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mark.au

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mark.au last won the day on September 30 2023

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About mark.au

  • Birthday June 23

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    www.making-history.au

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  1. There’s quality work going on here, following with interest.
  2. I like that a lot; to my eye you’ve captured a worn paint finish without exaggeration (artistic or otherwise) for an overall very pleasing result.
  3. I forgot to mention that I don’t think you need to fix the antenna wire, that line often had a little slack in it which gave it a slightly wrinkled look. For what it’s worth, that’s how I’m setting mine.
  4. You’ve got a great looking 110 there, the weathering looks spot-on to me and the overall impression very realistic.
  5. Many of the techniques I use came from just trying suff, making mistakes and adjusting; the mottle on this one is case in point. I've got lots of failed attempts... 🙂. The paints I use allow for a lot of adjustment and correction, my results have improved since I started using them because they are so forgiving and flexible in application. I can't recommend enough just experimenting and trying different things to find what works for you. And a good airbrush, I do recommend investing in a good airbrush. So this happened... I attached the wings and despite my confidence that I'd fettled them sufficiently for a seamless fit it wasn't to be. I needed to fill both upper and lower seams. After carefully applying some PPP I wiped it away with a damp cotton bud. It took applications to achieve a satisfactory result. Next I carefully repainted, ensuring to match the mottled variable hue of the surrounding paintwork on the fuselage and wings. With the paint done, I added a clear coat to use as the canvass for redoing the weathering. I reapplied a washed to match the weathering and ended up with this. I followed the same process on the underside which was more or less the same in terms of where I started and where it ended up. The angle of the last photo exaggerates the starboard side seam a little, it matches the port side. Neither is perfect but both are acceptable. Next I flipped it on its back to finish the underside. First the undercarriage. I expected this to be fiddly and not very strong based on others' experience but I found ti went well quite easily and is strong when set. The weight is carried through the main gear leg to a solid plinth on the forward bulkhead while the narrow supporting struts - which have zero structural integrity - are attached around the main and look nice while not being required to support any weight. Next I worked on attaching the fuel tanks. But first a note on the Eduard decals. I don't like them much but their one saving grace - and this is enough to keep me using them - is that they can be weathered beautifully. I used some tape to remove the top film and then repeated the tape application to wear down the decal to how you see it on the tanks. Some of it came away, some of it wore away to a shadow, and some remained almost untouched. I really the realism this imparts. I weathered the tanks quite significantly compared to the airframe as I figured that's possibly how they looked, having hung down there for a long time without much maintenance. The final job on the underside was the ventral antenna which was present on this airframe but not provided in the kit. I used wire and EZline to make it, having first marked out the posts' location with some tape to make sure I got the spacing right. In studying photos, these antennas weren't that tidy she I made mine look a little ragged. To be perfectly accurate I still need to run a line to the fuselage from each side in the centre. I may or may not actually do that. I probably will. The topsides will require the finish to the canopy, the propellers and antenna lines. And then, the radar array. Not looking forward to that very much. I expect the next update will include the finished model. Cheers.
  6. They’re not open at the exhaust end? What a pain…. They look nice otherwise though.
  7. That’s a great paint job and superb result, I’m glad you like it a little more now it’s in the cabinet.
  8. Your tenacity and ingenuity in this build was and is truly inspiring. A brilliant result.
  9. Thank you all for the comments. I just can't leave things alone... In studying the photos I noticed that the mottle extends further down the fuselage than I had it so IO needed to add some. And, despite my earlier comments, I decided to take the opportunity to adjust the wing's mottle, too. I loaded up some RLM75 and went to work being careful to avoid the weathering and markings. Next I was equally careful in reverse mottling the 75 with some thinned RLM76 giving this result. Here's a before and after on the wings. Because I use water soluble artist acrylic paint I was able to remove what little overspray there was with a damp cotton bud. I'm much happier with these wings because they look better, and match the fuselage now. Decals next. Cheers.
  10. You could, I've seen your splinter pattern; if you can operate an airbrush you can do this. Paint the dark colour first in a random pattern and then overspray the lighter colour, also in a random pattern. Stop when you get the density you're after. Through a Friday afternoon with no meetings I was able to push on and get the markings painted. First was de-Luftwaffe-ing the airframe. Then, RAF-ing the airframe There's a little MAD (Modeller's Artistic Discretion) at work here because the photos do not show AIR MIN 30 but I do know that this was it's AM number. There's a degree of over exposure in the original Farnborough photos which has removed most of the fine detail from the fuselage; my basis for supposing that it could have been there is that the Luftwaffe markings must have been painted out and we can't really see that, either. The little roundels are non-standard and to my eye missing the yellow outline so I used the logic that these markings were field-applied and therefore a little rough around the edges and not sign-writer quality. Using the same supposition I'll also weather these marking a bit more than on some of the other captured aircraft I've done because, again, I supposing that the markings were several months old by the time we get to Farnborough in October 1945. Last, I added the Wrk.Nr. Apparently there's a little bit of paint bleed on the whiter in the fin flash - it's not visible to the [my] naked eye so it is what it is. Macro is cruel. Next is stencil decalling, then weathering. Cheers.
  11. It’s entirely possible that, a) I was lucky, or b) working in 48th scale makes this approach much easier. Or both. Nonetheless, your finished 110 looks great! I hope mine comes out as well as that.
  12. Like this very much notwithstanding my natural bias to captured Luftwaffe!
  13. Thanks! I think this is an under-utilised technique in our craft; various materials and sections of airframe always have different finishes and sheens. We often fall into a one-size-fits-all on final finish but this can definitely enhance the overall result. I’ve got around five years to go. Not that I’m counting down or anything… Me too! I’ve got several more planned and there’s even [hopefully] going to be a GB for it. I attached the exhausts and added the staining. This kit really has the oddest way of attaching the exhausts, utterly pointless complications IMO. Maybe there was a mould engineering reason. Then, I turned attention to the fuselage. The more I thought about a fairly dense RLM75 and then a reverse mottle the more I liked the idea. So that’s what I did. Here’s how it looked after the 75 was applied. Messy. I filled the airbrush with some slightly more thinned than usual RLM76 and started applying a random squiggle cum splotch pattern to see how it would develop. After the first few passes I had this. To my eye it looked promising so I continued in the same mode, gradually building the 76’s density. The final result (after a protective clear coat) is this. To my eye, that looks very much like the photos. It’s much better than the wings, but I’m not going to go back and change them (as I write this I really mean that, but I also said that about my first finish on the exhausts where I removed them from the sprue attachment but I went back and fixed them this morning - I saved you the details on that). I’m hoping to push this forward quickly now as I’m itching to get into the Mustang GB. Most of the grunt work is done, the markings will be relatively simple and then it’s not much more than some final assembly. And the undercarriage, and the fuel tanks, buggah, I forgot about those. Cheers. P.S. I wrote this on my phone, the usual disclaimer about lacking proof reading applies.
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