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Showing results for tags 'Meng 1/48'.
Found 4 results
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In my old(er) age I'm less of a fan of building aircraft with swastikas on them than I used to be. But, I am a fan of taking on the challenge of replicating the intricate and varied paint schemes those aircraft often wore. What to do? Captured aircraft, that's what. A year or so ago I picked up a Meng 1/48 Me 410 B-2 for considerably less than the sticker price you see on the box below. I've always thought the 410 to be a cool looking aircraft. It's nothing like a Mosquito, and yet it sort of is. Now, the Mosquito is my favourite WW2 aircraft (I'm not sure why I'm not building one, actually) so that comparison is not lightly made. Some years decades ago, I built the Promodeller 410 and made a bit of a pig's ear of it. Exhibit A. As I remember, the kit wasn't bad at all but my technique was, shall we say, less subtle. Reviews suggest the Meng kit isn't a great improvement over the Promodeller. Anyway, it's time to redeem myself and build a 410 to display but without the markings of the former effort. Luckily, there's this one... A captured airframe offers the challenge of the paint scheme with the markings of the good guys. It'll be painted in the classic 74/75/76 scheme with a light colour - to be determined but it looks to me to be a light grey - covering the rear fuselage and fin. I still get to try some mottle and paint the camo pattern on the wings, and that's the fun of it. You may have noticed the Iwata box next to the kit box? I now have my new needle and nozzle ready to go, the Iwata will be back to its former ability to go really fine - I hope I am too. I've ordered some PE for the radar array. It might need a little modification and a bit of scratch building to get it close. I have this shot too, for reference. This is a filler project until a container load of goodies arrives from the UK. The container has various bits and pieces for many of my planned projects for 2023. I'm going to try my hand at jets, and I have acquired a few kits of that type, and am raring to go on them. In the mean time though, I'll have a play at some German camo. Cheers.- 104 replies
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Good morning ladies and gentlemen, may I present my entry for this group build. I was captivated by this box art when I first saw it on line last summer. I was also a little misled. It seemed to me that this scheme had blue upper surfaces which would be much more appealing to my eye than the usual grey on grey. It was only when I had the box in my hands that I realised that the blue is supposed to be a shadow effect caused by a low sun. It doesn't quite make sense as the strong shadows under the leading edge extensions indicate that the sun is high and behind the viewer's left shoulder, but it's an artist's impression, not a blueprint, and I still like the painting very much. Then I saw this photograph of the same aircraft coming on board at dusk (or possibly sunrise?). Again I see the blueish shadows on the wing upper surface together with orange lit highlights. These two hues look amazing together, as blue and orange are complementary (across from each other on the color wheel). The pairing of a punchy warm orange with cool blues creates a beautifully balanced combination which I'm going to try to replicate. It's fairly unusual to see a model aircraft painted to simulate incident light and I certainly haven't done it before so it's all very exciting. I have attempted similar effects on Warhammer and other fantasy figure models where the technique is almost routinely applied and of course, as we see on the box, it's invariably used in two dimensional painting. But before I can get to the challenge of the painting, I've got to build the thing.- 239 replies
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My original plan was to use the new Eduard P-51 for this build so I ordered some Overtrees and a LooK instrument panel, but ordered the D-5 version by mistake, stupid boy, so I will be using the Meng version instead. The kit is quite comprehensive as you can see from the sprue shots below, and is designed to be a "snap-fit" build and has large male/female attachment points in the centres of the fuselage halves, but as I will be using liquid cement and may remove them. I bought this kit mainly because it depicted the main wheel wells correctly, but was disappointed to see the wings covered with ' rivet ' pinholes which will have to be filled and sanded as on the real aircraft. Never mind, if all the kits we bought were perfect we'd have nothing to complain about would we? My intention is to build the airframe as quickly as possible so that I can concentrate on the painting before I run out of time ( my record of finishing GBs is abysmal ), and being a Korean War machine it could be quite a challenge achieving the oxidised finish to the unpainted fuselage and wear and tear to the lacquer finish on the wings. I have quite a lot of reference material on the Mustang which includes some good period 'photos of machines in Korea, so I don't have any excuse for getting it wrong. Starting soon, I hope. John
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Hi, this is an aircraft that I have always liked the look of and was pleased when Meng brought it out a few years ago. The kit is good and has a lot internal detail that will never be seen (it is there). The detail is good but it does make putting the fuselage halves together interesting and needing a lot of care. I think Meng could have made the canopy a bit easier as there are a lot of small pieces that have to be glued together. I have built it straight out of the box and it has a few mistakes that I would do differently - but I won’t dwell on them. It is complete now so here it is. Andrew.
