Another Airfix typhoon 1:72

[Roger Newsome]

The stripes have turned out great. When I did mine I sprayed black as the base colour, masked it and added the white stripes. The theory being the black acts as a kind of pre-shading when spraying the white. I'm not saying my way is better, just another way to do it. 

[Courageous]

Stripes on and looking good. 

 

Stuart

[Kitchen Modeller]

2 hours ago, Roger Newsome said:

The stripes have turned out great. When I did mine I sprayed black as the base colour, masked it and added the white stripes. The theory being the black acts as a kind of pre-shading when spraying the white. I'm not saying my way is better, just another way to do it. 

That’s interesting Roger as I love the stripes you did - I assumed you did what I did and just weathered them afterwards. Your method actually makes more sense thinking about it. Might have to give that a go next time...

 

[Kitchen Modeller]

Stumbling forwards... 

 

So it was my birthday today and as I work for myself, I gave myself the day off - which was very civil if I do say so myself. Got up to a very nice present from the wife...

 

 

What can I say? Very nice airplane kit and beer. Simple tastes for a simpleton. Was very happy with the day so far.

 

The plan was to spend the day mucking around with the typhoon and the timing was good - painting upperside along with the camo scheme was up next. 

 

Base colour for the upper side was going to be Tamiya ocean grey xf82 mixed with Tamiya white thinned 50/50. Instead of the usual Tamiya thinner I tried using tamiya lacquer thinner - a friend from the local model club said it worked a lot better with an airbrush - I also threw in a few drops of airbrush flow improver. Have to say, this is the best combo I’ve tried so far with the airbrush - very nice flow and control. A few thin coats of that later:

 

 

it looks quite dark in this photo - its dark in my shed but it was a nice day outside so took a pic in the sunshine to gauge the colour:

 

 

It looks very light and it is - probably added too much white - however the plan is to tone it down later with clear coats, weathering and washes. Most of the models I’ve done so far end up being very dark over all - so wanted to try using lighter shades in the early stages and see if that results in a lighter tone at the end. 

 

Next up was the camouflage scheme - yet again the first time I’ve attempted this with an airbrush - in fact it’s one of reasons I bought the airbrush as I could never get the finish I wanted with a paintbrush...

 

 

A hurricane I did a few months ago - doesn’t look too bad in the photo but it was layer after layer of paint and I wasn’t happy at the end - so I was hoping for a bit of improvement with the new toy. 

 

To mask off the blue areas I used the blue tac method- actually white tac as apparently this works better. 

 

 

Make snakes. 

 

 

Put snakes on plane. (Snakes on a plane?)  As you can see here, I barely know what I’m doing. Main issue is that my snakes are too thick (insert dad joke here) They should have been skinny - which makes them easier to place correctly and... well you'll see in minute.

 

 

Masked everything off. I thought this was going to be a long and tedious job. It didn’t disappoint. 

 

For the green I used tamiya dark green 2 raf mixed with a little cockpit green to lighten it abit. 

 

A few coats later:

 

 

You might be able to pick up what’s coming next looking at this photo. 

 

Tore off the mask and ended up with: 

 

 

There’s not enough green. Everything worked, mask and paint wise but the snakes. Too thick. The masking was in roughly the right spots but I didn’t account for the snakes girth. (This topic is a double entendres dream) so too much blue not enough green. 

 

As my confidence with the airbrush was slightly better than earlier in the day and the mix was working well, I thought I could do some improvised sniper like blasts aided by some snake wrestling masking action. Just so I could enlarge those skinny green areas.

 

 

This seemed to work reasonably well. So I repeated this in different spots around the model. Would probably have spent the rest of day at this but had to do a school run. But all up, a good days painting. Lots of firsts and no massive muck ups. 

 

 

And a few of those beers. 

 

To be continued... cheers for reading. 

[Smithy]

Happy Birthday KM!

 

The kit is coming along nicely and you're probably right you could "fatten" the green up in places if you're so inclined.

 

Tuatara makes great stuff too. Thankfully you can get the Kapai ale here 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Happy birthday 🎂 ... The Tiffy looks great 👍

[Roger Newsome]

Happy birthday @Kitchen Modeller a kit and beer as presents, it really doesn't get any better than that. That would make us a pair of simpletons. 😄

Typhoon's looking great!

 

 

[Christer A]

A big Happy birthday @Kitchen Modeller!

I must say that you did a terrific job with the painting, the Tiffy looks great now!

[Sturmovik]

Happy birthday!

Nice gift too.

[Kitchen Modeller]

Thanks for the birthday wishes @Smithy, @Corsairfoxfouruncle, @Roger Newsome, @Christer A and @Sturmovik - I had a lovely day. I filled out the green bits a little more last night but also concluded that the decals are going to be taking up large sections where there's less green so it should work out okay. I'm now considering options on how to mask off the tail section for the cream coloured band at the end of the fuselage - its positioned right up next to the tail so it will be tricky... just some very careful masking required I'm thinking. 

[Smithy]

3 hours ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

just some very careful masking required I'm thinking. 

 

That's how I do it. Thinly cut Tamiya tape is your friend 

[Roger Newsome]

I used 2mm Tamiya tape for curves, the white stuff, then went round it with the yellow tape

[Christer A]

Regular Tamiya tape, sketch the outline, remove tape, cut it, reapply tape is my forté.

Tedious work for sure, but it works!

Off course, if the demarcation is SOFT, then I go for masking putty 😁

[Courageous]

2 hours ago, Christer A said:

Regular Tamiya tape, sketch the outline, remove tape, cut it, reapply tape is my forté.

In 1/72 this is the way to go but each to their own.

 

Stuart

[Kitchen Modeller]

Thanks for the advice guys - I really appreciate it - I'm glad you could tell I was fishing for tips - my last post was a little ambiguous:) I went ahead with the fuselage band (not sure what the proper name for this thing is) last night - I used Tamiya white masking tape for curves as @Roger Newsome suggested - cut into very narrow stripes - this stuff is quite stretchy and bends around curves quite nicely so this seemed to work well. Then followed up with strips of yellow tamiya tape as per @Smithy, @Christer A and @Courageous...

 

It took a little while to work out the correct colour mix for the paint - I thought it was a cream colour at first but it actually has tinges of green - as I discovered when I mixed the first brew - tamiya white and a tiny bit of tamiya brown - a little cockpit green was thrown in and that seemed to close the gap. This was applied to the tail...

 

 

 

Seems to have worked out okay (so far). I'll leave the masking on the tail in place until after the invasion stripes go on - won't be able to tell how good/bad this looks until the section is complete. Invasion stripes later today and maybe the yellow bits on the leading edge of the wings...  It's moving along. 

 

Thanks for reading! 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

Nice work KM! It is usually called a fuselage band so completely right. The colour is Sky, a colour that was also used earlier in the war on the undersides of day fighters.

[Roger Newsome]

To my untrained eye it looks like your Sky mix is pretty spot on.

[Christer A]

You really have a keen eye for paint mixing!

[Bugle07]

I go away for a few days and she's almost done! Great stuff, Happy Birthday for Wednesday, spot on pressies!

 

The paint job is coming along really well. The pre shading is showing through just enough, and the colours are bang on.

 

Masking is always an issue, I've still not gotten the tac snakes right when I've used them. I've cheated on occasion and made my own paper masks, used tac to stick them on and sprayed over the top.

 

Invasion stripes look excellent!

 

 

Geoff

 

 

[Kitchen Modeller]

Hi Geoff - thanks for those kind words though I'm not sure how nearly done she is - but getting there. My birthday was nice as I spent nearly the whole day working on the Tiff - so pushed things forward quite a bit.

 

5 hours ago, Bugle07 said:

Masking is always an issue, I've still not gotten the tac snakes right when I've used them. I've cheated on occasion and made my own paper masks, used tac to stick them on and sprayed over the top.

This sounds like a good way to do it - I've seen it done on some youtube videos - However I think I'll have another crack with the blue tac method on the next camo job - I really like how you can get the shapes on the plane before painting - next time I'll account for the snake girth and use skinny snakes and see if that improves things. 

 

Did a little more yesterday; 

 

 

Fuselage stripes went on without too much stress - though the masking did take longer - Tamiya yellow masking needs to be really skinny before you can bend it to your will so used the white stuff for the stripes which bends around curves nicely - not sure what size my tape is but it was about 2mm short of the actual stripes which is a shame - as I had to double up to get the widths right. Used the same paint as the wing stripes - a few coats and some drying time later: 

 

 

Not bang on perfect but I'm still happy enough - the effort required to do these is much more than slapping a decal on but I think it's definitely worth it - having little imperfections in there actually adds to the look somehow - as if they were done by a ground crew with another 19 planes to paint that day... The mask close to the tail held pretty well - I was worried as the mask went over the nobbley bit near the tail (I think these are staples holding the skin in place) but all was well. 

 

I just have to do the yellow stripe on the wings and the main paint job is complete... then a clear coat of gloss before decals. Hope this will happen over the weekend. 

 

Thanks for reading! 

 

 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

Lovely jubbly!

[Courageous]

Looks good to me. 

 

Stuart

[Kitchen Modeller]

Had quite a busy weekend but still managed to squeeze in some Typhoon time... 

 

Next job was painting the yellow bands on the leading edge of the wings - I wanted these to have a heavily weathered look - as the yellow will stick out somewhat, I didn't want them to look perfect as the plane will be quite weathered looking overall. I've read that these yellow bits rarely weathered on the actual typhoon so this was a purely artistic decision. 

 

So did some masking: 

 

 

I used some liquid mask in creating chipping effects along the band - this is another new technique for me - I haven't really honed my chipping effects skills as of yet - haven't really been happy with what I've tried on other models so I'm trying something new once again... 

 

So I sprayed a few light coats of Tamiya white. For the yellow, I mixed Tamiya Lemon yellow with a little red which went on over it... 

 

 

So far so good - after a little wait time, pulled off the mask...

 

 

The tape took some paint with it - this is never happened to me so was a little annoyed to say the least. I always try to be careful putting tape over finished paint - always apply it to my hand or arm a few times before putting it on the model - but the paint must have been a little weak here so this happened. Sh*t happens - So some touch ups will be required. 

 

I used the opportunity to put in some weathering in on this area - I mixed the paint a little differently - used white to lighten instead of cockpit green and streaked the paint over the holes.

 

 

Hopefully subtle enough without drawing too much attention...  

 

It was at this point that I noticed another issue (maybe you spotted it in the previous photos) 

 

 

A dirty finger print right on the nose - you can see it here quite clearly but it's only visible when the light hits it a certain way - which is why I didn't notice it earlier I suppose... Another fix required. I gave it a sand to remove the offending bumps and mixed some paint - the paint job here has a faded effect effect which I really liked so repainting this area broke my heart - I was never going to be able to recreate the blended effect with a paintbrush so I just enlarged the green... 

 

 

So again, it not perfect - I'm hoping the clear coat and washes will blend it better with the rest of the paint scheme. As I was getting ready to put on a coat of gloss, I found a few other minor paint issues which were fixed. I also tidied up the cockpit area - painted the deck behind the head rest black.

 

The yellow stripes came out okay after I removed the masking liquid...

 

 

And then finally put on some gloss coats...

 

 

Shiny!

 

This will be left to cure for 12 hours before starting to slap some stickers on it - so not a hassle free weekend but got there in the end. 

 

Feedback and comments welcome! 

 

Cheers

Edited October 27, 2018 by Kitchen Modeller
spelling

[Smithy]

I've always found that my gloss coats and final matt coats tend to help bring things together. Also if you look at well used WWII aircraft their paintwork tends to have areas with some tonal variation due to use. Ground attack aircraft such as Tiffies also tended to be a bit more beaten up than some of their higher flying brethren, so I really wouldn't worry about that nose area, if anything it will add to the look of your model.

 

Looking really good KM and always fun when decalling comes up as for me that's when you start getting a good idea of how a model will look when finished.

[Kitchen Modeller]

10 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I've always found that my gloss coats and final matt coats tend to help bring things together. Also if you look at well used WWII aircraft their paintwork tends to have areas with some tonal variation due to use. Ground attack aircraft such as Tiffies also tended to be a bit more beaten up than some of their higher flying brethren, so I really wouldn't worry about that nose area, if anything it will add to the look of your model.

 

Looking really good KM and always fun when decalling comes up as for me that's when you start getting a good idea of how a model will look when finished.

Thanks for the encouragement Smithy - In fairness, this build has been relatively crisis free compared to my past efforts where I seemed to hit huge problems at every turn - mmm - I shouldn't have said that - I'm a firm believer in famous last words!!! (now touching wood)