cheers Dennis

Well after being distracted by the Tempest and Spitfire IX plus the nice weather I am back with the Hurricane, first job as usual is to paint the undersides, looking through my battered (and still very useful) Ducimus Camouflage and Markings I have several choices, but the one I have opted for is set out below. As a digital version of the book is not available I have scanned the pages of my out of print book, if this infringes anyone's rights I will remove them. However before I fire up my airbrush I want to make sure that I am on the right track as it has been a bit of a slog to get this far and I don't want to spoil it. The choices, my favourite is bottom right, hopefully Troy will chime in on this. From the same book Opinions ? Cheers Dennis

Both the Revell and the MDC Typhoon's build up to fine looking models, the former is a lot easier to build than the later which is a challenging kit to build. The Revell kit benefits from some of the resin detail parts available from MDC as well. I do have both of the Airfix kits but have not built either (yet). As mentioned above SH are supposed to be bringing one out in 1/32 scale as well, so I will have to get one as well Still on the Hawker theme I have just finished a PCM Hawker Tempest and that also is a very impressive but difficult build, and I also have the SH Tempest which is reputed to be a lot easier than the PCM version. Below is my MDC Typhoon And below the Revell and MDC builds Cheers Dennis

There you go. Cheers Dennis

Great build of one of my favourites, I've waited for years for a 1/32 scale Whirlwind and now have one in the stash, I hope it turns out as nice as yours. Cheers Dennis

Great result, definitely a "Keeper". Cheers Dennis

That is a shame, like you I remember visiting it in the 80's and it was superb. Cheers Dennis

No pictures for me Cheers Dennis

Superb, just superb. Cheers Dennis