Red Band Emil

[azureglo]

Having just finished my 109F, I was inspired to to build a stablemate. A little trawl found this likely candidate:

 

 

Apparently it may have been a white 7 not a yellow, this is fortuitous as I happen to have some spare white Luftwaffe "7"s. There is a fascinating story re JG53's red band and Mr Goering that is well documented. It seems they even flew without swastikas at one point, perhaps I'll use artistic license for that one. The camo looks interesting, , RLM70/02 but with the splinter seemingly oversprayed. Have just received  my Badger Sotar 20/20 (still unopened  sadly and in pile of other ebay/amazon detritus) so will be using that for freehand camo. Again artistic license not historical accuracy will be the order of the day.

 

To the kit, the venerable Airfix 109E4 that we seem to love and hate :

 

Mine came with the odd soft on detail one side, of no concern to me

 

 

It also came with this super annoying ejector pin mark prominently in the 'pit, which did concern me and was dispatched with Mr Surfacer 500

 

 

Decided to mod the crappy seat by removing the belts with my nail salon grinder and then making a slot for the seat belts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great fun using all my weird and wonderful tools, finally flooded with some Mr Hobby Liquid  Cement to smooth out and its off to the paint shop tomorrow when its all dry

 

 

[Azgaron]

Nice kit and good start!

 

Håkan

 

[azureglo]

An intriguing week, my main Win 10 machine decided what it really wanted was complete fresh system install, including all the esoteric UX software I use so the modelling took a back seat . Some progress yesterday, pit done, Eduard belts installed and duly oil washed.

 

 

 

Mike Grant placards to add some sidewall  interest;

 

 

 

 

The sun is out so only action today was to close  up the fuselage

 

 

 

Time for some research , you gotta have research!

 

 

 

[azureglo]

Added a gunsight with microscopic reflector and got the beastie ready for priming and preshading.

 

 

Time to test my new detail brush

 

 

Truly astounding, shooting Mr Paint Basic black was dream (only slightly spoiled by my shaky hand)

 

 

 

 

This thing can do sub-millimeter lines even in the hands of a cack handed fool like me,

 

 

I even tried freehand mottling on my Tamiya 1/72 109 paint mule, some of these were just about 1mm! This Sotar has re kindled my mojo, big time.

 

A

 

[Azgaron]

Nice with an airbrush that works that well and does wonder for the paintwork!

Nice pre shade!

 

Håkan

 

[azureglo]

More progress, main camo on went on without a glitch so I set about creating the red nose band and the using artistic license, overpainted swastikas. The old adage of 5 minutes spraying=2 hours masking certainly played out for this:

 

 

 

 

Well pleased with this, one straight & even red band complete with post shading and  the subtle but visible overprinted swastikas, I could get to like this airbrushing lark...

 

 

After reading some refs, there was a suggestion that these hastily mottled planes had soft splinter patterns on the wings, so why not?

 

 

A well earned garden beer methinks, and tomorrow is gloss coating day, the end is in sight.

 

Cheers

 

A

[neil5208]

nice airbrushing, what paints are you using?

[Azgaron]

Nice paint job!

 

Håkan

 

[mahavelona]

Lovely airbrushing. She looks good in that scheme

[azureglo]

22 hours ago, neil5208 said:

nice airbrushing, what paints are you using?

@neil5208

 

Thanks for the kind words, I use mr Hobby/Mr Color. I thin them 50/50 with their incredible leveling thinner as shown and put them in dropper bottles with a stainless ball bearing as an agitator. This way i can paint/touch up as soon as my compressor tank is charged and the dropper bottles mean no pipettes etc.

 

 

[neil5208]

I was going to try these on the airfix 109 I've just completed but the shop didn't have the right colours so I tried humbrol acylics instead. Similiar colour but terible to spray very rough finsh

 

[azureglo]

25 minutes ago, neil5208 said:

I was going to try these on the airfix 109 I've just completed but the shop didn't have the right colours so I tried humbrol acylics instead. Similiar colour but terible to spray very rough finsh

 

 

@neil5208 First off a lovely build, in the colours of Assi Hahn I see. The difficulty of airbrushing lies in the fact that the beasties are designed to spray very thin ink like consistencies. It took me ages of experimentation with Vallejo, Xtracolour,  you name it to realise that the best result is with the highest solvent mix before you start getting "spider webbing".  Mr leveling is extraordinary in that it makes Mr Hobby acrylic/lacquer and Tamiya acrylics foolproof. If you're committed to Humbrol, google for the best thinners, there something called "cookies thinners" created by @Cookenbacher of this very forum that might work for them too

[neil5208]

Tamiya, revell and xtracolour acylics are my usual paints but wish to use others for better colour choices, probably won't use the humbrol paints through the airbrush any time soon. Apologise for hijacking

[azureglo]

Onwards and one side of decaling done

 

 

Micro decals for the numbers, are they serious? What kind of fool would apply each one of these?

 

 

This kind of fool apparently...

 

 

BTW, here's  the neat apply on a pool of Future tip in use from @stevehnz   , I use a mix of 50/50 with distilled water ,note the snuggling down without any nerve wracking wrinkling etc. Simples.

 

 

 

Well, my eyesight  is completely shot so this evenings sundowner: Aperol Spritz wiv sum art.

 

 

Good night and good supping

 

A

 

[Azgaron]

Very nice work with the decals!

 

Håkan

 

[Cookenbacher]

This is a work of art Anil, beautifully done - especially the various demarcations between the colors.

 

On 6/28/2018 at 1:09 PM, azureglo said:

If you're committed to Humbrol, google for the best thinners, there something called "cookies thinners" created by @Cookenbacher of this very forum that might work for them too 

Unfortunately, I haven't had much success airbrushing Humbrol acrylics (their enamels spray beautifully thinned with simple white spirit), but there are some nice examples by people who have here in Britmodeller:

 

@ProfSparks and his Airfix Victoria Cross collection (unfortunately, the thread is a victim of the Photobucket curse, but plenty of great info in there)

 

@Shelliecool and her current Spitfire build.

 

@Procopius has also had success spraying Humbrol acrylics.

 

 

[Procopius]

1 hour ago, Cookenbacher said:

 

@Procopius has also had success spraying Humbrol acrylics.

 

 

Very limited, I fear. Even their own rhinner doesn't work very well, and I think the best course of action is to just not thin it much and trust in a higher power; I imagine veterans of twelve-step programs will find the experience eerily familiar.

[Andwil]

Humbrol acrylics can be like pots of coloured mud, needing a fair amount of thinning to be able to brush paint.  I cant imagine trying to use them in a blowy tube paint thingy.

 

Andrew

[azureglo]

On 7/2/2018 at 8:22 PM, Cookenbacher said:

This is a work of art Anil, beautifully done - especially the various demarcations between the colors.

 

 

@Cookenbacher Thanks for the kind words, coming from such a skillful modeler they are most encouraging. Any competence is really down to the stunning Sotar 20/20 and and finding my dream paint-actually my dream Thinner aka Mr Leveling (sic). Being at one with your paint and filler I think is the alembic that turns styrene into show winners...

 

Quite a lot of progress has been made and I revisited Phil Flory's dirt wash that I tried unsuccessfully a few years back:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well it works in a "Spanish School" kinda exaggerated way and was quite difficult to remove in any "gritty "areas I hadn't micromeshed (see underside of stabs) : Overall I guess I like it but its still a bit heavy (especially the panel lines), will photograph well though.

 

Now onward to adding all the detail parts (from a Tamiya 109E as the Airfix aerials etc barely hold together while on the sprue) I've added the aerial mast, nose guns and finished off the retracted undercarriage but the stifling heats mean I'm going to sit in the garden with a cool glass of Chardonnay instead pointing cameras at models...

 

Anil

 

 

[Azgaron]

Nice looking wash!

 

Håkan

 

[azureglo]

Oops, forgot to do the its finished thing and link to RFI so here it is.

[stevehnz]

I missed this at the time, about when my MiL popped her clogs.  Nice modelling & a superb example of decalling with the dilute Klear method. 👍

Steve.

[azureglo]

7 hours ago, stevehnz said:

I missed this at the time, about when my MiL popped her clogs.  Nice modelling & a superb example of decalling with the dilute Klear method. 👍

Steve.

MiL?

 

I'd forgotten about this till last week when I I visited a friend and was admiring it and its modellers skills ( but pointing out that aerial was was missing a down wire), then giving him the full boring tale of JG53 and why they had a red band etc. He stopped me halfway and said, "mate its the model you built and gave me for Christmas.." Doh!

[stevehnz]

35 minutes ago, azureglo said:

MiL?

Mother in Law. 

Steve.