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Kit camouflage instructions - hard work or is it me?


Mark Harmsworth

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This might be just me but I often struggle to make sense of kit instructions for camouflage schemes.

 

I give this as an example  - as it's my current project. The Hasegawa 1:72 Lancaster B Mk.I / B Mk.III.

 

3GIewGoh.jpg

 

I have marked scheme 2: 'S' for Sugar in May '44. The left side view compares fairly well with the top view - although if you start to look closely discrepancies appear. But the right side view is just wrong and doesn't match the top view at all. At this point I realised that the right side is simply a copy of the left. I'm not doing any of these schemes but was intending to use the painting guide for the camouflage.

 

I'm not complaining about the Hasegawa instructions in particular; my point is that I seem to struggle with kit camouflage instructions quite regularly and I find it frustrating. In the end what generally happens is I go to other references.

 

I sometimes get the impression that the top down and the side views have been drawn by different people who have been kept in separate locations and not allowed to communicate.

 

The benefit of the Lancaster of course is that with such a high line for the black it is fairly straightforward to work out what the right side should actually look like.

 

Thanks for listening.

Mark

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Definitely a mirrored version as @alt-92 says. At least you can still differentiate between the different shades of greyscale unlike some manufacturer's instructions which resemble a picture of a Myna bird in a coal mine.

 

Dave

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I know the feeling and generally do not use kit instructions for camouflage patterns. Instead I try to obtain more general drawings and/or look at photos.

 

That said, most photos are not very good at helping with the patterns, but occasionally they solve a specific question.

 

I build mostly British subjects and here we are helped by the fact that the schemes are fairly rigidly adhered to; if you have one, you have all.

 

The problem is then to transfer this knowledge to masks on the model  and this is where outmost care is what is required.

 

HTH Finn

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Kit marking instructions are notoriously bad across all manufacturers. Most just don't do the basic research. True, there are some who do a good job, but not many.  I always use better reference than what the instructions say. Regards, Pete in RI

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14 hours ago, europapete said:

Kit marking instructions are notoriously bad across all manufacturers. Most just don't do the basic research. True, there are some who do a good job, but not many.  I always use better reference than what the instructions say. Regards, Pete in RI

It's not just kit manufacturers.  It also crops up with official patterns.  Remember how on the wrap around SEA scheme for F-4s the bottom did not match the rest of the camo scheme!  The Air Force must have pinched the guy who drew that scheme from the Army as if you try to build an M151 Mutt Jeep with the hard top in the four color MERC scheme, the scheme for the soft top (I have yet to come across a hard top scheme and from the few photos it looks like they used the soft top pattern) the colors for the front and rear do not match up to the sides!

Later,

Dave

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I agree with you about instructions camouflage patterns.  I try to go back to official diagrams and use those, especially when there are multiples of a type in the collection.  I think then they look better if there is consistency of pattern and colour with only the specific variations for the individual aircraft.

 

I did have trouble with a masking set I bought once.  The starboard pattern was reversed - took me a while to work out why the patterns didn’t match..

 

 

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Oh, in all my modelling life, it is a wonder if one camo in all perspectives is correct. No matter who makes the kit it. 

Even for stenceling or decals, seldom it is correct!

Sorry , but this is reality.

Happy modelling 

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Don't the code letters of that scheme say it all ? 😉 Seriously, sometimes it's down to some extent on showing something on a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional way, I think. But this doesn't really explain a) the mirroring for the stbd view as shown above and b) why the green band coming from the port wing up to the centre fuselage is quite slim in top view and about twice as broad in the port view...

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