P-51B Revell duo - Shangri La + B Racer

[Wolwe82]

Hey guys, few weeks back i got some nice kit worlds decals for P-51B and i guess its about time to use these. So i decided to take Revell´s P-51B from stash and build probably well known "Shangri La". And because i need to clear stash a bit, i ll build another Revell´s P-51B in Swiss colours, as it was captured and repainted before returning back. The Swiss one ll be just OOB, the Shangri La ll be more detailed and also i ll try and fit the back side of spare Hasegawa canopy to the Shangri La (becaue the Revell´s canopy is totaly ugly ).

Here are first shots from progress - the cockpit of future Shangri-La. I used few bits from Parts PE set, rest as usualy evergreens + wires and stretched sprues.

You can see the fuselage is cut behind cockpit, as preparation to fit the Hasegawa canopy.

The photos are not best.. also asusualy.. :/

And the future Swiss mustang, as i said, ll be build just OOB.

Guess thats it for tonight, its soo hot here and i cannt sit by table for any longer.. :/

Edited August 13, 2014 by Wolwe82

[PlaStix]

[Wolwe82]

i would wait with that popcorn stix.. the revell´s kit is nice, but the canopy.. oh god.. i knew people around spoke about it being awful.. but THAT much?

... the swiss one, which is going to use the original canopy ll have probably some cloth piece put over the backside windows

... the Shangri La, using hasegawa canopy needed bigger surgery, because i decided to use the windshield from the hasegawa too. So now i hope the tons of putty wont affect the glasses with some freezing effect.. its a shame, such a nice kit and such an ugly canopy.. next revell´s B mustangs i ll make with malcolm hood opened, to cover the backside windows.. the windshield fit is terrible too, but its easier to fix..

[TEMPESTMK5]

Hi Wolwe82

Good luck with this Revell Mustang I prefer the Academy one ....

[Wolwe82]

i already ordered few of the academy B/C mustangs Tempest. Its realy shame, the revell kit is not bad at all.. everything fits perfect, the surface details are quite nice .. but the canopy fit is like by kits from 30years ago..

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning

The canopy is an issue but I also had difficulties with the propeller when I built this kits some years ago ...

Patrice

[Wolwe82]

Hey Patrice, as for the propeller, i m going to use else propeller from airfix P-51D (i bought few of these for my stash and one box had somehow damaged sprues - unfinished parts, fuselage taking "banana" shape, so are the gear legs, so i decided to use it as a source of spare parts) or quickboost propeller (used it on my last mustang and it looks AMAZING!) - maybe someone would say it is not SO needed, but the quickboost propeller is quite cheap and its very well moulded and designed, the blades are so thin and sharp. I have to say i like the Quickboost stuff (or similar stuff from other companies) - its cheap and boosts the appearance a lot usualy (like the exhausts!).

Now, some progress on Shangri La

First i had to work on the canopy yesterday.. cutting the fuselage, a lot of dryfiting.. in the end i decided to use whole hasegawa canopy, even the windshield, so i had to cut a lot around the IP. Hope it ll worth it.

Before i did fit the canopy on, i made new gunsight and also cut two pieces of needle and used it as some kind of brackets in the back area of the canopy opening - the hasegawa canopy was like 0,8 mm too thin, but it is flexibile enough, so i used the two pieces of needle, glued these to the fuselage, so later i could add the canopy over these and they would stop the canopy from "shrinking" back.. huh i hope you could understand what i was saying, my english is not good enough for such an action yet...

Here i added the gun barrels. Also, dont ask me why, the revell´s wing has only one opening hole for the empty shells, right between both of the MG´s... So i did blind the hole with piece of plastic and cat out two new ones next to it.

And here the airframe quite completed. I thought i ll use the airfix spare flaps, but the revell´s wing has the flap on the top side way smaller than the flap on the bottom side. I did not noticed it untill it was too late and the airfix flaps simply did not look good there. So i used the cut out parts from original wing, added evergreen stick to make the rounded leading edge on the flaps and this is how it looks when dry fitted.

Now preparation for the paint work. I saw this some time ago around here on BM, i think it was Speedman using this preshading (as crazy as he is, it was even on his 1/144... insane! ). I thought i ll give it a go. Now i dont want to build that kind of "spanish school zebra" - i think it looks nice and bow to all who can do it nicely, but i prefere more real look on my kits. Or well, one day i hope i can achieve it, thats it Anyway, i think the preshading is not bad idea even for my taste. It should help me with some paint modulation and fading and if it wont look good, i ll simply use two more layers of paint and the preshading wont be visible.. So lets see how this ll work. First i used some various paints to make dots and random designs around the airframe - used buff, dark sea blue, mix of OD+red. Then i enhanced some panel lines and rivet lines (on fuselage, on wings its just "fake" rivet lines ), on bottom side it was using chocolate brown, on top side chocolate brown with few drops of black and few lines are made with even more black added.

Well, hope it ll work later

Aand now its time to go sleep so more tomorrow evening

[stevej60]

That,s a hell of a way of pre shading Wolwe, can,t wait to see the results looks like another build thread I will use as a reference in future away on

holiday tomorrow for a week so will catch up when I return, keep up the good work.

[Wolwe82]

Thanks steve, i hope it ll help in future (the preshading ) if you would need any reference, i think i can send you some photos, rather than this )

[Adam Maas]

It's worth noting that the reason why there's only a single shell ejection port on each wing is because that's how the 4x.50 Mustang wings were in actuality. Earlier and later models had different ejection port setups depending on which armament it had (8 gun, Cannon, 4+2 .50's, 4 .50's or 6 .50's)

[Wolwe82]

I dont know anything about that, i can just watch some drawings i have here or some other B kits and i could see 2 ejection ports everywhere O.o But that does not mean i m right, the drawings/blueprints are from some russian site (well, where else you can get free download.. ) and the kits can be wrong. All i know is, i m not going to change it back to one hole!

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning

Waouw that's what I call preshading

[Wolwe82]

my plans for the next steps are all about salt, salt, salt..

I would like to go with salt straight from this stage, going heavily with it for the top side of wings, tail and top side of fuselage, stacking up thin and opaque layers of OD, every layer with drop of diferent paint (red, brown, green, yellow, white.. ) but not all of these layers ll cover complete airframe. I ll try to make areas here and there, then switch to diferent tone, let it dry, reposition salt and again , like 2-3 complete layers (or more if needed).

The fuselage sides i ll leave a bit darker.

The bottom side (which in fact i ll be doing first.. ) ll first need to paint the wheel wells, mask it, then go with few tones of grey like i said before, only the bottom side should not be that much faded.

Then as usualy gloss varnish to seal it, set decals. I would like to make star on the top side of wing a bit faded (not too much, the Shangri La was not that heavy weathered)

After this is done, i ll have to decide (probably with your help guys ) if it is good enough or if i should repair it, using oil paints for fading.

If needed, the wash i would like to try something, darker grey/brown mix for panel lines and OD a bit lighter than the rest of the airframe for rivets.

Ok, so this is the plan, lets see how it ll go after i m at home from job

after watching some Shangri La photos and reading some forums, i need to make few notes, more just for myself, so i dont have to remember it

no mirror, non-paper fuel tanks, red wheel discs, full red spinner (for the number of victories on decal), make hole for "photo gun" and red square around it, MG holes blanked with tape! (?),

Edited August 8, 2014 by Wolwe82

[Wolwe82]

Oki, so today i did put my region to serious risk.. of runing out of salt. I havent used as much salt before, making many layers, diferent shades, well, it was fun and i think it did worth the time, though the final shot ll be a bit disapointment for you guys i guess.. but thats fault of the camera - the shades are nicely visible in real, but i m using just phone camera, its not so bad, but when there are more shades of similar or same colour next to each other, it has problems to define the shades on the image..

Oki so some progress shots.

the game started with thin layer of pure OD

next i did mask few panels, which i wanted to make more" brownish"..

Once the OD with red-brown shade dried, i did cover these new panels to protect them from next steps, masked some more areas and went salty on there. Then i used some OD with touch of lighter green.

Once that dried, i used salt overall on the airframe and sprayed it with OD + darker green touch

After that dried, i removed the salt and unmasked the red-brownish panels.

Now i could just use very very much thinned OD over it and make quite beated plane. But i wanted to make the Shangri La and she is not THAT much beated on most photos i could find (well, other then the wreck images.. )

But i still did not want to kick out all the hard work, so i did some kind of compromiss - used OD with slight greenish shade (on the post-coloured images she is darker, but that would destroy all my previous work) and oversprayed her with a bit thicker layer. So the colour tones are visible (by eye, the photo sucks ) but its not THAT hard beated.

well, more work tomorrow

[kwaterous]

Wow! that's an incredible paint job, i just keep getting more and more impressed with each and every one of your builds

K

[Wolwe82]

Thanks K I m just trying to get used to techniques i did see around here on BM and learn which one would suit me best Also mr.Jamie Haggo and his blog and his facebook page (where he keeps posting realy heavy worn real airplanes or some very nice heavily weathered models) are big inspiration He is milion miles ahead ofcourse, but maybe one day, after years of practicing, i ll be able to finish my kits half as good as his

[Wolwe82]

Some progress from today In short - decals are all set, wash is done (got the ammo wash set for RAF planes, so tested these - stone grey for grey bottom sides and medium brown for top side , originaly made for green/brown RAF camo, so i tried it here too. around the cowling i used dark brown wash) and in the end she got few coats of microscale matt varnish - this is honestly the best matt varnish i got in my hands! Thinned by water, it makes pretty cool matt surface AND it does NOT clog the airbrush, which was the main problem i had with other matt varnishes (vallejo, gunze, agama, ..). I m thinning it like 50/50, using pressure like on normal paint and spraying from like 15-20cm. It is realy nice matt varnish to work with, but you have to be patient - the first layers starts to dull the surface pretty fast, but the next layers needs a bit of time to work. Which i found the hard way Thought it needs a bit more, more, more, i was happy with it and after 10mins when it dried, there are few little "freezed" areas. These are realy hard to notice and are visible from some angles only, but still.. Next time i ll just give the layers more time to dry.

Anyway, here is how she looks now

I saw on some images, the guns were "blinded" by some kind of light red tape, so i got idea to do it the same way - i have some tape here, quite thin, so it does look good in scale when painted on red. Only problem is, the glue is not strong enough to hold the tape on the curved area. So i ll have to use superglue tomorrow to fix the tape .

Next what needs to be done:

-do some very gentle tracks from guns and empty shell ports - after that glue the tape over the holes in leading edges

-make red square around photo gun

-paint wheel wells

-add the radiator flap

-make some scratches + paint the screws around cowling on silver (on photos of shangri la, these are shinning pretty much)

-finish the gear

-add flaps (need to repair the paint on bottom side)

-add the classic "metal" drop tanks

-add antena column and pitot tube

-pain lights - first black, then grey closer to the mid and silver dot in mid, then clear red/green/yellow over it (that should make some effect of dark edges under the clear parts)

-paint exhausts and maybe very very gently exhaust staining, but on all photos, the nose art is totaly clear, so i guess they kept the noses clean there

-complete the canopy "doors" - i ll use PE parts from PART set for the framing and cut some clear film for the "glass"

-add fuel tank closing to the hole behind cockpit

Well, thats quite big list yet..

AND - clean the mascol from landing light... on my last mustang i forgot to do it and it did not want to go down from it later.. but there it was for few weeks

Edited August 10, 2014 by Wolwe82

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning

Great paint job you' ve done

[Bengalensis]

That looks very impressive, especially considering the small scale. Very well done!

[Wolwe82]

Thanks guys honestly, the final coat of paint was too thick.. i was spraying it late at night and combination of being tired and using just little spot light took its tax.. So the previous work is not that much visible (still good enough when you look at it on real and focus on some area, but not that much as i would like to). But one is still learning

[PlaStix]

Hi Wolwe,

Hope you are well. For some reason I've managed not to drop in on this thread of yours for a while and I have to say WOW! Stunning work! You are achieving subtle effects that look just right. But as soon as you feel tired...... stop! I do the same sort of thing - just before finishing I often think I'll just do one little bit more and it's the one that goes wrong! Got to learn to stop early!

I'm going to have to try the more varied pre-shading techniques on something of mine - it seems to produce a much more varied finish. Not sure I'll risk it on the current Spitfire though!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Wolwe82]

Thanks for your kind words stix and yea, i have to learn when to stop.. or maybe when i m tired, do some work which is not so easy to ruin ..

My one tip for this kind of preshading is - think before what colours you going to use. Obviously i had all my mind focusing on the top side colour, but preshaded whole airframe with all the colours. And the grey with red-brownish spots just did not look good.. So i gave it more coats to get rid of the preshading at all and did a bit of postshading after only..

[Wolwe82]

Stix, one question on you - do you remember, where you explained how are you painting the exhausts? I thought it was in your revell´s spit, but cannt find it there...

[PlaStix]

Stix, one question on you - do you remember, where you explained how are you painting the exhausts? I thought it was in your revell´s spit, but cannt find it there...

Hi Wolwe - it was there - it was in one of my replies to you - post 68:

'The exhausts were painted with a base coat of Gun Metal, followed by washes of Rust and Anthracite with some dry-brushed Steel, all from Revell, to finish.'

Although I think the Gunmetal I used was in fact Humbrol's. The washes of Rust were done really thinned down and built up really slowly. If I remember correctly I think it went - Gunmetal, Rust wash x 2 (or 3), Anthracite wash x 1, Rust wash x 1 (although I may have done another bit of Anthracite wash in places) and finally dry-brushing lightly with Steel to pick out some edges. To be honest I pretty much made it up as I went along. Practice on something similar you aren't so worried about - it needs to be something similar to check the effect is working. I did my practicing on some spare exhausts from another build. While the washes were still quite wet I also added the occasional bit of more concentrated paint to deepen the effect here and there - as I said I made it up as I went along!!

I'm going to practice again before doing the Eduard Resin exhausts - I'm going to use the one decently formed one from the actual kit. I have been wondering about using Anthracite as a base coat this time. I will see.

Hope this is of some use although I always think your exhausts look great anyway!.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Wolwe82]

Cool, thanks Stix. I ll see what i can do with the info today