PlaStix Posted August 6, 2021 Share Posted August 6, 2021 Hi Rav. Fantastic progress on your build. It really is looking superb. I do like what you have done with the painting! Kind regards, Stix 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 8, 2021 Author Share Posted August 8, 2021 On 8/6/2021 at 6:40 PM, PlaStix said: Hi Rav. Fantastic progress on your build. It really is looking superb. I do like what you have done with the painting! Kind regards, Stix Thanks Stix, hopefully the rest of it works as well as the first bit 😆 Managed to get get time to do the fiddly bit f the masking during the week. Followed by blocking in the large areas with the blue tape this afternoon. Second shade sprayed on. Should get the next bit of masking and the final coat of Dark Aluminium done tomorrow, and hopefully have it unmasked by the end of the day. Thanks for looking 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 Looks good! Regards, Adrian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 11 hours ago, AdrianMF said: Looks good! Regards, Adrian Thanks Adrian, feels like its on the home stretch now More masking and the last coat of aluminium this morning. Unmasked this afternoon. Really happy with how this came out, lost a wee spot of paint on the nose when the masking was removed but I think I've got away with touching it up with a brush, and there was a little bleed from under the tape in places but the worst of it should end up under the black markings. Speaking of which I'm conflicted about whether or not to varnish it now, and then apply the black over that or do the black now and varnish the whole lot. I'm guessing the black markings should be a matt finish so probably doesn't want to be under the gloss varnish for the metal surface. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 That is looking great, turned out very nicely. You are right that the black anti-glare panels are matt so putting a gloss varnish on now and then masking for the panels is a good idea. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 11, 2021 Author Share Posted August 11, 2021 On 8/9/2021 at 4:15 PM, modelling minion said: That is looking great, turned out very nicely. You are right that the black anti-glare panels are matt so putting a gloss varnish on now and then masking for the panels is a good idea. Thanks ended up doing that but now I'm second guessing that choice for decal application >< oh well I'll figure that out when I get to it. Stripe me! who would have thought straight lines would be so tricky! I started off eyeballing the placement which went ok for the fuselage (just realized this is out of focus sorry) But I couldn't get the stripes on the wings right so I scaled up the scheme to the right size and used it as a guide. Which still took about 3 attempts to get it lined up 🤣 First coat of black on, I'm hoping one coat will be enough but I'll make that call in the morning. Happy with it for the moment but fingers crossed there isn't too much paint bleed but some of the edges have me a little worried but there's nothing I can do about it now next dilemma is whether or not to clear coat it with Matt now or de-mask and gloss the whole thing for decals, it would mean re-masking (really not sure I can have the patience to do it again lol) so I could put a matt coat over the black later or just accepting that its going to stay glossy-ish Anyway thanks for looking folks, should have it de-masked in all its stripey glory tomorrow at some point. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 Very neat looking job on masking the stripes on the wings and fuselage, I hope it works out for you. I forgot that you need to put decals on the anti-glare panels on the nose when I suggested leaving it matt, sorry for leading you down the wrong path with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 12, 2021 Author Share Posted August 12, 2021 5 minutes ago, modelling minion said: Very neat looking job on masking the stripes on the wings and fuselage, I hope it works out for you. I forgot that you need to put decals on the anti-glare panels on the nose when I suggested leaving it matt, sorry for leading you down the wrong path with that. Ha, no need to apologize I was already well on my way down that path without any input 😁 It's early days but one of the lines I was most worried about bleeding is looking pretty good! I'll have some more later 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaStix Posted August 13, 2021 Share Posted August 13, 2021 Hi Ravnos. I have to say - I am really very impressed by your work on this model! It is going to look superb! Kind regards, Stix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 13, 2021 Author Share Posted August 13, 2021 6 hours ago, PlaStix said: Hi Ravnos. I have to say - I am really very impressed by your work on this model! It is going to look superb! Kind regards, Stix Thanks Stix, you're too kind 😄 I have to admit I've surprised myself with some of it! Right now I'm desperately trying to get a nice paint job on the spinner, for the life of me I cant mask it neatly for the 3 colours, I've got one more thing to try before I give up and paint it a single colour 🤣 Should have a proper update later tonight. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 13, 2021 Author Share Posted August 13, 2021 Reasonable amount of progress today, Masking all came off nicely with very minimal bleed and no paint lifted here it is with a couple of coats of Vallejo's Metal Varnish (gloss) the paint callouts in the instructions called for "Rust" on the exhausts which I didn't have so I mixed a little fire red and black and went in with a fine brush, the shine from the metallics underneath still shows through a little and while its probably not accurate to the real thing I like the result Next up was painting the prop parts. This is where I remember how much I hate painting spinners with multiple colours, and this ones got 3! first couple of attempts were fairly disastrous. Last attempt was mostly hand painted, Its still pretty rough and I'm not sure I can live with it, I'm really happy with the rest of the paint job and I don't want to ruin it by sticking a badly painted spinner on its nose but the kit has a spare spinner in it so I'm going to try something else over the weekend and if that doesn't work out then I'm going to go off script and just paint it a single colour. While that abomination was drying.... I jumped the gun a bit and removed the masking on the canopy, completely forgetting that it should be getting another clear coat once the decals were on Sadly it pulled off the paint on the struts, so I had to go over them carefully with a brush and then clean it up with a toothpick afterwards. Finally this evening after tearing my hair out over the spinner I did half an hour of therapeutic decal application. First handful in place for now, should get another stint on Sunday to finish them off. Thanks for looking as always and I'll have more to report after the weekend. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted August 14, 2021 Share Posted August 14, 2021 That's looking rather spiffing so far old fruit .With the spinner you could try mounting it on a length of runner and a blob of blu-tack and turning it slowly with a cordless drill.This works well for the tyres on tank roadwheels. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 19, 2021 Author Share Posted August 19, 2021 On 8/14/2021 at 4:58 PM, Alex Gordon said: That's looking rather spiffing so far old fruit .With the spinner you could try mounting it on a length of runner and a blob of blu-tack and turning it slowly with a cordless drill.This works well for the tyres on tank roadwheels. Thanks very much Alex, I'll have a go at your suggestion for the spinner over the weekend, sounds like it might work! Has anyone else noticed the closer you get to the end of a build.... the easier it is to screw it up? A little more progress so far this week, the observant among you may have noticed I made a mistake with the stripes and forgo to leave a gap for the serial number on the tail. so I masked off the tail and re-sprayed an aluminium strip in the right place. if you look to the left of the picture you'll notice a gross error in judgement. once I noticed the over spray (it wasn't immediate ) I masked the area again carefully so I could fix the black areas, luckily I was able to polish off the silver paint from the canopy with a toothpick. it was also a good enough excuse to re-mask the canopy properly. Success!.... Sort of, the decals under the masking didn't survive completely unscathed, after the initial disappointment I actually kinda like the effect as some preemptive weathering. I'm tempted to try and replicate it on some of the other decals but I'm not going to start experimenting this close to the end! Also the gap for the serial number on the tail ended up being slightly too small but I'm going to live with it rather than going through the masking again. The serial number on the other side of the tail curled up on me, after what felt like several hours of messing around with tweezers in warm water this was the best I could manage, I couldn't get the top edge to unroll completely but I'm going to try and touch it up by hand with paint later. The star on the top of the wing (is it still called a Roundel if it isn't an RAF plane?) took an ungodly amount of microsol to get it to settle over the raised detail on the wing, its looking much better now but this was after several hours and several coats already. Finally the last screw up for the week was running a blade over the decals to cut the panel lines, I managed to give it a little too much pressure here and took the paint off as well as the decal. Also note the cat hair stuck in the paint under the canopy, I swear there is more on the model than there is on the cat at this point By some miracle the bottle of "signal blue" Vallejo model air I have is an almost perfect match for the blue of the decals so I've touched it up with that and a little white and its looking pretty good again, I don't have a picture of that yet but I'll get another update posted over the weekend which should put me pretty close to completion. assuming there are no more disasters. As always, thanks for looking 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herrick Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 12 minutes ago, Ravnos said: swear there is more on the model than there is on the cat at this point I have the same problem only with dog hair! No matter how careful, she always leaves her mark. Lovely build, really enjoying this. What did you do with the gunsight? There’s a slot in the forward bulkhead I think. Agree it’s not at all clear. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 19, 2021 Author Share Posted August 19, 2021 Just now, Herrick said: What did you do with the gunsight? It's... ahem... somewhere in the spares box, I did try attaching it but couldn't get it to look nice, its a pretty poorly molded part honestly so I decided to leave it out in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 Very nice work indeed, and don't worry we all suffer from not having used enough masking. I also suffer from the dog hair getting everywhere issue, if I lost hair at that rate I would have been bald years ago! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaStix Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 Well despite all the issues I reckon that's coming together beautifully!! Kind regards, Stix 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterB Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 (edited) Our little old ginger cat had very fine hair which got everywhere, and although she passed 3 years ago, she had been here for just short of 21 years so there are still a few hairs about to remind us - one stuck to the varnish on a kit a couple of days ago! Losing her was so distressing I swore we would not replace her, but of course I was "persuaded" after a few months and somehow we ended up with two, but they are black so it was definitely not one of theirs, and fortunately they are not too interested in my workroom - only managed to break one kit so far in two years! Pete Edited August 20, 2021 by PeterB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 21, 2021 Author Share Posted August 21, 2021 (edited) So! final update time! Once I was happy with the decals I hit the whole thing with a couple of coats of varnish to protect them then got stuck into some weathering. This is the first time I've bothered to weather a model properly so its not the best job in the world but I'm pretty happy with the results. I decided that given the state of the decals in some places and the questionable painting of the black stripes in others, I would go quite heavy with the weathering to try and simulate an aircraft that is in fact in the middle of a war and has probably hasn't had a fresh coat of paint or a clean in a while. I started with a dark wash over the whole model. I didnt leave it to dry completely before cleaning it off but I gave it several applications to get to a level I was happy with. Next picture is after a couple of coats on the wings. Next up I hit it in some areas with oil paints, I followed the Adam Savage School of weathering which mostly consists of "cover it with paint and then clean as much as you can off with a rag" I did have an "after" picture to go with this one but my phone decided not to save it properly. I also hit some select areas with a small spot of the oils and then used a dry/clean brush to streak it in the direction of air flow, heaviest around the guns and to a lesser extent behind the exhausts. Starboard wing with the paint applied and the port wing after hitting it with the clean brush On the underside I took some light brown wash and used the airbrush to blow it off the brush to splash the rear of the plane behind the landing gear, the idea was to simulate dirt and water being kicked up by the wheels during landing and take off staining the underside of the aircraft. I'm not sure how accurate this is but I liked the look and google wasn't forthcoming with pictures of the underside of real mustangs (other than the high polish mirror chrome of the ones still flying today.) Propeller assembled with a little CA glue and attached to the model Drop tanks also attached in the picture above, I managed to loose the decals for the filler caps so painted them with a little fire red. I've left the tanks mostly un-weathered with the idea that they were new when the plane took off. Then came more faffing about with the spinner, I had been putting it off but I was out of excuses! @Alex Gordon this was a nice idea and with enough time it might have worked but I couldn't get it centred enough on the drill to get a result I was happy with. After cleaning it off with some isopropal again.... I tried spraying it using a circle template as a mask, while it sort of worked, I would have needed about 6 arms to hold everything in place and move round it with the air brush to paint the blue band so I ditched that idea. Executive decision made. She's getting a red nose. And there she is, I'm really happy with the end result on this one, its by far the best one I've built yet and I've learned a lot in the process. And here she is with the other aircraft I've built this year since I got back into the hobby, the JU88 is the most recent, all brush painted, the Mustang is the first one with the airbrush. Thanks very much for reading, I know it took a while to get going at the start! and thanks for having me. My first Group build has been a blast and I've loved following along with everyone else's projects. And thank you for all the kind words along the way, although I do sometimes feel I'm not worthy to be amongst the talent on display around here! Thanks very much to @PlaStix for hosting! I can't wait for the next one. I have a few better pictures with better lighting which I'll post in the gallery shortly. Edited August 21, 2021 by Ravnos forgot something 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 26, 2021 Share Posted August 26, 2021 A great result, well worth all the effort and hard work you put in. Very well done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted August 26, 2021 Author Share Posted August 26, 2021 54 minutes ago, modelling minion said: Very well done. Thanks , I can't take all the credit though, the kit was really nice to build and made life easy on the construction phase. I'm tempted to see if I can crack out another quick and dirty build before the end of the GB, I've acquired a couple of kits that were less than a tenner recently, a week and a half might be pushing it though 🤣 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaStix Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 That really is an absolutely beautiful looking Mustang and it looks utterly superb in the Gallery! Awesome modelling. Kind regards, Stix 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos Posted September 1, 2021 Author Share Posted September 1, 2021 (edited) 50 minutes ago, PlaStix said: That really is an absolutely beautiful looking Mustang and it looks utterly superb in the Gallery! Awesome modelling. Kind regards, Stix Thanks Stix, I am quite proud of this one, comparing it to the wee hurricane which was only built about 6 months ago was pretty satisfying I learned a lot with this one too so hopefully I'll be able to take it up a notch with the next big one. Edited September 1, 2021 by Ravnos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaStix Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 Hi Ravnos. You certainly should be proud of your build and thank you very much for building it in this GB. Kind regards, Stix 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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