BillF67 Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 The first in what I hope to be a series of all the 17 Sqn aircraft. Almost a veteran now - this is my 3rd aircraft! ”Pilot Officer Leonard Walter Stevens of No.17 Squadron received Hurricane N2359 as a replacement for an earlier aircraft damaged in combat with the Luftwaffe on 11th August 1940 and applied some rather elaborate artwork to the port side of his Hurricane. It was extremely unusual for RAF fighters to carry any form of unauthorised artwork during the Battle of Britain, so the sight of a ‘Winged Popeye’ must have caused quite a stir around Debden airfield, although they would have had more important matters at hand. Pilot Officer Leonard W Stevens served with No.17 Squadron throughout the Battle of Britain, only to be killed in a mid-air collision between two Spitfires in May 0 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 6, 2021 Author Share Posted September 6, 2021 I should have said brush painted freehand with Mig acrylics (Dark Earth, Dark Green and Duck Egg Green). The transfers were an add on. First time i have used any like this. They were so thin! Getting them off the backing paper and on to the kit was horrendous. I’m also pants at canopies. I tried masks but they slipped all over the place and left icky goo everywhere🤬 - and yes, I had given it a good wash beforehand. So back to paint and scrape. Why can’t someone sell a canopy frame with a clear insert? the other side and from above Thanks for looking. I’m ready for straight talk criticism now🙏🥴👍 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 15 minutes ago, BillF67 said: The first in what I hope to be a series of all the 17 Sqn aircraft. Almost a veteran now - this is my 3rd aircraft! Always good to get projects finished. Are you after feedback/critique at all? One aesthetic suggestion, a couple of pics on a cutting mat does not flatter any model. Even a large sheet of paper curved up at the back is better display, as it focuses attention on the model. If you have external space, natural light/back ground can be more flattering. my photo 'set up' is laughably crude, a very old faded and stained baize topped card table, the baize fading and staining double for a grass matt, on a storage box , I live by a park, so can use that as a background, a macro lens tends to blur the background. see here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235073488-spitfire-pr-xix-airfix-72nd-as-i-thought-it-would-be-easy/page/2/#elControls_3698616_menu Oh, my camera 2nd generation digital job, basically the same as the first I had to play with 15 years ago.... I got the same model via ebay, £5 posted. Obsolete point and shoot. I personally like playing with photos when i actually finish a model.... 25 or so years ago when I actually got a camera, one of the first things I had a go at was one the model I had finished a few years before. .... http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2011/11/troy-smiths-tamiya-148th-hayate.html again.... one day in the erm, 'rewilded' garden .... i both cases though the model is raised up so I can get low down. hope of use, and inspires you to have a go, cheers T 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 6, 2021 Author Share Posted September 6, 2021 Always up for criticism. Points about staging are valid. I will buck up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 1 minute ago, BillF67 said: Always up for criticism. some points are obviously not your fault, as detailed below 14 minutes ago, BillF67 said: Mig acrylics (Dark Earth, Dark Green and Duck Egg Green Some at Mig has a poor idea of what RAF colours look like! see here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235078859-accuracy-of-ammo-by-mig-jiménez-raf-wwii-colours/ Not your fault, you buy paint set in good faith. basically the brown is way too dark, the green is too saturated and bright. Looking at a B/W pic you used the darker colour to match the darker tones, so inverting the top colours. * The decals I'll bet are Sky Decals, as the grey of their codes is far too light, again, not your fault, but still blinkin' annoying. one small glitch. Neat pant job though, good brushwork. one you may not be aware of, roundels are factory applied*, so they are always in the same place, and there are guides for their position. See here https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Camouflage-Markings/Hawker-Hurricane whole thing is really worth reading, note drawings on page 19. So from above, the fuselage roundels are in the same place/alignment. * except for the underwing, which came and went, and are subject to many variations in position, size and style.... again, see linked monograph! YB-J didn't have them which makes life easier..... yellow props tips are 4 icnhes, which works out as 1/18th of an inch in 72nd, which isn't on any ruler.... 1 minute ago, BillF67 said: Points about staging are valid. Is there anywhere on the allotment maybe? Experiment a bit, I can link you to a site with masses of photos suitable for backgrounds, if you have a printer, and a bit of grass matting. * I'm very very cross about acrylic RAF paints..... I have various paints, and naïvely thought they were OK until i started checking against my RAF Museum colour chips.... grrrrrr...... and then spent weeks working on mixes, which is another 'work in progress' plus i have a Hurricane that probably will need stripping as it now has too many layers of things in the wrong colours.... It's not like these are an obscure subject ..... or the colours are not known. The Spanish paint companies seem to be particularly bad, but I also found Xtracrylix poor matches awe well. Humbrol 90 and 29 i believe are not too bad, but older Humbrol acrylic seems to have fine sand mixed into it. Humbrol 30 dark green has been an awful far to blue match for RAF DArk Green since the 1970's and Airfix need to re-formulate the colour or reprint all their instructions that recommend that abomination, which is most of them.... I hope this is not all too much.... I mean it's supposed to be a relaxing hobby. The model though, very neat and tidy, smooth paint, no seams, everything looks well aligned, Hope the witter is of use? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 6, 2021 Author Share Posted September 6, 2021 Wow. Who would have thought painting a model aeroplane could be so tricky? Totally understand about the placement of the transfers but, to be honest, by the time I’d actually got one on to the model I went for the closest I could get. The surface tension of decalfix kept turning the 🤬things inside out. I live and learn, though. This is a big step forward in quality for me and “neat and tidy” works! Next up will hopefully show an improvement. Thanks for taking the time. Bill 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 1 hour ago, BillF67 said: The surface tension of decalfix kept turning the 🤬things inside out. Decals vary, and can be tricky. Surface tension can be lowered with flow improver if you use that with acrylic paint. I make up a small syringe of 95% de-ionised water to 5% flow improver, but if you don't have even a tiny amount of washing up liquid may work. If you have any, you can use Kleer/Future as a decal agent, I find this works very well https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235038987-bedding-decals-in-klear-future-or-equivalent/ Again, worth trying a spare decal, as they can vary greatly. EG i see lots of complaints about Tamiya decals being thick... when it seems they have heat activated glue ... https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235008098-dealing-with-thick-decals-ie-tamiya/#elControls_2464801_menu I'm a bit lazy, and if I find something that works, try to build on it. I have also spent years reading threads on here and seeing how folks do different things, (hence knowing where to find the threads above) and why my sig line about 'if it works for you' is there. 1 hour ago, BillF67 said: Wow. Who would have thought painting a model aeroplane could be so tricky? It depends on what you want. Your model to do with as you wish, but having gone down the rabbit hole a while back, it all makes 'sense' to me But, I was mixing colours up to recipes in Scale Models 40 years ago as a teenager, so you can draw your own conclusions as to my sanity on these matters The linked thread did bring up one really enlightening post for me, this https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235078859-accuracy-of-ammo-by-mig-jiménez-raf-wwii-colours/page/3/#elControls_4045174_menu in short, the real paints tend be low saturation, and fairly simple mixes of specific pigments. Stated better by this "6) I'd venture that most of the "there was a war on, you know" type apologists for such spectacular errors probably don't have any actual experience of what is and isn't possible when mixing different proportions of 2,3 or 4 pigments when 2 of those are usually black and white just to make your base to tint. You simply cannot end up with a Humbrol 30-esque bluish green using only the ingredients to make olive - i.e. you'd actually have to sabotage it by introducing if not blue then an obviously bluish green. Same goes for that bright green Spitfire above - you can't achieve that with black, white, ochre and a touch of red - you'd need to fire in a lot of bright green pigment in to get that saturated on an overly-light base. It would be more tan-like just using the basic olive green ingredients which only turns obviously olive when tinted enough with black. Put another way, with a fixed number of pigments in various ratios you WILL end up somewhere within a certain envelope, and usually when colours like this bright green are discussed it's because it's well outside that envelope." Anyway, I hope the feedback is of use, you may wish to consider doing a work in progress build, being condescending and unhelpful is very frowned upon here, and it's very helpful getting feedback and hints and tips. Hope of some use, if you are doing 17 Sq, is this on the list? https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Hurricane/RAF-17Sqn-YB/images/Hawker-Hurricane-I-RAF-17Sqn-YBL-Z5826-01.jpg I've seen this profiled as desert colours, it not, it's Day Fighter Scheme,. note the non standard upperwing roundels, and the lighter patch from just above the L, from behind the roundel to the tail is the remains of temporary white ID markings applied when being flown across Africa, in case of a forced landing, to make them visible from the air for rescue and salvage. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 6, 2021 Author Share Posted September 6, 2021 It wasn’t and I have a lot of others to get through! Next is a MK14e Spitfire (Ginger Lacey). My second attempt at this as my AZ effort went spectacularly wrong😭 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted September 7, 2021 Share Posted September 7, 2021 17 hours ago, BillF67 said: Next is a MK14e Spitfire (Ginger Lacey). perhaps of interest/use, the actual site search is not great, but if you add Britmodeller into a google search that works well. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234937971-ginger-laceys-spitfire-xiv-rn135/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235086719-ginger-laceys-spitfire-mk-xiv-wing/ Here's a build of the AZ kit https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235004439-172-az-models-supermarine-spitfire-fmk-xiv/ Look forward to the model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 7, 2021 Author Share Posted September 7, 2021 I looked at those when I tried building it first off. Blame myself, not the excellent postings😖 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ModelingEdmontonian Posted September 7, 2021 Share Posted September 7, 2021 @BillF67, always nice to see Hurricanes! I've learned lots from @Troy Smith too as I've been completing Hurricanes as well (he is BOTH very knowledgeable and very generous with his knowledge!). I have two Airfix kits on my bench right now. I'm not bothering with masking the canopies, although of course that creates problems too! P.S. Further to comments re: photos, would love to see the underside 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 7, 2021 Author Share Posted September 7, 2021 (edited) I thought I’d posted one - it was two uppers! The memsahib is in the “Craft Room” on her sewing machine. I’ll post a shot later. And from below. I expect that the colour is wrong as it’s Mig Duck Egg Green. Edited September 7, 2021 by BillF67 Update 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 8, 2021 Author Share Posted September 8, 2021 First effort at improving my presentation. Needs work, but given that I don’t have an artistic bone in my body…….. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted September 8, 2021 Share Posted September 8, 2021 19 hours ago, BillF67 said: I expect that the colour is wrong as it’s Mig Duck Egg Green. The Sky look OK, it's a pale yellow green, that's a pale yellow green. One point. Roundels do not overlap control surfaces. The RAF was very particular about painting control surfaces, as if you get it wrong and it can destroy the balance of them.... not what you want. i the 1930's a Fury squadron had checks painted on the elevators, and continual retouching caused a crash, or after that, it was very carefully regulated. 21 minutes ago, BillF67 said: First effort at improving my presentation. Needs work, but given that I don’t have an artistic bone in my body…….. Much better. the white strip is the only 'jarring' aspect, one 'trick' and that is on Flickr is easy to do, take a photo further away, and then crop it it using Flickr photo editor, can be easier than trying to get in close, you can concentrate on how you ant the shot posed, and then trim out any background you don't want. . You can do it in paint or any graphics program. It's not about being artistic, more about composition, and that's OK above. plus with digital, you can play about easily, not like waiting until you get the pics back from the developers.... try a series, varying angle and the like, and then look through and see which work better. You mention the 'memsahib' is into sewing, you might want to ask her about photos, a bit of input can be helpful, but, compare the above with 'cutting mat and kit boxes' and it really quite a difference.... bit like sticking a cordon bleu meal on a paper plate... 'the first bite is with the eye' I'm glad my comments have been taken constructively, and used to good effect. You may want to edit your first post, and put your newly posed shot at top. look forward to more cheers T 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 8, 2021 Author Share Posted September 8, 2021 Thanks Troy, most especially about roundel overlap. Nearly 70 and I didn’t know that! As always, any criticism welcomed. It’s how we improve👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 8, 2021 Author Share Posted September 8, 2021 Now I have a query. Looking at a photo of YB-J and comparing it to “a” profile, is the tail marking wrong? It looks to me like there is only white and blue in the photo? I can’t pick up any change from camouflage to red. The aerial is wrong as well, but I knew that😎 This profile also shows Dark Earth continuing under the tail planes, but a close look at the photo shows that this doesn’t happen. There is a clear straight cut off where the panel line is depicted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted September 8, 2021 Share Posted September 8, 2021 This is almost certainly an example where the front part of the fin is all Red, a fairly common misunderstanding of the AM's intentions. The vertical line under the tail is not just a panel but a significant kink in the fuselage shape: the dark is due to shadow. Were it Dark Green camouflage it would not be vertical. I'm sure Troy (and others?) can provide many photos showing how the camouflage continues under the tail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 8, 2021 Author Share Posted September 8, 2021 I’m sure you are correct - although this photo shows more clearly what I meant. I’m probably wrong but it doesn’t look like shadow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted September 8, 2021 Share Posted September 8, 2021 The upper photo looks more clearly like a shadow. However, I can be quite definite about a kink being there in the fuselage, and that the camouflage patterns did not show straight lines. I can't offhand swear that the Hurricane wasn't regularly painted without a patch of Dark Green, or any other dark paint, under the tailplane. However you can check that by browsing the other Hurricane postings here as easily as I can, and you will find it more convincing than my word alone. Obviously, I cannot say that no-one ever painted a dark patch on this particular Hurricane - but why should they? I think the question can be answered by Occam's Razor - what is the simplest explanation that answers all the queries. I think that a shadow is that explanation. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted September 8, 2021 Share Posted September 8, 2021 9 hours ago, BillF67 said: but it doesn’t look like shadow? as your model underside picture shows, the fuselage bends in just inf front of the tail wheel. and the light is coming from almost directly ahead, Also, the panel is usually metal, the rest fabric, and the fabric often appears lighter. Also, it's a removable panel, note the fabric panel in the YB is darker, maybe given a wipe to remove exhaust deposits when off the plane, and thus giving it an even coating of gunk. 9 hours ago, BillF67 said: Now I have a query. Looking at a photo of YB-J and comparing it to “a” profile, is the tail marking wrong? It looks to me like there is only white and blue in the photo? I can’t pick up any change from camouflage to red. The aerial is wrong as well, but I knew that😎 This profile also shows Dark Earth continuing under the tail planes, but a close look at the photo shows that this doesn’t happen. There is a clear straight cut off where the panel line is depicted. year ago I found the dual image, posted it up as an example of a poor profile. 1. prop look like a late bullet Rotol. Both 17 and 85 sq were using flight coloured spinners, but some of 17 may have just used Sky, as the spinner is visible from below. 2. no underwing roundel 3. winged popeye is too small, and apprently he's holding a Tommy gun. 4 Code letters - too small, and too slim, so in wring place 5 roundel proportion is wrong, and look wrong size 6 serial is wrong size and position. 7 aerial is wrong type 8 fin flash is wrong proportions and lack red leading edge. which is why I have my sig line..... there is another profile here, slighly better, but still wrong. from 2007, This one has just been trotted out again in the Valiant Wings book BTW. Richard Caruauna, he does a staggering amount of work, and mistakes and errors in his work are legion. An author who did a book on camo and markings, Caruana did the profiles, he said he was a very amiable and pleasant chap, but yoi had to hammer him over the details. here's the real JX-B P3395 ref photo, note the same attention to detail in the profile.... Not sure if I linked this before https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Camouflage-Markings/Hawker-Hurricane old but still the best primer, as it explains what happened when and why. Long OOP as well. I see I linked it above, of well. Still worth a read. 10 hours ago, BillF67 said: most especially about roundel overlap. Nearly 70 and I didn’t know that! Lots of thinns I no little or nothing about, this is an area I study. 10 hours ago, BillF67 said: As always, any criticism welcomed. It’s how we improve It' a tricky area, critiquing people work, I will add comments if asked, I'll sometime suggest thing that can be solved easily, and I try to stress the positives. If you can be bothered, do a work in progress. It's a great way to learn and improve, and I really like one from members who are learning, as they encourage others that they can do it, learn and improve their skills. I spent years on here researching and working on fixes until I had my space 'right' , and airbrush set up, and a load of other things, and they were just not going to happen. In the end I forced myself to do a Hurricane OOB and finish it. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235052380-hurricane-airfix-72nd-fabric-wing-mki-oob/ Things about it I'm not happy with, but I like it more than it's faults. And I enjoyed it. I do on occasion get disheartened with more involved projects, as you put more effort in and the get worried about messing it up... This one I almost wrote off. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235073488-spitfire-pr-xix-airfix-72nd-as-i-thought-it-would-be-easy/ anyway, if you want more of my witter, read the links, there's lots in them HTH 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapam Posted September 10, 2021 Share Posted September 10, 2021 Nice model, Mate! I love the "flying Popeye" art on this plane. Well done! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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