Spitfire Mk. VIII "Little Wing"

[Billy T. Pilgrim]

THE SSV NORMANDY REMEMBRANCE FLIGHT (link here for what this is.)

 

Liara T'Soni: Supermarine Spitfire Mk. VIII

Dr. T'Soni could not be reached for comment; the design was provided by a personal friend, Matriarch Aethyta. The choice of aircraft was inspired by the Spitfire's reputation as both beautiful and deadly. Slight customisations include a piloting VI of unknown origin, and additional armaments from stock.

 

This is another that's been sitting half-finished on my bench for an age. This kit is by Eduard, which means it has around eight million parts. You get a wonderfully detailed model with those eight million parts though. I b****cksed it up in a couple of areas, but generally I'm actually really pleased.

 

The paint mask for the wing and the nose text - they are painted on, not decals - was done using the laser cutting tool on my 3D printer. It worked pretty well, but the edges are a bit fuzzy due to unburnt bits of glue sticking to the edge of the masking tape. Subsequent experiments with the vinyl cutting tool have given even better results, so expect to see that on the next one.

 

Still trying out weathering techniques - I've run into a bit of trouble with polishing yet again so no glossy finish on this one. The final weather was done with oil paint and Tamiya panel line accent colour, and a lot of wiping off. I clearly still need to get the gloss better though, as it's way too dirty. I may attack it with some spirits over the next couple of days before the oil paint dries. Love that exhaust staining though, never tried it before.

 

Mods are minimal - cockpit detailing was done using the photo etch included in the kit, with the addition of Glyph, Liara's VI personal assistant, who pilots the plane and is visible in the cockpit photos. Glyph just consists of a piece of transparent sprue melted into a clear bead and painted with transparent paint. Overall the cockpit looks good, I'm quite happy with it but I'm itching to put more wiring and other scratch built detailing in the next one.

 

The extra wing cannons are turned brass. They're actually 1/32nd scale .50 cals, but at 1/48 scale they look the part for 20mm cannons.

 

[russ c]

I`m not sure what you`re doing ? but I like the scheme and very nice work achieving it. 

[rockpopandchips]

Now that is very cool.

[qn30jEkPz7]

Entertaining “What if” idea & a lovely model. Congrats

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Excellent looking Spitfire 👍 ... did you use a mask of some sort on the starboard wing, or was the starboard wing free hand ? Thats pretty detailed and looks exceptional. 

[WildeSau75]

Like it. Good to see one in a different livery.

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Billy T. Pilgrim]

3 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Excellent looking Spitfire 👍 ... did you use a mask of some sort on the starboard wing, or was the starboard wing free hand ? Thats pretty detailed and looks exceptional. 

I'm lucky enough to have a 3D printer, a Flux Delta. This is it:

 

 

That central printing head is removeable - the arms attach magnetically - and you can put in other interchangeable heads. For the top surface of the wing I used the laser engraver head, which works as a laser cutter on thin enough material, on Tamiya tape overlapped to make a sheet and coloured in black (to better absorb the laser). That worked well enough as a mask, but the laser didn't burn the glue from the tape very well, so it held on at the edges and made the lines slightly wobbly. Then I tried using the vinyl sticker cutting head to make a mask with the same tape. This was trickier, as it needs the surface to be very flat so I couldn't overlap the tape, so I had to butt each piece up against each other and carefully reassemble them on the model. It came out super smooth and sharp though, I'm really pleased with the results. Here's a comparison between the knife cut version on the left (or top, depending on your browser), flipped for comparison purposes, and the laser cut version on the right (or bottom).

 

 

2 hours ago, WildeSau75 said:

Like it. Good to see one in a different livery.

 

Thank you so much! Part of the fun for me is the design.