Kitchen Modeller

Thanks for that.... underside looks great.

Stumbling forwards... So it was my birthday today and as I work for myself, I gave myself the day off - which was very civil if I do say so myself. Got up to a very nice present from the wife... What can I say? Very nice airplane kit and beer. Simple tastes for a simpleton. Was very happy with the day so far. The plan was to spend the day mucking around with the typhoon and the timing was good - painting upperside along with the camo scheme was up next. Base colour for the upper side was going to be Tamiya ocean grey xf82 mixed with Tamiya white thinned 50/50. Instead of the usual Tamiya thinner I tried using tamiya lacquer thinner - a friend from the local model club said it worked a lot better with an airbrush - I also threw in a few drops of airbrush flow improver. Have to say, this is the best combo I’ve tried so far with the airbrush - very nice flow and control. A few thin coats of that later: it looks quite dark in this photo - its dark in my shed but it was a nice day outside so took a pic in the sunshine to gauge the colour: It looks very light and it is - probably added too much white - however the plan is to tone it down later with clear coats, weathering and washes. Most of the models I’ve done so far end up being very dark over all - so wanted to try using lighter shades in the early stages and see if that results in a lighter tone at the end. Next up was the camouflage scheme - yet again the first time I’ve attempted this with an airbrush - in fact it’s one of reasons I bought the airbrush as I could never get the finish I wanted with a paintbrush... A hurricane I did a few months ago - doesn’t look too bad in the photo but it was layer after layer of paint and I wasn’t happy at the end - so I was hoping for a bit of improvement with the new toy. To mask off the blue areas I used the blue tac method- actually white tac as apparently this works better. Make snakes. Put snakes on plane. (Snakes on a plane?) As you can see here, I barely know what I’m doing. Main issue is that my snakes are too thick (insert dad joke here) They should have been skinny - which makes them easier to place correctly and... well you'll see in minute. Masked everything off. I thought this was going to be a long and tedious job. It didn’t disappoint. For the green I used tamiya dark green 2 raf mixed with a little cockpit green to lighten it abit. A few coats later: You might be able to pick up what’s coming next looking at this photo. Tore off the mask and ended up with: There’s not enough green. Everything worked, mask and paint wise but the snakes. Too thick. The masking was in roughly the right spots but I didn’t account for the snakes girth. (This topic is a double entendres dream) so too much blue not enough green. As my confidence with the airbrush was slightly better than earlier in the day and the mix was working well, I thought I could do some improvised sniper like blasts aided by some snake wrestling masking action. Just so I could enlarge those skinny green areas. This seemed to work reasonably well. So I repeated this in different spots around the model. Would probably have spent the rest of day at this but had to do a school run. But all up, a good days painting. Lots of firsts and no massive muck ups. And a few of those beers. To be continued... cheers for reading.

I read somewhere that if you use Tamiya super softener decal solution, their decals work better... but still. They are pretty woeful. Doesn’t seem to be the case in all of their kits but when they’re bad, they really bad. All that said, that’s a very nice spitfire smithy

Yep the decals are one of the best things about Airfix kits - they’re always spot on. When I did my first Tamiya kit I was really surprised how terrible the decals were in comparison to the much cheaper Airfix ones. Looking forward to seeing the new pics!!

Very impressive especially considering the scale. It could easily be mistaken for a much bigger model as the detailing is so good. Never knew they were using invasion stripes during the Korean War. Great model and you thought me something new!

That’s interesting Roger as I love the stripes you did - I assumed you did what I did and just weathered them afterwards. Your method actually makes more sense thinking about it. Might have to give that a go next time...

Thanks Smithy

Thanks for that Steve - I can get some Vallejo or humbrol easily enough - so that's bang on... Thanks Rob - I can see that I came to the right place - with me not being a car guy and all - I'm really not - I'm in it for the airplanes:) Of course you're absolutely correct about the car in the photo - It is an Aussie Valiant Charger and it's my brother in laws pride and joy. I did want to to do a model based on it but I had no joy finding a kit that was even close to it. I'm not interested in doing any scratch building or conversation work (don't have the time) so I'm simply going for something completely different. What I should have said is that I'm building a dodge charger - and wanted to do it the same colour as the Charger in the photo. Hope that makes sense. The info you provided will be invaluable all the same so thanks for that. I'm actually building it as part of a post apocalyptic diorama so you can gather by that where I'm going with this... I think my brother in law will get a great kick out it featuring a charger the same colour as his own... I'll be happy to post it here when complete... I think the one in the photo is worth quite a few bob being fully restored - though it has an oil leak that can never be fixed... It's a beaut of a car - even I fully appreciate it's sheer awesomeness.

Thanks Christer - they were well worth the effort. Another thing I can do now.

Both these birds are looking very fine indeed - watching with great interest...

Invasion stripes! Finally got round to this today - one of those things I was very excited about doing but also very apprehensive - first time and all. Before getting onto that though, I wanted to put another coat on the underside... I put a very thinned out layer on and was pretty happy with the result - its a fairly interesting underside but not to extreme - pretty much what I was after. I also attempted to smooth out the blemish on the underside of the radiator but alas it's still showing. I will fix this - just not today. On to the invasion stripes - I had a fairly good idea on how to approach this - I was going to use the cut out decals as a guide - mask off the white area and spray that first. Gave it a few coats of Tamiya White thinned about 50/50. I didn't try masking off the guns completely as this area will get sprayed again for the yellow stripe - I'll fix it afterwards with a detail brush. I let that dry for a while before getting to the next bit. Here's where it got a bit tricky - I planned on cutting 5 strips of masking tape - one for each stripe and laying them down beside each other - then remove the 2 for the black stripe - this turned out to be way more difficult than I thought - I couldn't get the tape to align with each bit properly - so in the end I just winged it (no pun intended) and just used the painting guide in the instructions and guesstimated the location of the middle stripe. It wasn't going to be pin perfect but good enough - as previously stated earlier in this thread - I'm not looking for perfection here. Here goes nothin...! I then sprayed Vallejo Model Color Black - which is another new product for me - it went on quite nicely. It's pre-thinned so it can be used straight from the bottle - I put in a couple of drops of Airbrush flow improver also. I really like the smell of this stuff. It has a non toxic smell if that makes sense. It's quite wet when it hits the surface - due to the flow improver I'm guessing. But for a moment I thought it was gloss paint I was spraying - yikes - but it then started turning matt as it dried - phew. I let it dry for a little while - probably not long enough but was so eager to see how it came out, I couldn't hold back!! I waited just a little longer and then started peeling away masking tape. I always think taking off masking tape is like unwrapping a present. It could be wonderful present or it could be a sh*t present - you're never sure what you're going to get. In this case I got this: Get in!!! Pretty pleased with the result as you might be able to tell. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but as it's my first attempt, I'm very happy with how it came out. I wasn't going for perfect so that's what I got I suppose. Who knew this hobby could have so many heart stopping moments? So next up will be the upper side paint scheme and camo - then fuselage stripes and band - then maybe some post-shading before decals... Still along ways to go but it's moving forward slowly. Thanks for reading!

Another great build - the shading on the black came out really well - well done

This is a brilliant model and the award is well deserved - The shading on the upper side is really nice - clean but subtle - I know none of us are in this for accolades but a little recognition every now and again must be nice to have. Well done...

Agreed - There's a good chance that the next coat will wipe out the shading so it will be be very thinned layer - I just want to take away some of the harder edges of the black. We'll see what happens - I'll probably target the problem areas and leave the rest. I really don't mind you pointing out any issues - it's the reason why I'm posting the build here - I'm quite inexperienced - I'm only back at this hobby a few months so feedback, advice and pointing at things and saying they're bad is welcomed. You've been very helpful so far - especially putting me on to perfect putty - so big thanks for that The blemish looks bad in the photo - not as bad in real life but it will get some filler today.

Some progress this evening. Went to paint the wheel wells using a new paint - metal colour from Vallejo- used dull aluminum... It’s pretty bright so mixed in some steel which darkened it down a little. I’m going to put some dark washes on this later so I’m not too concerned. Metal colour seems to work pretty well out of the airbrush so I’ll be using it again. Then did some preshading with thinned down Tamiya Black all over... And then put on a couple of coats of Tamiya medium sea grey with some white added... I wasn’t sure whether to keep applying more coats as I don’t want to block out the preshading completely but after letting it dry, I think I will put on at least another coat as the shading isn’t subtle enough right now. Paint is still wet in this photo but it’s more or less how it looks. I’ll do this tomorrow and then hopefully get on to the invasion stripes. Cheers

Looking good smithy!

Great 109 and really great photos - love how you've done the rigging - I'm wondering what scale this is... I can't really tell - testament to how good this is...

Hi Fellas - I'm not really a car guy but I'm doing a model Dodge Charger as a gift for my brother in law - I'm having some trouble finding the relative colour match and would appreciate some suggestions - please see photo below (ignore small child in the foreground): I'm open to any suggestions - ideally it would be something I can shoot through an airbrush but happy to use the rattle can variety also. I use Tamiya acrylics typically but I don't think they have anything I can use here... Thanks in advance!

Great - thanks for that. 5th of November isn't too far off. I love that one of the side benefits of this hobby is that you become very easy to buy gifts for . It's my birthday next week and my wife has an Eduard 1/72 FW190 hidden in the house somewhere:)

Brilliant work there Roger - love the toned down look and weathering looks spot on to me. I like the way you gloss coated the nose cone. If the tiffy I'm building comes out half and good as this, I'll be really happy. The Airfix version looks just as good from here. How did the two kits compare in the end - is the Academy kit worth a look? Certainly seems to be the case in your capable hands. Any chance of an underside shot? I'm very much enjoying working on the Typhoon - I could build them for years and not get bored. She is such an interesting and good looking old girl. What scale are you going with next? Can't wait to see it. !

Thanks Roger - aluminum with lots of weathering it is...

Thanks for that - I plan on fixing this - the intake interior is currently painted black but I’ll repaint it one I’ve settled on the outside colors... So a little bit of progress. Tried out the new tube of perfect plastic putty today and wow. So much easier to use than stupid old Tamiya white putty (which I’m never using again) The fact that you can smooth it out with a wet cotton bud makes the whole filling process pretty painless. First attempt and this stuff just about nails it. Of course once I got back to priming, spotted more issues here and elsewhere on the model but after a little sanding and rescribing it all came out pretty well. The after shot: I’ll let the primer coat cure over night and a for a day and I can start painting colors which I’m looking forward to. So one last question to those who’ve done tiffys recently- what colour did you do the wheel wells? I’ve looked into it here and elsewhere and apparently bare aluminum is the way to go. Cheers for any illumination on this..,

I really hope this works out okay! Hang in there mate

Very nice - canopies don't look too bad in the photos - but I certainly understand not being happy with a certain result, no matter who tells you otherwise. It's still a great model.

Nice work - very nice scheme - thought they were invasion stripes at first but they're not - just a very distinctive scheme. Great paint work.