Torbjorn

I bought one - the Ninak - started building it, and realized this isn’t my cup of tea: only painting painting painting and no modelling, since the pieces are perfect and just snap together. Then, of some reason I’m still trying to understand, I bought 10-15 more, and I’m still sad I didn’t pick up a Roland 😵‍💫

A big thank you for hosting, wish I’d have had time to add the missing number to get that 2nd spot!

With hours to spare… Airfix’s 1/72 Blenheim Mk.IVF. Built pretty much straight out of the box, representing a machine in the markings of No. 248 Squadron Coastal Command , RAF North Coates, 1940. Despite tricky fit of the front I’m tempted to buy a Mk.I as well… build thread here:

Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko, 1/72 kit from Hobby 2000, Fujimi plastic. Build thread here: Built as an early production plane, assigned to the Night Fighter Flight of the Yokosuka Fighter group, 1944.

The extra time made me lazy, but now the final matt coat is drying. Flaps, gunpack, collector rings added. And the antenna again - third time’s hopefully the charm. Collector rings are a but too shiny but should dull down after the matt coat, which was applied after these pictures were taken. The gun tower is lacking in detail, but I didn’t make any additions or replacements. Maybe later, it’s not glued anyway and the guns are accessible through the opening in the canopy.

Wish I had listened to you There is *some* effect left, but not as much as I’d liked. Also don’t need to do any work to make the Hurricane consistent anymore… As is usual* for me some bits are falling off, but there’s still a chance to finish on time after I finally found the misplaced turret clear piece I had dipped in AK clear (and set to dry in a safe place). *) especially since I replace Tamiya green liquid glue with the supposedly more healthy and limonene.

Oh no, hope the database has not been lost. Unparallelled information treasure for biplane modellers

Still has the weathering to do, but all parts are now added. Flap, prop and Quickboost exhaust now added. Iwo Jima was (and is I suppose) a dusty island, and I have seen at least one the tail undercarriage wrapped in protective bag of sorts (lacking the correct word here). I wrapped mine in tissue paper soaked in green PVA. it can be seen in the last post.

Time is ticking so need to speed this up. I’ not a fan of pre-shading panel lines, as I think this makes models look like Warhammer toys, but I *am* a big fan of the pre-shading to achieve colour variation that has been demonstrated by @81-er with his Me410. I’ve never suceeded with this, so thought I’d try to imitate that technique. Primed with grey, then mottled pre-shading with dark brown and black olive over the Dark Earth and Dark Green areas respectively. For the actual DE and DG I intend to use Hataka colours, because that’s what I ended up buying once. I know they are supposed to have a shaded look (compensation for scale) but I still think the earth look too bland. This time I sprayed two thinned layers of DE, the first mixed with 1/5 Vallejo Wood to get a bit saturation, the second time Hataka DE straight from the bottle*. I like the result better this time. Compare with this Hurricane that has Hataka colours straight from the bottle: What does the jury say? Maybe one more layer of Hataka to tone it down, then I may need to figure out how to make the Hurricane look consistent *) ”straight” is generous. I do think the Hataka colours spray wonderfully, but they are a metaphorical pain in the gluteus for preparing. They - at least my three bottles - separate when stored. I have put ball bearings or nuts inside to help mixing when shaking, a nd they also work as indicators that something is wrong: the paint separates, the pigments solidifying and sticking the bearings in the sediment. The remaining liquid looks like grey sewage ooze. I need to pry away the cap and stir vigorously with a stick for 15-30 minutes to get the paint in order. As a result I tend to build several models in the same scheme to get value out of the stirring… Rant over.

With sticky-out bits (pitot-tube, and what I guess are fuel ejection chutes) I decided to put her on her feet. Painted the undersides first, then attached the undercarriage, which fitted well. Engines were a snug fit, but a dry fit of the 3 cowling pieces revealed there may be some awkward filling and sanding coming along soon.

The drop tanks were routinely braces with plywood pieces, so I decided to add that little detail from plastic sheet: It would been smarter to do them before the landing gear and rockets, but they ar enow wiggled into place: The upper picture show two of the antennas: one between the wheel bays, still unpainted, and one under the tail made of sprue. The former is the regular radio mast moved under to make way for the twin ”Uncle Dog” antenna. No idea what the spindly antenna under the tail was. The twin antenna was used for the homing signal that guided the Mustangs back to Iwo Jima - I cut some plastic for those, as shown half-painted on next photo. The last antennas are those for the tail warning radar, made from scrap wire: Only touch-ups and weathering to go.

Just catching up, amazing paintjob!

Thanks Chris, that’s how I too make the bulbs usually (picked it up from this forums surely), not sure why I was so impatient this time. You got a much clearer finish than I do, I think I skip too many grades when polishing. Glad to see it possible though, will try harder next time.

Suspected that, it’s a bit of a road bump. I ended up using strips of plastic painted with interior green to fill the gaps between the clear parts, and had to remove snd reattach two canopy pieces. I’m glad I’m making the fighter, don’t think I’d like to fiddle with an open bomb bay. I noticed there are two wing tip lights molded in the opaque grey. These annoy me, so I cut away at the nearest panel lines and glued clear sprue with CA. The pieces are much larger than the actual lights (though the extent on the molded parts still differs from the drawings), which makes filling and sanding any gap easier. Always amazes me how hard the CA dries: I could carve and dremel away at the clear parts without fear of them getting loose. I never manage to get them as clear as the original, but good enough for wing tip lights and definitely better than the opaque. No idea about colour (clear or red/green?) but that’s a later problem. I usually drill a ”lamp” on the inside, but skipped it this time as I could not find and pictures anyway. Started painting the undersides. Decided to skip the TSS and go with something else, preferably with black underside if the seams are ugly. Seems to have turned out ok though:

Simple but elegant. An earlier version had thin green, angled stripes covering the same area, but decided against attempting that. — I made a boo-boo. Removing the masking I realized I forgot the arch-shape brace inside the canopy A pity, since the vac-form is beautifully transparent: