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Hasegawa He-111P - 1:72 - Finished!


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Ben,

As a rule of thumb, when picking a kit work out what subject you want to model and in what scale and then find the manufacturer that does it best. For a lot of subjects there are definitive mouldings that stand out above all others. Examples would be the Mosquito (tamiya in 1/48 and 1/72) the He111 (in 1/72 this one, which is also sold for half the price by Revell), the Ju88 (in 1/72 revell new tool blows all competition out of the water). The Ki45 you're looking at doing looks like it's highly regarded so if that's the subject and scale you want to do it's probably a good choice. That said, I ventured into 1:48 with a Tamiya Mosquito and it's the only kit that I've never completed and is in pieces on my shelf of doom. The kit is lovely but my skills simply weren't good enough for it at the time and I must have spent £60-£70 in total for very little return so far.

The other thing about 1:48 is that I was shocked by just how huge it is. I'd only ever built in 1:72 and I have no idea where I'll put my mossie if I ever finish it. As a student bear that in mind. If I were to offer any advice to a newbie modeller it would be don't bite off too much too early. You would probably be better spending your limited money on some cheap 1:72 new tooling kits from Airfix and building up your modelling toolkit. Good brushes, tweezers, decal solvent, a good scalpel, micromesh, fillers, Klear, good paints and practice practice practice are the way I made progress. Those and a £5 new tool Spitfire were my eureka moment. That kit was the first model I did and thought "that's actually not bad".

I tend to try one or two new techniques with every build I do. Bear in mind that there's always a risk with something new that it will go horribly wrong and you'll end up with a puddle of melted grey plastic after hours and hours of work. And it might be better to make that mistake on a £5 kit than on a £30 one.

My advice would be to bang out an airfix Spitfire Mk1a and Bf-109E4 and maybe something else, like their Typhoon, in 1:72 OOB and if you're happy with those then take the plunge and tackle something a bit bigger and more out of your comfort zone.

Doesn't mean you can't buy the Ki-45 and just fondle the plastic though/ I have an Eduard Bf-110 profipack that i've had for over a year now and about once a month I get it out of the box and just drool over it. :D

Richard

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Very wise. Just make sure you get revell kit 4672 and not 4130 which is the old tooling. If this he-111 goes ok the Ju88 may be next in line.

Speaking of which, I slapped some blue on the underside tonight and it went on fairly well, although my preshading was a total failure. I'll check it out again in daylight and post a picture or two if I'm happy with it.

Richard

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Right, the blue went on and dried overnight. The finish is only so-so. One too many dust flecks and lumps for my liking (that'll teach me to try and paint under poor light in front of the telly) so 6000 grade micromesh has come out for a polish of the surface and removal of some of the offending imperfections. I'll then get the paint out again shortly and apply a few more thinned coats.

Here she is before I went at her with the sandpaper:

IMG_20140321_071045_zps8fa56fcd.jpg

IMG_20140321_071109_zps21f75d7b.jpg

Away this weekend so I'll not be back to her until Sunday night I would think. Life is such a pain sometimes. Fun stuff getting in the way all of the time. ;-)

Have a good one everyone.

Richard

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Quick question. Anyone know anything about Hasegawa decals? I tend to use Decalfix but it isn't very strong and the last time I tried it on some Tamiya Mosquito decals the result was a disaster. Should I be using something stronger here do you think?

Richard

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Right, some paint has finally gone on the top side and some of the pre-shading has gone on. In a bit of a rush so I'll just throw some pics up and comment a bit later. You can see the preshading on some of the pictures and one wing is a coat down on the other. Preshading seems a bit uniform but I might see if some postshading can soften the edges a little.

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IMG_20140326_090808_zpsb2f7bbdb.jpg

IMG_20140326_090636_zps550d9bf3.jpg

What do you think?

Richard

Edited by rwoolven76
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Looks good, I've stalled mine for a few weeks as I'm moving house now. Also I've left my intercooler housings off on the underside as I've read it's a PITA to fit the undercarriage with them on, be interested to hear how you get on. (You'll finish yours before me!)

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I've got my intercoolers on so I might struggle a bit there. One side is fixed with just some white glue but the other is CA so that could be a struggle. That said, the tip I had about the UC was to steer clear of the instructions and instead to build each part onto the model one at a time to get things lined up that way. No idea if it will work, but it was something I read in a review on Armourama so I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on.

Out of interest, how have you found the fit of the gondola? My experience was the main part was fine but the two smaller pieces were too big and needed a lot of work for a decent fit. Although that might have just been a mistake on my part.

Good luck with the house move. Don't envy you that one at all.

Richard

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I've spent a little bit of time trying to find a way to soften the edges of the preshading while keepin the tonal variation that, being brush painted, my models normally lack. I've taken a couple of pictures and would really appreciate some feedback on whether or not you think the approach is creating something effectiv, or if I should give up and just keep slapping paint on until the colour is uniform.

The port wing where I've been having a go. If you look at this picture you'll see that the preshaded areas are clearly obvious. The rectangular shape is clearly visible. I'm leaving this because the splinter camo will cover it anyway, plus it's good to have a before picture:

IMG_20140327_105825_zps989331a9.jpg

Inboard of this section, I've used a combination of drybrushing and pastels to try and break the blocks up a little bit, which currently looks like this:

IMG_20140327_105818_zps3c928fa9.jpg

and the wing as a whole looks like this:

IMG_20140327_105832_zps1cd927e1.jpg

My question to you all is, is this working and producing something useful or am I wasting my time? I know it's hard to work it out from a couple of photos but you guys have fairly well trained eyes so are likely to be the best judges.

Feedback, anyone?

Richard

Edited by rwoolven76
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And here it is with the splinter painted on it and a bit of a rub down:

IMG_20140327_123501_zpscd0de4e3.jpg

I'll sort the paint ridge a little later. Of course I might be overthinking this. This close up the flaws are visible, but from the distance most will view it at, it'll probably look fine...

I just want this to be the best looking kit I've ever built. It deserves it. :boom:

Edited by rwoolven76
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Richard, the only thing I managed to do with brushes was post-shading. Combined dry brushing with a broad soft #9 brush, that resulted in smooth edges and nice amount of control. For better result, I took a bit more paint off it before brushing on the model... Don't know how they are called in English, here we call them watercolour brushes, these are what I'm talking about...

Series7_range.jpg

Though, one thing comes to my mind, this specific brush I used is very old and it's very rigid near the clamp, because of all the colour that has build up over time, I'm not sure I could have done it with a new soft brush...

An truth to be told, I don't think you need to do any more shading to your He-111, that looks great for brushwork and I can tell you that I haven't managed to achieve something like that with brush pre-shading... Keep 'em (pictures) coming!

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IMHO, it looks good, particularly around the engine.

The panel lines are a bit on the deep side, so much that no wash is necessary on this model.

It would look exaggerated, combined with the shadow in the panels, which is very prominent.

Regards,

Aleksandar

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Aleksandar, thanks for the advice about the wash. The shading on the underside was completely lost so I might apply a light grey wash to bring some shade back to that, but I agree that the rest of the model would look ridiculous with any further shading applied.

Thanks Vanja also for the tips about the brushes. I do most of my painting with flat brushes, having never found a use for round ones other than detailing or my citadel dry brush, which is cut short and has very stiff bristles. I have some new round brushes in my modelling draw so I might get one out and have a play.

I haven't enjoyed painting a model this much before. Masking a splinter is not a huge amount of fun, but the end result is so far very satisfying so I'll keep you updated.

Richard

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Not a huge amount of progress. Masking the splinter is a bit meh, so I spent a bit of time seeing what I could do with fuse wire and tape to replace the very poor cupola gunner position. The results are a lot less than perfect, but they're better than the silly plastic tab that come with the kit part. Once the MG-15 is fixed on and a canopy over the top I doubt much will be seen anyway.

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I've also done one more panel of the camo pattern which can be seen here:

IMG_20140328_101401_zpseab174bb.jpg

There's been some confusion with the exact pattern for the camo on the starboard wing, where it joins the fuselage (the instructions show one pattern sideways on and a different one from above) but with some help from Colin in his 1:48 HE-111 WIP build I think I know what I'm doing with it now. I've closed the cockpit with white glue for painting and will open it up again once the patterns are on.

What do you think?

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Disaster Strikes!!!!!

Spent an age masking the splinter on the fuselage and finally got around to putting some paint on. I went to a lot of trouble to make sure the mix of the paint was the same, but somehow the two lots have come out completely different colours. I think I actually prefer the second, darker shade, but I have no idea of why it's done that or how to stop it doing again for the sections that remain to do:

IMG_20140402_142201_zps2c171f1c.jpg

and

IMG_20140402_141039_zpsc576c381.jpg

I suspect some work with pastels and a dry brush might help tone down the difference a little if I can get it right, but it's annoying none the less.

Grrrrrrrr.....

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Patrick,

Sorry for the slow reply. The primer is a halfords spray can of grey plastic primer, which I then lightly sanded. The pre-shading is done with citadel nuln oil wash and the colours are Vallejo Model Color. Best acrylics I've ever seen for brush painting. I thin them equally with water and klear and apply with flat wash brushes. It takes a good few coats to get a good solid colour because the paint is very very thin, but it does allow the shading underneath to show through as you can see.

I've been applying the decals now the painting is mostly finished. Had a few near misses with the pictures of Neville Chamberlain but I'm reasonably happy with the results.

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You'll notice that I've taken a scalpel to the swastikas. I explained at the start of this thread that my girlfriend's grandmother was an Austrian Jew whose family were murdered by the Nazis. As a result she has very strong opinions about my display of swastikas in her home and I have chosen to respect her feelings in that regard. Not the choice that everyone would make, but for me it's the right one and happy with the compromise.

The overall finish of the paintwork is one I'm quite happy with. I could have spent another few hours with my brushes but I reached a point where I began to worry I was overdoing it and stopped. Overall not a bad first attempt at pre and post shading with a hairy stick.

I'll get the decals on the starboard and under sides next and then seal it all off with some more klear before I get the citadel satin rattle can and then pastels out. Still pondering a wash on the undersides as the preshading failed completely there. We'll have to see.

Will update with some daytime pictures tomorrow.

Richard

Edited by rwoolven76
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Looks good, I've stalled mine for a few weeks as I'm moving house now. Also I've left my intercooler housings off on the underside as I've read it's a PITA to fit the undercarriage with them on, be interested to hear how you get on. (You'll finish yours before me!)

You both and children who aren't even born yet will finish theirs before I finish mine! Nice work, Richard. I have mine all ready for painting, but all that "glass" scares the living p*** out of me!

Regards,

Jason

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