+++ FINISHED 06-09-2018! +++ Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I (Airfix 1/72 Dogfight Doubles)

[jrlx]

5 hours ago, CedB said:

Very nice work as always Jaime. All looking really good, especially the prop - good job!  

Thanks Ced! Very kind, as always!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

Another post, to bring the thread nearer to being up to date.

 

I wanted to have a good tonal difference between the chromed "olios" and the other metallic areas of the landing gear and wells. Pictures of real aircraft and of the one sole surviving Defiant in RAF Museum, Hendon, show the metallic areas of the gear legs to be a bit duller than the "olios":

 

 

 

The period picture also shows that the Defiant, as day fighter, had all-metal coloured gear legs, instead of partly black painted as shown in the kit's instructions.

 

So, I painted the "olios" with Alcald Chrome and the other metallic areas with Alclad Dull Aluminium. However, the effect was too dull for my liking:

IMAG5736

 

Eventually, I decided to paint these areas and parts with Alclad Duraluminium, which seems to be slightly less shiny than Aluminium. The last parts painted were the gear legs, because I found that the chrome paint took quite a while to cure and couldn't be masked immediately. After about 24 hours of curing time, the masking tape still damaged the paint. I applied Aqua Gloss to better protect it and let it cure for another 24 hours. Then, I could apply tape safely.

 

In order to mask the "olios", I used the following picture as guide:

 

Here is the masking:

IMAG5737

 

After painting with duraluminium and removing the masking, there was a slight shininess difference between the chrome and duraluminium. It's a bit dependent on lighting and difficult to see in the pictures:

IMAG5739

 

IMAG5740

 

The other metallic-coloured parts were also repainted with duraluminium:

IMAG5742

 

The wheel wells were repainted with duraluminium and masked with blu-tack (of the white variety  ):

IMAG5738

 

It should be noted that I also painted the guns with Alclad Gunmetal and the exhausts with Alclad Burnt Iron. The exhausts got a final coat of Alclad Exhaust Manifold:

IMAG5743

 

To finish with, I applied another coat of regular black primer on the underside of aircraft, to cover the duraluminium overspray:

IMAG5744

 

To be continued. Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

 

 

[Robert Stuart]

You are doing good work there Jamie - with a lot of detailed spraying.

[jrlx]

3 minutes ago, Robert Stuart said:

You are doing good work there Jamie - with a lot of detailed spraying.

Thank you Robert! I'm hoping to finish painting this weekend. Let's see as it goes, because it'll be 43º C today here in Lisbon.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Robert Stuart]

I hope that goes well Jamie - I suffered in 30+ temperatures this week, let alone the 40+

[CedB]

1 hour ago, jrlx said:

... it'll be 43º C today here in Lisbon.

Oh good grief! I hope you manage to stay cool Jaime  

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

While trying to survive the heat wave of this last week-end (temperatures in Lisbon reached 44 ºC on Saturday afternoon), I managed to finish painting the model. However, this thread is still about one week behind, so here's a short update.

 

I decided to try a so called "marbling" technique, which consists on applying tonal variations over the primer, before painting the main colours. I've seen it used effectively in modelling magazines, so why not? 

 

Since the primer is black, I opted for two tones of grey for the "marbling" effect. First, I used a medium grey in a mottling pattern inside the panels:

IMAG5746

 

IMAG5745

 

Next, I repeated the process with a lighter grey:

IMAG5748

 

IMAG5747

 

The complete process was repeated for the PE wheel well doors:

IMAG5749

 

and for the moving parts of the flaps:

IMAG5750

 

IMAG5751

 

Then, I painted the underside colour: Sky. I'm afraid the "marbling" effect didn't work. As can be seen in the pictures below, the tonal variations were only due to application of thin layers of paint, which allowed the black primer to partially pass through. The tonal variations of the "marbling" layer were completely obliterated by the opacity of the Sky paint:

IMAG5753

 

IMAG5754

 

The effect is a bit stark but will be cut off by the flat coat in the end.

 

The small parts were also painted (radiator and carburator covers, moving parts of flaps):

IMAG5755

 

IMAG5756

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

[CedB]

Pity the marbling didn't work Jaime, but the finish still looks good...

Well done for surviving the heat - I'd have melted  

[jrlx]

16 hours ago, CedB said:

Pity the marbling didn't work Jaime, but the finish still looks good...

Well done for surviving the heat - I'd have melted  

Thank you, Ced. I think I should have used much more thinned paint. I used a 50/50 thinner/paint mix, while I've read, after the fact, that a 3:1 thinner/paint mix should be used. I'll give it a try in a future build

 

Regarding temperatures: temperature has dropped about 20 ºC since Saturday. Today's it's in the mid-20s.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

Next step was painting the inner colour of the flaps. There isn't much information about this. From other examples of WWII British aircraft, the colour would either be aluminium or interior green. I found this picture, showing the flaps down. Though it's a night fighter version, the flaps are in a light colour, which doesn't seem to be metallic:

 

So, interior green will it be.

 

First, I masked the underside of the model, leaving the flaps exposed:

IMAG5757

 

Next, I painted the flaps on the wings:

IMAG5761

 

as well as the moving parts of the flaps:

IMAG5759

 

Again, the marbling technique was wasted by the used of insufficiently thinned paint. I'll have to perfect the technique in a future model.

 

Things were left to dry for a day or two and, then, I started the painting of the top camouflage. Starting with the lighter colour (Dark Earth), I delimited the corresponding areas using highly thinned paint applied with a fine paintbrush:

IMAG5760

 

It should be noted that there are inconsistencies between the top and lateral views of the colour schemes. The inconsistencies will have to be solved later, when I apply the Dark Green colour.

 

Dark Earth was airbrushed using the delimiting lines as guides. Then, to get some tonal variation (as the marbling, again, was obliterated by too thick paint), I resorted to post-shading by mixing a few drops of gloss white to the paint still in the airbrush. The end result was the following:

IMAG5762

 

IMAG5763

 

IMAG5764

 

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

 

 

 

 

[Troy Smith]

11 minutes ago, jrlx said:

It should be noted that there are inconsistencies between the top and lateral views of the colour schemes. The inconsistencies will have to be solved later, when I apply the Dark Green colour.

 

 

based on official Boulton Paul drawings

 

see here for whole guide

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/08-Boulton-Paul-Defiant

 

HTH

[jrlx]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

 

based on official Boulton Paul drawings

 

see here for whole guide

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/08-Boulton-Paul-Defiant

 

HTH

Thanks a lot Troy. In fact I used the scheme on your last link to try and solve some of the errors. When I said inconsistencies, I was also referring to the top and lateral camouflage patterns not aligning correctly with each other. These inconsistencies can also be seen in these oficial schemes, for example: the front delimitation line of the dark brown area in front of the wind shield, when seen from the top curves down just in front of the starboard exhausts, while in the starboard view this line crosses the middle of the exhausts. Another similar example is the dark green area just in front of the tail fin, which crosses the fairing behind the turret differently in the top and port views.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[CedB]

Nice variation Jaime, I like that, a lot!  

I see what you mean about the inconsistencies but, on the plus side, whichever way you go can be said to be right!

[jrlx]

On 09/08/2018 at 09:22, CedB said:

Nice variation Jaime, I like that, a lot!  

I see what you mean about the inconsistencies but, on the plus side, whichever way you go can be said to be right!

Thanks, Ced, very kind!

 

Regarding the camouflage, I did try to improve the starboard of the nose delimitations, this last week-end, to bring them closer to pictures of actual aircraft. I'll show it in a later post.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

continuing with the thread update.

 

I painted the slots for the flap actuators. This was done by paint brush, both on the wing underside:

IMAG5778

 

... and on the moving parts of the flaps:

IMAG5782

 

This is the how the underside looked like after this:

IMAG5779

 

Next, I did some touch ups on the dark earth camouflage in areas where it didn't quite join the dark green. For this I masked the dark green areas with paper masks and used highly diluted dark earth applied by airbrush. One of the spot was near the root of the starboard wing:

IMAG5780

 

the other spot was on the engine cowling, in front of the wind shield:

IMAG5781

 

As I didn't apply any post-shading on these spots, they look a bit darker than the surrounding areas but it's no problem as this contributes to the tonal variation.

 

The model was, then, coated with micro gloss in preparation for decal application and left to dry for a couple of days.

 

This is the set up for decal application:

IMAG5783

 

It took me a few days to complete the decal application. There aren't too many decals but some required careful application of setting solutions, due to their size. The only real problem was the walkway delimitation on the port wing, which curled over itself and ended up not too well.

 

The following pictures show all the main decals applied (stencils still to be applied):

IMAG5784

 

IMAG5785

 

IMAG5786

 

This was followed by a lot of stencils on the underside of the wing:

IMAG5787

 

... the top of the wing (the starboard side is similar in terms of stencils):

IMAG5788

 

... and on the tail plane:

IMAG5789

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

 

 

[CedB]

Lovely work Jaime, as usual. Those close ups hide the tiny size of the stencils and you've done well to get them perfectly lined up  

[jrlx]

45 minutes ago, CedB said:

Lovely work Jaime, as usual. Those close ups hide the tiny size of the stencils and you've done well to get them perfectly lined up  

Thanks Ced! Always kind, much appreciated

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

With all the decals on, I could proceed to application of additional weathering.

 

However, I was bothered by the discussion a few posts above about the errors on the camouflage schemes (both the official one and the Airfix one, copied from the official sources as it seems). I had managed to solve the misalignment between lateral and top views behind the turret but I did a mistake on the starboard side of the nose. As can be seen in the following picture (aircraft with A O PS markings, in the background), the line delimiting the two colours of the top camouflage in the said area should cross the starboard exhaust:

 

In my model I made that line pass just in front of the exhaust:

IMAG5790

 

So, I decided to rectify this error. It would be a risky operation, since all decals and painting were already finished.

 

Using the scaled-to-model-size scheme, I cut a mask for the starboard side:

IMAG5791

 

As can be seen, there's a huge discrepancy between this mask for the dark brown and the dark brown area on the top of the engine cowling, which had been masked from similar masks cut from the top view of the scheme. I had to rotate the top mask in order to align it as much as possible with the lateral mask, while minimizing the area to be repainted and avoiding the need to repaint the port side.

 

Eventually, I reached this compromise (I completely protected the model to avoid any possibility of damaging the painting and decals at this stage):

IMAG5792

 

IMAG5793

 

Painting was done by airbrush, using highly diluted dark green, followed by post-shading. This is the end result:

IMAG5794

 

It's now closer to reality.

 

Next, I applied a good micro gloss coat, to seal the decals and prepare the model for additional weathering. This consisted of some chipping near the wing roots, done with a silver pencil, followed by a dark brown wash applied all over, which was almost completely cleaned away after a few minutes using damp cotton buds, Next, I applied additional brown wash to accentuate all the panel lines.

 

I mentioned before that the walkway line decal had curled and didn't set very well. I tried to rectify the wiggly lines using a 0.3 mm-tipped black marker. This turned out to be a bad idea. First, it wasn't really black, seeming more like very dark blue. Second, the ink didn't dry over the gloss coat and smeared when I applied the final gloss coat after decaling. So, it was looking really bad:

IMAG5795

 

I couldn't leave it like that. After some consideration, I decided to paint over the smeared ink. This was done using highly diluted dark earth and dark green, each mixed with a drop of gloss white, to compensate for the post-shading, applied on thin layers witha nº 0 detail brush.

 

This was the result:

IMAG5796

 

The chipping was also reapplied on the painted areas:

IMAG5797

 

To finish with the model and all other non-metal-coloured small parts where flat coated using Alclad Flat Kote and left to dry.

 

I still have to glue all the small parts to the model: carburetor, radiator, propeller, canopy, pitot tube, turret, gear legs, wheels and wheel doors.

 

Tomorrow is a national holiday in Portugal. With some luck, I expect to finish the model.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

 

[CedB]

You're taking realism and detailing to a new level here Jaime, correcting 'errors' that (probably) no one else noticed. Admirable  

[jrlx]

15 hours ago, CedB said:

You're taking realism and detailing to a new level here Jaime, correcting 'errors' that (probably) no one else noticed. Admirable  

Thank you very much, Ced! That's too much kindness on your part

 

I really had to do it,  or at least give it a try. Otherwise I wouldn't be happy with the model, knowing that there were some inaccuracies and glaring auto-induced imperfections...

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[06/24]

This is just lovely, beautiful work Jaime

[jrlx]

1 minute ago, 06/24 said:

This is just lovely, beautiful work Jaime

Thanks Jon! Much appreciated!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[CedB]

3 hours ago, jrlx said:

That's too much kindness on your part

Not at all Jaime - well deserved!  

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

Due to some unexpected setbacks in the build, I didn't manage to finish it this week. Now I'm away from the bench for two weeks on holidays, so I'll only be able to finish it when I'm back in September.

 

Anyway, I progressed a lot and the model is almost finished. I'll show the work done in this and a few more posts, just to keep the number of pictures per post manageable.

 

This is how the model was after the flat coat cured:

IMAG5798

 

IMAG5799

 

IMAG5800

 

I had a lot of unmasking to do and many small parts still to glue in place. So,  I started by removing the blu-tac masking from the wheel wells. As can be seen, it worked perfectly and there was no need for touch ups:

IMAG5801

 

There was a PE part still to be installed on the starboard side well:

IMAG5807

 

The wells also needed some weathering, which I did by applying a diluted brown wash in  two passes, with some drying time in between. This was the end result:

IMAG5819

 

While the washes on the wheel  wells dried, I started assembling the small parts together.

 

These are the radiator parts, with the PE grids:

IMAG5803

 

The grids where glued in place:

IMAG5804

 

IMAG5805

 

The grid of the carburettor was also glued in place:

IMAG5806

 

Next, was the turn of the gun turret. These are the plastic parts for the guns and turret interior:

IMAG5808

There were still some PE bits to add:

IMAG5809

 

Glued in place:

IMAG5810

 

The machine guns and the connecting shaft were assembled:

IMAG5811

 

And glued to the supporting block with the PE instrument panel:

IMAG5813

 

The seatbelt for the gunner was also installed:

IMAG5812

 

With the turret interior completely assembled, I unmasked the turret transparent part. Here I got the first setback: the masks took parts of the frame painting with them, as can be seen in this picture:

IMAG5814

 

It should be said that the masks were glued in place for three years. Perhaps it's not so extraordinary that unmasking damaged the painting.

 

Anyway, I repaired the frame painting by hand and here's the final result of the assembled gun turret:

IMAG5818

 

To be continued.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

 

 

[CedB]

Looking really good Jaime  

Have a nice holiday!