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Straight in and no messing! - Johnny Red's Hurricane


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Greetings all - As you may or may not be aware, I'm a huge comics fan - and that love started many years ago (70's and 80's)  with the old British war comics such as Victor, Warlord and best of all - Battle! Each issue featured serialised stories from different characters in different theaters of war - and in Battle there were 2 of note - Charlie's War and of course... Johnny Red :)

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I'm not going to go too deep into the Johnny Red story - suffice to say, this isn't the first Johnny Red build on Britmodeler - however, mine will be a little different in terms of the source material. A few years ago, a very well known comic book writer, Garth Ennis (creator of 'Preacher' and 'The Boys' - both of which have been turned into successful TV shows) did a "reboot" of Johnny Red - aimed at a much older audience - here's a wee snippet: 

 

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If you haven't picked up on the basic story - A British Pilot from a cam ship ends up in Russia with his Hurricane fighting the Germans with his adopted Squadron, the Falcons - and of course he's so amazing, they make him their leader - high adventure follows. If you were a Johnny Red fan, I couldn't recommend this book any higher - the story is great - a little more brutal than the original (but even the original was quite brutal) Most of the main characters are there - and the art by Keith Burns is just... gorgeous. The version of Johnny's Hurricane I'll be doing will be something like this:

 

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As you can see, it's a mk 1 painted with basic RAF brown green scheme - Garth Ennis posted about his book here on this site where he states: 

 "(most casual readers won't worry too much about a Hurricat ending up re-engined as a Hurricane II, or a DSG/EDSG paint job becoming DE/DG, but we did)."

 

So that's what I'm doing :)

 

This is a project I've been gearing towards since my return to the hobby so I'm very excited to be actually getting started. 

 

The kit: 

 

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Arma Hobby - Hurricane Mk1 - lovely little kit and maybe the best out there at this scale. 

 

I designed up some decals and got a fella in the US to print them - these are wet transfer - so the transfer film is removable once they have dried onto the model: 

 

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As you can see - I have enough here for a full squadron - I did a bunch of different sizes so I can use them of different aircraft and at different scales - shout out to Johnny Red mega fan @Gazontipede for helping me out on the design for these - the decal sheet includes the serial numbers for Johnny's plane - plus falcon insignia for the old Battle comic version too - which looks quite different. I can email the PDF of this sheet to anyone who wants it - it will be up to you to get it printed - happy to pass on my printer guys details too if you don't want to print them yourself. PM me if with your email address and I'll fire it over to you. Gazontipede - I have your decal sheet here - I just need to pop it into the post for you! :)

 

I started this build earlier this week but I'll leave it there for the moment - next up - starting the build :)

 

If anyone wondered where I got my avatar from - look no further :)

 

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See you soon Chums! 

 

 John

 

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Thanks @billn53 and @Pete in Lincs for following along👍

Here is some progress so far... 

 

My last couple of builds were in 1/48 so it was a bit of a shocker coming back to the smaller scale - everything is so much... smaller!!! - however 1/72 does have its charms - especially when it’s as nice a kit is this...

 

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Construction starts with the wheel bay where you need to glue the bay walls together- first bit to glue doesn’t actually fit. So you need to shave off the location pins before gluing - not the best start. But after that, it goes together pretty well. Some pe is included in the kit, including the nicely detailed interior section which was glued in with superglue. 
 

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The kit instructions would have you glue in the wheel struts at this point - I deferred on this as I know this will cause me problems later - so these will get installed near the end of the build. 
 

A quick dry fit of the wing sections:

 

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A very nice fit - they fit snugly in place with very little gapage. This makes me happy. 
 

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Some more pe added to the cockpit this time - I elected to use the pe document holder which was tricky to fold Into shape but managed to get it into place. You need to shave off more plastic if you want to use these pieces - but nothing that can’t be handled with a hobby knife. 
 

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These then got some paint - I used a base coat of Tamiya semi gloss black followed by the Tamiya lacquer paint - silver. First time using this paint, and I quite like it. I was planning on using mr color silver 8 for this job but have managed to misplace the pot - but this colour worked just as well I think. The other parts for the cockpit were cut from the sprue, cleaned up and were given the same treatment. 
 

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The instrument panel uses the pe again - I needed to shave off the existing plastic details... the resulting flat surface was painted with semigloss black - then the gauges decal was applied - this was nervously put in place as I wasn’t sure if it was bang on without any references (having scraped them off) however, once I was able to put the pe on top, it all lined up nicely. 
 

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There’s another decal that’s supposed to go on top of this - that has some labeling and the switches detail -  however I think I’ll hand paint these in. I think it already looks pretty good without the risk of plastering another decal on top. 
 

The wheel bay and other sections got the same paint treatment too... 

 

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Do that’s where I’m up to so far... a few more nights to get the cockpit sorted out. There is quite a lot of detail included with all of the pe - so it’s going to be fun dealing with that. Especially since arguably most of it won’t be seen. But still fun to do. 
 

I’ll hopefully have some more progress soon- in the meantime, please enjoy this beautiful painting from one of the comic book covers of the Johnny Red reboot... 

 

DkBChFO.jpg
 

I really like the chipping and weathering visible on the aircraft here - something that I’ll try to reproduce on the model. 
 

See you soon chums! 

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Great to see you back in action with this super project! B)

I've been more or less absent from BM due to a few rather difficult months and have been feeling quite down and grim lately, but seeing you start on Johnny's Hurri has proven to be quite a pick-me-up!

Rock on!

 

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9 hours ago, Col. said:

Now this is cool! Great way to start a thread and great choice of subject :speak_cool:

Thanks Col - hope you enjoy 😉 

 

7 hours ago, Timski1 said:

I feel like you’re not one to conform to the normal builds, big fan of this, one way to be unique, pretty confident nobody would have a build like this 

Thanks Timski - my only references will be purely fictional so that does take some restraints away! 
 

7 hours ago, Ruskin Air Services said:

Couldn't also beat a Commando comic book!

I was a commando fan too Ruskin - nothing like pure boys adventure stories 😎

 

7 hours ago, Gazontipede said:

Great to see you back in action with this super project! B)

I've been more or less absent from BM due to a few rather difficult months and have been feeling quite down and grim lately, but seeing you start on Johnny's Hurri has proven to be quite a pick-me-up!

Rock on!

 

Sorry to hear that Richard - on the other hand I’m very happy that this build perked things up for you a bit-  I’m going to try and get that stuff in the post to you v soon - I want to include a couple of more goodies hence the delay... hopefully it will inspire you get a falcon build going yourself 😊!!! 

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16 hours ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

Sorry to hear that Richard - on the other hand I’m very happy that this build perked things up for you a bit-  I’m going to try and get that stuff in the post to you v soon - I want to include a couple of more goodies hence the delay... hopefully it will inspire you get a falcon build going yourself 😊!!! 

Thanks John! It's been a bit rough but hopefully we're through the worst of it now. Popping back onto BM for the first time in ages and seeing the notification for this thread was really uplifting. 😊

Thanks also for the decal sheet and the surpise goodies, that is most awesomely generous of you!

 

I have got a plan of sorts for some Falcon builds although my output has been virtually nil since September-ish. (Although I did squeeze an as yet unpainted Bandai Super Star Destroyer in during November. Lovely little kit BTW, highly recommended.)

As you may recall, I'm hoping to do Corporal Yakob's MiG-3 (Hobby Boss 1/72) first, then I'll probably be on the lookout for an early Yak-1 for Captain Semoyov. After that? Hmmm, Johnny flew Tomahawks quite a few times in the Joe Colquhoun era when the Hurri was otherwise indisposed and I do like the little Airfix P-40B/C. Alternatively, there is always Johnny's shark mouthed Typhoon from the Carlos Pino era which would be an excuse to build that Airfix kit again. Decisions, decisions...

 

The Arma Hobby kit certainly looks a treat. How are you finding the Tamiya lacquer silver? I'm assuming you're still using their acrylics elsewhere. If so, were there any problems with it going over the semi gloss black?

It's early days yet, but have you decided if you are going to add any external ordnance to the Hurri or keep it clean? Johnny seemed to be able to tote an A-10's worth of bombs and rockets when required. 😉

 

 

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On 1/13/2020 at 12:35 PM, Gazontipede said:

I have got a plan of sorts for some Falcon builds although my output has been virtually nil since September-ish. (Although I did squeeze an as yet unpainted Bandai Super Star Destroyer in during November. Lovely little kit BTW, highly recommended.)

As you may recall, I'm hoping to do Corporal Yakob's MiG-3 (Hobby Boss 1/72) first, then I'll probably be on the lookout for an early Yak-1 for Captain Semoyov. After that? Hmmm, Johnny flew Tomahawks quite a few times in the Joe Colquhoun era when the Hurri was otherwise indisposed and I do like the little Airfix P-40B/C. Alternatively, there is always Johnny's shark mouthed Typhoon from the Carlos Pino era which would be an excuse to build that Airfix kit again. Decisions, decisions...

That build order looks pretty sweet to me Richard - all I would say is hold off from buying any new kits as the package I'm sending you will probably dictate that a little:) And certainly the decal sheet will allow you to build up quite a squadron :) 

 

On 1/13/2020 at 12:35 PM, Gazontipede said:

The Arma Hobby kit certainly looks a treat. How are you finding the Tamiya lacquer silver? I'm assuming you're still using their acrylics elsewhere. If so, were there any problems with it going over the semi gloss black?

It's early days yet, but have you decided if you are going to add any external ordnance to the Hurri or keep it clean? Johnny seemed to be able to tote an A-10's worth of bombs and rockets when required. 😉

Tamiya Lacquer silver is fine but I think I prefer the Mr Color Silver 8 truth be told - it's more hard wearing and has a slightly better sheen and colour tone - however the tamiya is still a good paint which I'd recommend if it's readily available. Re the ordnance - It's going to be Johnny's dog fighting fit out so no bombs etc on this one - I'll probably do his typhoon at some point, so that will bear the brunt of ground attack duties :) 

 

On 1/14/2020 at 2:45 AM, Quiet Mike said:

I was a BATTLE ACTION reader back in the day! Johnny Red and Charlies War were favourites. Now I have a hankering to make a Blood Red Mosquito! Following this build with much interest.

Blood red mossie? I remember the one where he painted his hurricane red but don't remember the mossie - the strip ran for 7 years so I doubt I've read it all of course! So much Johnny goodness out there! 

 

 

I have a little progress to show - and have hit a few problems - namely trying to close the fuselage - more on that below. 

 

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I weathering up the seat and added the seat belts - this was painted with Tamiya Cockpit green, then highlighted by adding some white to the mix - Some of the paint was scratched off with toothpick to create chipping effects - I painted the seat belts with Vallejo model colours with a mix of sand brown and ivory white. The buckles were painted with Mithril silver from Citadel. These were painted while still on the PE fret - then removed and installed with some CA glue. Then the whole thing then got a wash of Tamiya Panal line wash - dark brown - and used a cotton bud to mop up the excess while it was still wet. 

 

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The cockpit sides got similar treatment - I painted the details with Vallejo German grey - then highlighted with a lighter colour,  

 

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I attached the lower cockpit piece to the wing section - this just got a wash, again with tamiya panel line wash - I painted the control column handle with german grey. 

 

At this point it was time to close up the fuselage - I don't have any photos of this as it turned into a bit of a mission - one of the major flaws with this kit are the instructions - I found them to be very vague and at this stage in the build, this was a problem. It's not at all clear how the seat section fits into the fuselage - even if they showed you how it's supposed to look after installation, it would really help - so there's alot of guesswork involved. Also the fit is very very tight so I had to do a lot of adjustments - I did finally get it to close but there are gaps - not huge ones but far from perfect. I'll have some photos in the next update. 

 

If I was doing this again... I wouldn't bother with the PE on the cockpit walls - they will hardly be seen and I suspect they put out the fit of the seat section. I would also install the rear section (where the seat goes)  on one of the cockpit sides before painting - as having the coat of paint on there further puts things out. Hindsight is a wonderful thing :)

 

So that's it for now - I'm hoping the rest of the build won't be quite as painful as this - but I'm looking at that air intake very suspiciously :)  

 

I'll leave you with some more beautiful Johnny art from the extremely talented Keith Burns: 

ST1S3kd.jpg

 

 

 

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31 minutes ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

Blood red mossie? I remember the one where he painted his hurricane red but don't remember the mossie - the strip ran for 7 years so I doubt I've read it all of course! So much Johnny goodness out there! 

 

RED DEATH!

 

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Good stuff John, cockpit weathering looks grand. Did you scratch back to the plastic for the nicks and scratches or a different colour undercoat? I'm working on the cockpit of an fw190 in 1/72 atm, so small compared with the outside of the lanc!

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30 minutes ago, Quiet Mike said:

RED DEATH!

 

Awesome! Thanks Mike - though all you've done is add another build I wanna do lol

 

20 minutes ago, SaminCam said:

Good stuff John, cockpit weathering looks grand. Did you scratch back to the plastic for the nicks and scratches or a different colour undercoat? I'm working on the cockpit of an fw190 in 1/72 atm, so small compared with the outside of the lanc!

I scratched it back to the silver underneath Sam - I used a lacquer for the silver so it's pretty hard wearing and the green is acrylic, so wetting it and then gently scratching it seems safe enough - if you do scratch away to the plastic, you can just touch it up afterwards. FW190? What kit? 

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8 hours ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

That build order looks pretty sweet to me Richard - all I would say is hold off from buying any new kits as the package I'm sending you will probably dictate that a little:) And certainly the decal sheet will allow you to build up quite a squadron :)

Wow, that's really generous of you. 😮 The decal sheet alone would have been a great kindness, but this is going above and beyond for generosity! You working on a Sainthood or something? 😉 Thank you!

8 hours ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

Tamiya Lacquer silver is fine but I think I prefer the Mr Color Silver 8 truth be told - it's more hard wearing and has a slightly better sheen and colour tone - however the tamiya is still a good paint which I'd recommend if it's readily available. Re the ordnance - It's going to be Johnny's dog fighting fit out so no bombs etc on this one - I'll probably do his typhoon at some point, so that will bear the brunt of ground attack duties :) 

Yes, I must admit I'm rather partial to Tamiya acrylics despite me being an obligate hairy-stick abuser. Their metallic colours are the only things I'm not really sold on, so I'll keep an eye out for Mr Color metallic (acrylic?) paints.

A nice clean Hurri will be just the ticket! It is interesting to see that in the Garth Ennis reboot, Rodimitz has swapped in a Merlin XX series engine (presumably with all the associated gubbins) to replace what was presumably a rather tired Merlin III. It's a clever little detail in the story. Given that, I'm a teensy bit surprised they didn't go just a little further with this and swap out the .303" Brownings for four 20mm ShVAK as was actually done with some VVS Mk.IIs. Perhaps they didn't know at the time.

9 hours ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

Blood red mossie? I remember the one where he painted his hurricane red but don't remember the mossie - the strip ran for 7 years so I doubt I've read it all of course! So much Johnny goodness out there!

Yessir, as pointed out by Quiet Mike there was a storyline in early 1982 where Johnny had to come to terms with the death of his closest friend, Yakob. It was all a bit sepulchral and wafted into the vaguely supernatural on occasion. I remember finding it quite depressing at the time.  The Red Death wasn't precisely a bog standard Mossie as the thread Quiet Mike linked to shows. Two stage Merlins, bomber canopy and with a nose armament of what appears to be eight .50" machine guns, with four of those in US bomber-style external blisters. It also had a small rear gun barbette in the cockpit for Ratov(!) to use... Oh boy. John Cooper always did make fairly liberal interpretations of aircraft types. 😁 You'll have your work cut out for you there! 😉

 

Hopefully the Hurri build will behave itself now. It looks like a very nice kit, unhelpful instructions notwithstanding.

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22 hours ago, Ruskin Air Services said:

At one point Johnny Red flew a B25 solid nosed straffer and Yakob flew a Catalina

I loved that story Ruskin - "The Flying Gun" - it's available to buy as a graphic novel these days...

 

14 hours ago, Gazontipede said:

I'll keep an eye out for Mr Color metallic (acrylic?) paints.

I'd recommend their metalics for sure - I'm not 100% but I think they are lacquers or lacquer based acrylics so I'm not sure how well they would go for brush painting large areas.  I use the silver 8 for brush painting highlights and as a base for hairspray chipping - it's v nice stuff. 

 

14 hours ago, Gazontipede said:

It is interesting to see that in the Garth Ennis reboot, Rodimitz has swapped in a Merlin XX series engine (presumably with all the associated gubbins) to replace what was presumably a rather tired Merlin III. It's a clever little detail in the story. Given that, I'm a teensy bit surprised they didn't go just a little further with this and swap out the .303" Brownings for four 20mm ShVAK as was actually done with some VVS Mk.IIs. Perhaps they didn't know at the time.

Agreed - I love that Ennis and Burns went into that level of detail - of course Ennis has done alot of WW2 comics - many of them aviation based - so I'd recommend any of his "War Stories" graphic novels - re. the machine guns - since this story is set around the start of the conflict in Russia, I'd imagine that particular upgrade wasn't yet available to the Soviets - though I do remember they fitted those big cannons at some point?  

 

Construction is continuing and is coming along - I'd like to say seamlessly but that's wishful thinking :)

 

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Finally managed to get the fuselage closed up - I had to compromise and seal it with some visible gaps in front and behind the cockpit - these were filled with CA glue which also will hopefully hold everything in place as well as filling and reinforcing the joins.  Even after some pretty heavy adjustments to the cockpit I couldn't get to fit perfectly - I didn't want to knock the shape out of the back wall any further for fear of causing more difficult to remedy gaps. But once everything dried, it looks okay. 

 

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So I went ahead and put the airframe together - after gluing, I used my very expensive clamp to hold it in place overnight. 

 

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So the wings went on without too much trouble - however there were some small gaps and some some steps on the wing join. 

 

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I filled these with Tamiya White Putty and left it to cure over night - I find this stuff to be very good as long as you leave it to dry for a few hours. 

 

After sanding the putty back: 

 

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Not perfect but we'll see how it looks with some primer on it. Some other areas were sanded down to remove visible seams such as the areas in front of the canopy and behind the cockpit. 

 

I attached the tail section - here the fit was good but once again, very very tight - and I was left with a small gap which was filled with Perfect plastic putty. 

 

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This seemed to work well here - the kit gives you the option of having the trim in the down position, which I did, just to add a little interest - and with this aircraft going to be in a parked position, this made sense. 

 

So after the filling and sanding I'm left with something resembling a Hurricane... 

 

tPLaCuX.jpg

 

Still more to do on this front but this is where I'm at - I'll install the radiator and oil cooler intakes next - then mask the canopy which will hopefully put me on the train to primer. 

 

Here's more cover art goodness - this time from Ian Kennedy: 

 

yOgp1ue.jpg

 

Till next time chums :)

 

John

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That's an interesting method of constructing the tail surfaces. It looks like it could be a bit of a pest. I'm assuming the (single piece?) h-stab clips over those fuse tabs?

Perhaps the close up photography makes it look trickier than it is. The end result is nothing to complain about, that's for sure!

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6 hours ago, Gazontipede said:

That's an interesting method of constructing the tail surfaces. It looks like it could be a bit of a pest. I'm assuming the (single piece?) h-stab clips over those fuse tabs?

Perhaps the close up photography makes it look trickier than it is. The end result is nothing to complain about, that's for sure!

Yeah, the tail section is actually quite nice and the join where it attaches to the end of the tail is a really nice fit - but the vertical fin attachment is very tight - so tight that I couldn't get it 100% into the join so I little filler was required. Yes, the trim surface is a single piece and it's actually nice that you get to place it in a down position - no little to complain about here :)

 

As nice as this kit is, it is definitely testing my "basic modeling skills' - I wouldn't recommend it to a novice - it's probably at a similar level in terms of details and engineering to an eduard kit but maybe not quite as nice to put together - some of it is very good, other parts not so much - but biggest issue IMHO is the vagueness in certain parts of the instructions - Eduard has very good instructions for the most part in comparison.  So in all, it definitely warrants the "expert" label on the box. 

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