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Messerschmitt Bf109E-4/7 Trop North Africa


AaronKSJ

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Cheers @thorfinn @Col. !

Few days ago had another stab at the green, decided to go with the airbrush again. 
 

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I did spend a while playing around with spraying some card and was able to get some nice fine spray lines. 
When it came to the model again it wasn't quite as successful. Better than last time for sure, but still had the odd paint flood and some splattering / overspray effect around the edges, particularly on the fuselage. 
All good practice I guess! 

Should get a coat of Klear on later today and can make a start on painting up some of the remaining bits. 


 

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Looks wonderful!

As to the occasional spray 'difficulty'...when one closely studies original photographs, one quickly sees that even the Luftwaffe's black birds doing the painting on the real things didn't always get it 'right.' (It seems likely to me that they spent less time on their paint jobs than we modelers do, trying to meticulously re-create them! ☺)

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Decals are on now along with panel line washes.

Used oils, payne's gray for the blue sections and burnt umber everywhere else.
I need to practice mixing different oil colours as the burnt umber looks a tad dark. Do plan on adding a dusty oil wash around the wing roots and underside at some point. 

Probably another daft question - paynes gray always ends up with a blue hue after diluting (using Winsor Newton) Do I just need to mix a dab of black in with the grey with get the gray to look well gray and not blue gray? 

The Tamiya decals went on fine. I read a tip somewhere that mentioned in part the thickness issue is due to a think glue layer under the decal and that using very hot water helps. Not sure how accurate that is, but used plenty of hot water and micro set / sol and after the first coat gently prodded decals into panel lines with a cocktail stick. 

Just been painting up the prop hub then to assemble the spinner and mark it up for the red and white combo. 
 

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Trying to decide how to tackle the weathering on this. 

Thinking:

small amount of chipping around engine hatches. 
I have some Mig North Africa dust pigment which I'd bought for some armour kits but figure it can be well used around the wheels and wing root. 

With the exhaust stains, whenever I've tried to airbrush them on I always stuff it up. I might just try heavy thinning nato black to within an inch of it's life and slowly brush painting the stains on.  

Aaron

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7 hours ago, AaronKSJ said:

With the exhaust stains, whenever I've tried to airbrush them on I always stuff it up. I might just try heavy thinning nato black to within an inch of it's life and slowly brush painting the stains on.  

Have you ever tried pastel chalks ? Thats what I use most of the time for exhaust/gun stains. 

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9 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Have you ever tried pastel chalks ?

 

I have ages ago, can't remember how successful I was. 

I have recently just picked up a few silicon brushes for pigments on tanks, but could be a good shout for the exhaust stains. I have a feeling last time I tried with them I was a little heavy handed with them! 

 

Good idea, thanks  😊

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks @fmichelsen ! 

Realised I've not post an update in a few weeks, so grabbed the camera this morning for some progress shots. 
 

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Done a spot of light chipping and scratches with some brushed on silver.

Flat coated and then used some ground up pastel chalk for the exhaust stains. Used a silicon brush to apply the pigments and they'd ended up a bit to dense but not bad.
Incidentally I found a set of assorted silicon brushes meant for nail art or such but a lot cheaper than the ones marketed for model making malarkey!


Been throwing various rust shade washes at the exhausts, final step (hopefully) will be to lightly paint some black oil paint around the square exhaust nozzle bits and lightly feather it with some thinner. 

Needs some touching up around the canopy frames with the interior colour. 

And still planning on adding some African dust pigment to the wheels and walkway areas. 

Oh and gun stains, might try very very water thinned Tamiya paint with a spot of dishing washing soap.... 

The end is almost insight :thumbsup:

Thanks for swinging by!

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Morning Folks

I think I'm calling it done (well apart from an antenna wire)

With the gun staining and another crack at using pasteltle chalk, worked better this time. Still used the silicon pointed brush but wiped off excess pigment so it was more like drybrushing and built up the effect with a few passes.
In hindsight with the exhaust I used the brush with too much pigment on it so it caked it on. 

Finished of the spinner, tidied up around the frame and here we are.
 

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I've got a couple of shelves to display my finished kits on, which had filled up so I've relegated some old builds to the attic. But freed up some space to plonk it next to the Spitfire.
 

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I'll get the antenna sorted out and then some more snaps for the gallery.


As always, great GB! 
Although I think the only other GB I'll be joining this year is the Bristol Gb with a Tamiya Beaufighter. 
Need to make dent in the small stash! 

Thanks for stopping by

 

Aaron

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