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Feedback needed on our Early Mark Spitfires and BF109E Profiles


WLJayne

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Hi all! Thanks so much for all the help you've given Bryan and I so far. Antonis has been busy creating some more profiles for us to use with our 1/144 BoB kit series! As always, we really appreciate the eagle eyed feedback we get on these and the community is an invaluable asset in making this models the best they can be. The first profile that we have ready for inspection is K9795, thankfully the Wingleader book goes into a lot if detail about this so we've been able to stay very true to the best information out there. So here it is, we hope you like it! Full album here: https://imgur.com/a/qOt1Kte

 

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We've decided to change our other pre-war Mk.I Spit to what we believe is K9799, but we're not sure. Can anyone help us confirm, or at least reassure us that it's a likely candidate for the aircraft in the photos taken at Duxford in May 1939.

 

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We believe that like the profile for K9806 that is also shown in the Wingleader book, WZ-C would have had night and white undersides but full sized Type B roundels on the upper wings. The serials on these aircraft appear to have been painted over on the press day, however another photo of WZ-C shows "K7" so perhaps this was only a temporary censorship measure?

 

Any tips on this aircraft would be greatly appreciated! We'll have more profiles ready for inspection soon and I hope that you will join in and help us make them as good as we can get them. Many thanks!

 

Will & Bryan.

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I have been researching WZ-C, using the photos we have of this aircraft with additional references from http://www.rafchurchfenton.com/supermarine-spitfire-camouflage-and-markings/

 

Testing out different sizes on the vector model, I believe that the squadron code letters were 30" and slightly narrower at 4," with the 25" Type B fuselage roundel. This seems to fit most closely to the photographs of both the left and right sides of the aircraft. I tried 24" letters and they looked far too small, and 5" width looked too bold at 30". The upper wing roundels are clearly 56" so that's easy at least.

 

What do you think? It's a bit of a best guess, but a couple of other profiles I've seen - even in the markings book - don't look right at all to me. The template I've used is our later Mk.1, but don't worry there's a flat canopy and two bladed prop in the kit! 

 

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Edited by WLJayne
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Hallo

 

What you're doing sounds good.

But I want to give you a few thoughts on this.

Firstly:

During the war, photographers were true artists and masters of retouching.

Maybe you know this technique.

A lot has been added by retouching and just as much has been omitted by retouching.

Retouching started with the first public photo.

In war times, always with the purpose of deceiving the viewer.

Today many modelers who belong to the younger generation forget this or do not even know it.

What these artists achieved, most people still do not manage with Photoshop today.

So please remember.

The IAF was a good example of this until the end of the censorship.

Only in Israel were the quality of work of censors far out not as good as those in WWII on all sides.

 

Second:

There are techniques from the field of descriptive geometry, how one can reconstruct an picture from an image or photo with the central perspective and thus arrive at the real geometric dimensions of the object itself.

In your case it concerns the letters or the circular diameter of a roundel.

If you can do that, then you save yourself guessing.

Well, who can do that?

Here in Austria I learned that at the Technical University in descriptive geometry.

Maybe you know someone who can do that.

 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rekonstruktion_(Darstellende_Geometrie)

 

Unfortunately I couldn't find an English link to it.

This also applies to exact translations in this subject area.

Translate that with the translator and think about it. Otherwise I'll help you.

 

Happy modelling

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Thanks Dov! Yes there was a lot of censoring, editing and retouching! For example the serials were painted over (which you can see in another aircraft photograph from this press day) but normally they would have been shown. Sadly without a time machine we can never no for sure, and the more I research these early BoB aircraft, the more it's clear that sometimes there is no conclusive answer just "best educated guesses." But as long as modellers are happy that a model or profile is based on the best evidence we have, then that's good. The descriptive geometry thing is a bit beyond me! I usually just snip images apart in photoshop and measure them if the angle is good, otherwise I try to recreate the perspective in 3D and change the sizes of the markings until it looks like the photo, which seems to work fairly well.

 

But I'm glad you think it looks good, we're happy with it too and I think we will use this to make our profile.

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Hallo

The easiest thing to get proportins right us also based on geometry. Look for any distinktive object or panel intersection or a screw or anything you think is outstanding and the letter you want to have the real size. And get in proportins. The affinity of proportions in the horizontal or vertical can be used. Distance A to distance B. Is for instance 2.5 . As your first profile in this post: The size of the K in proportion to the intersection of horizontal panel lines. The K would be 2 and a half times smaler. According to such doing you can tetermine relativly exactly what you want! Affinity in proportions is the key.

Happy modelling 

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24 minutes ago, dov said:

Hallo

The easiest thing to get proportins right us also based on geometry. Look for any distinktive object or panel intersection or a screw or anything you think is outstanding and the letter you want to have the real size. And get in proportins. The affinity of proportions in the horizontal or vertical can be used. Distance A to distance B. Is for instance 2.5 . As your first profile in this post: The size of the K in proportion to the intersection of horizontal panel lines. The K would be 2 and a half times smaler. According to such doing you can tetermine relativly exactly what you want! Affinity in proportions is the key.

Happy modelling 

That's exactly how I have been thinking about it yes 😁! I will show the complete profile when it is done, and then I'll need to work on QV-H and DW-O.

 

Will.

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Roundel diameters were fairly consistent (accept when the outer yellow ring was reintroduced mid 1940).    In this case the 25 inch fuselage is certain, then just blowing up the image so the roundel fits this measurement gives a good benchmark to measure other details - of course a decent profile photo makes calculations more accurate.  The posted measurements are what I arrive at, with code height being a guesstimate that takes in consideration the fuselage curvature.

 

regards,

Jack 

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21 hours ago, JackG said:

Roundel diameters were fairly consistent (accept when the outer yellow ring was reintroduced mid 1940).    In this case the 25 inch fuselage is certain, then just blowing up the image so the roundel fits this measurement gives a good benchmark to measure other details - of course a decent profile photo makes calculations more accurate.  The posted measurements are what I arrive at, with code height being a guesstimate that takes in consideration the fuselage curvature.

 

regards,

Jack 

I'm very glad you agree Jack! 

 

 

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Regarding the 19 Sdn WZ aircraft, they are a real can of worms.  You can just make out a faint paint over area where the original type A1 roundels were. Which means the upper and side roundels were not the full specified size.  The undersurface are indeed white and night (not black) but aileron undersides are left in silver.  At least on WZ-B, on the white side there are "ghosts' of the former type A roundel and a rectangle where the serial had been over painted, suggesting there was a prior stage before the white/night undersuefaces were added. 

 

 

 

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Hallo

One thing more in geometry: A british roundel is a circle for the template you use for spraying it in the workshop! Correct me please if I am wrong. So on the fuselage in your profile you never see a circle. It is also not an ellipse. It is an egg shaped curve, to design it from the cross section. If you need the method to design it, let me know.

Also on the wing, the same. The distortion of the circle is different. 

The true diameter on the fuselage is in horizontal direction.

I hope you got my idea!

Happy modelling 

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3 hours ago, dov said:

Hallo

One thing more in geometry: A british roundel is a circle for the template you use for spraying it in the workshop! Correct me please if I am wrong. So on the fuselage in your profile you never see a circle. It is also not an ellipse. It is an egg shaped curve, to design it from the cross section. If you need the method to design it, let me know.

Also on the wing, the same. The distortion of the circle is different. 

The true diameter on the fuselage is in horizontal direction.

I hope you got my idea!

Happy modelling 

 

I think at 1/144 the result will be pretty much imperceptible, but yes I can see what you mean!

 

1 hour ago, ClaudioN said:

Take care with aircraft serial font shape. The profile of K9795 shows the serial in typical post-war style: I believe pre-war they were slightly but noticeably different, in this case number '5' in particular.

Yeh I have noticed this too, the decals are being designed separately and I will be sure to match the serials as closely as possible. I'll see what I can do about the profile in photoshop :).

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6 hours ago, jimmaas said:

Regarding the 19 Sdn WZ aircraft, they are a real can of worms.  You can just make out a faint paint over area where the original type A1 roundels were. Which means the upper and side roundels were not the full specified size.  The undersurface are indeed white and night (not black) but aileron undersides are left in silver.  At least on WZ-B, on the white side there are "ghosts' of the former type A roundel and a rectangle where the serial had been over painted, suggesting there was a prior stage before the white/night undersuefaces were added. 

 

 

 

The side ones definitely weren't, yes. Though on the Duxford photograph, you can just about make out the wing roundel extending from the leading edge to the aileron which would make it the 56" Type B which was standard from then on.

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10 hours ago, WLJayne said:

I think at 1/144 the result will be pretty much imperceptible, but yes I can see what you mean!

Just to mention: It is not a matter of scale! The distortion is in proportion to the original always the same!

Please look at some paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo.

On the other side to postcards painted by Adolf Hitler.

In his postcards the shades are always wrong. He had no clue about geometry.

It simple hurts the eye, on the other side the paintings of Lonardo and Michelangilo it is a pleasure a warmth, what an art is like.

Leonarddo's paintings are much better, because he understood more about vision of the edge or border of the object.

 

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/leonardo-s-legacy-francesco-melzi-and-the-leonardeschi

https://www.wikiart.org/de/leonardo-da-vinci

 

opposite:

 

https://historyofyesterday.com/how-michelangelo-ended-up-in-the-school-of-athens-painting-of-raphael-639c658d0d5a

 

negative opposite:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintings_by_Adolf_Hitler

 

Second: This causes at most decal sheets the errors when placing decals and stencils.

Worse on camo shemes!

 

Think about it!

 

Happy modelling

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On 15/10/2021 at 00:51, WLJayne said:

I have been researching WZ-C, using the photos we have of this aircraft with additional references from http://www.rafchurchfenton.com/supermarine-spitfire-camouflage-and-markings/

 

Testing out different sizes on the vector model, I believe that the squadron code letters were 30" and slightly narrower at 4," with the 25" Type B fuselage roundel. This seems to fit most closely to the photographs of both the left and right sides of the aircraft. I tried 24" letters and they looked far too small, and 5" width looked too bold at 30". The upper wing roundels are clearly 56" so that's easy at least.

 

What do you think? It's a bit of a best guess, but a couple of other profiles I've seen - even in the markings book - don't look right at all to me. The template I've used is our later Mk.1, but don't worry there's a flat canopy and two bladed prop in the kit! 

 

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The colours look OK to my eye, but I think you just need to look a little closer at your images to see where the letters are. And their style. Among other things, the "W" strokes are wider and it does not extend on to the accumulator stowage door like the drawingspacer.pngMany details are mirrored of course, along with various other small mistakes and the underside of the wing shows details more suitable for a "B type" wing.

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4 hours ago, wmcgill said:

The colours look OK to my eye, but I think you just need to look a little closer at your images to see where the letters are. And their style. Among other things, the "W" strokes are wider and it does not extend on to the accumulator stowage door like the drawingspacer.pngMany details are mirrored of course, along with various other small mistakes and the underside of the wing shows details more suitable for a "B type" wing.

Also just realized that it's the wrong camouflage scheme! Should be B scheme but for is A scheme [facepalm.] I'll see what I can do about the other areas.

 

I'm never touching early Spitfires again, honestly.

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So I've been building some templates to generate different schemes with, while also using it to build individual schemes. Here what I have so far on K9799 WZ-C, key points are:

 

- B scheme with underside line below engine cowl panel line.

- No red gun port colours.

- Night and white undersides, no stencils.

- Serial number shown (painted over on photos from 1939 press day at Duxford.)

 

These are vectors taken from out actual 1/144 model, and there are some minor compromises on exact detail - for example the fastidious modeller will have to scratch build the anti-spin device on the tail, and add the panel lines to the fuel tank to be true to the early Mk.I Spitfires. This kit was designed to represent later marks but with option parts for the early Mk.I, so we know it's not a "perfect" early Mk.I but we couldn't have made a standalone early Mk.I with these tiny detail changes. I hope that modellers will forgive us when they are reaching for the panel line saw 😁! Colours taken from Colourcoats chips.

 

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Thoughts are appreciated as always, and at least on these images it is quite simple to make corrections, which is not the case for poor Antonis and his photorealistic renders. We think we will use these as the painting and marking instructions, and put the rendered images on the back of the boxes.

 

Will.

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4 hours ago, WLJayne said:

So I've been building some templates to generate different schemes with, while also using it to build individual schemes. Here what I have so far on K9799 WZ-C, key points are:

 

- B scheme with underside line below engine cowl panel line.

- No red gun port colours.

- Night and white undersides, no stencils.

- Serial number shown (painted over on photos from 1939 press day at Duxford.)

 

These are vectors taken from out actual 1/144 model, and there are some minor compromises on exact detail - for example the fastidious modeller will have to scratch build the anti-spin device on the tail, and add the panel lines to the fuel tank to be true to the early Mk.I Spitfires. This kit was designed to represent later marks but with option parts for the early Mk.I, so we know it's not a "perfect" early Mk.I but we couldn't have made a standalone early Mk.I with these tiny detail changes. I hope that modellers will forgive us when they are reaching for the panel line saw 😁! Colours taken from Colourcoats chips.

 

spacer.png

 

Thoughts are appreciated as always, and at least on these images it is quite simple to make corrections, which is not the case for poor Antonis and his photorealistic renders. We think we will use these as the painting and marking instructions, and put the rendered images on the back of the boxes.

 

Will.

Just look at the reference photos. Look closely. Just about EVERYTHING is slightly wrong when compared with a photo. The roundle is too small. The "W" font you have used is wrong. Additionally the W, Z, roundle & C are all positioned progressively too far rearward. In the port side view, the radiator should be white. Other things as well but that list is already long enough. Admittedly most modellers will not notice or even care. Maybe you care or maybe you don't. But you do APPEAR to care and appear to want to get things right. I think if you really want to be taken seriously you might need to look a lot more closely at the available references. spacer.pngspacer.png

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20 hours ago, wmcgill said:

Just look at the reference photos. Look closely. Just about EVERYTHING is slightly wrong when compared with a photo. The roundle is too small. The "W" font you have used is wrong. Additionally the W, Z, roundle & C are all positioned progressively too far rearward. In the port side view, the radiator should be white. Other things as well but that list is already long enough. Admittedly most modellers will not notice or even care. Maybe you care or maybe you don't. But you do APPEAR to care and appear to want to get things right. I think if you really want to be taken seriously you might need to look a lot more closely at the available references. spacer.pngspacer.png

 

Good spot RE the radiator, that's an easy re-colour and will be the same on all Night and White schemes. I agree about the roundel and will play around with the letters too. Most of the work has gone into making a nice B scheme template that I can use for other profiles as well as this one. I very much doubt that I'll get to a solution that everyone sees as entirely correct, there's so much guesswork and interpretation here - but if I can nudge it as close as I can then I will. But ultimately, we have 30 schemes to do so there will have to be a point where it's "good enough" and send it to print without spending too much time noodling. Also the W's all look different in those Duxford photos haha! The slightest variation in the masking seems to change the finished shape, but again I'll try to move it around until it looks right. I didn't use a font, they're vectored from scratch as there is no correct font. It probably looks completely different on the port side, but unfortunately the only port side photo of this aircraft has the hatch down obscuring the W.

 

As long as there are no major errors due to research laziness, I hope they'll be treated fairly favourably. Like you said, most won't care and retailers will take hundreds of boxes from us whether we bother with careful research or not. But I take pride in my work, and even though I'm wearing a nearly unmanageable number of hats in this endeavour, I definitely want to try to do it right 🙂

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21 hours ago, WLJayne said:

I didn't use a font, they're vectored from scratch as there is no correct font. It probably looks completely different on the port side,

Excellent news, as too often a 'near font' is used. 

 

An observation, as the letters were likely painted by the same groundcrew man,  ideally with some signwriting skills, they do tend have their own personal 'font'  , while photos of planes from this era of both sides are rare,  and there is massive variation between squadrons,  code letters in the same squadron are usually consistent, (there are of course exceptions)  painting these is not an unskilled job, or at least laying them out isn't,  you need some training as a signwriter for that.    Anyone curious try chalking out 3 feet high letters on a wall and you soon find it's not easy to do, even with a ruler and a level, let alone on fuselage curved in both directions.

I think it's rather easy when dealing with models to forget about how they were done full scale.  

 

I've not found film of serial letters being applied, but there is film of serial and roundels in a factory,  see here

note the digits are chalked on and then filled in, and the skill of both painters.    

 

 

HTH 

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19 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

code letters in the same squadron are usually consistent, (there are of course exceptions) 

That's what we've observed too - there are tiny variations but only insofar as these were hand painted. I'm going to set about making some more corrections this evening and then I'm hoping I'll be able to move on to our three Mk.Ia profiles (the twin set and dogfight set.)

 

Will.

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