Heinkel He 219 'Uhu'

[Werdna]

Hi all

 

This is Tamiya's rather nice 1/48 He 219 - my first Tamiya kit for a while, and what a pleasure it was to build.  No fit issues anywhere, and no problems that weren't of my own making.  The decals were the only headache, being nowhere near as co-operative as the rest of the kit.

 

Built OOB and finished in the markings of 'G9+TH' of 1./NJG 1, discovered at Westerland Sylt in April 1945.  The majority of He219s were finished in various types of  'wellenmuster' camo pattern, typically of RLM76 or '84' over a base of RLM75.  The pics of G9+TH show quite a lot of reflection, so do not show any detail of the upper surface pattern, so my pattern here is a guess.  I'll let others judge whether it works or not   This particular 219 was found with props removed, so again, I'm guessing with the colours here.  Previous builds have finished the spinners in either RLM70, or black with a spiral - so I did mine in white with a spiral just to be different..    Anyway, on to the pics...

 

 

[Farmerboy]

Thats beautifully done, great build.

[Pete in Lincs]

Cracking build of a beautiful looking Aeroplane.

[28ZComeback]

Beautiful mottle

[DaveH]

Very nice build, fantastic job on the mottle....

 

DaveH

[Roberto]

Great paint job, bravo.

[Wlad]

Well done.

[TheOxley]

Magnificent… another kit sulking at me from the stash😡!

[BerndM]

Great job on Tamiyas lovely Heinkel.

[Giampiero Piva]

Very nice ! Bravo !

[Maginot]

That's a very nice result. That's some shiny finish on the canopy.

[Mig88]

Lovely!!!

 

Miguel

[jackroadkill]

Very smart, Werdna.  Can I ask how you achieved the subtlety of the mottle on the upper surfaces?  I don't think I could get anywhere like that fine with an airbrush!

[VolkerR.]

Lovely model with great paint job.

[Werdna]

Thanks all for the kind comments  

 

2 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

Very smart, Werdna.  Can I ask how you achieved the subtlety of the mottle on the upper surfaces?  I don't think I could get anywhere like that fine with an airbrush!

 

Thanks Jack.  I did this with a 0.4 Sparmax, after lots of experimenting with paint mixes, pressure etc.  I tried using my 0.2 H&S initially (which you'd think might be more suitable), but ironically, I just couldn't get anything right with it.  So with the 0.4 I ended up with a mix of about 50% thinners and a pressure around 8-10psi, spraying quite close to the surface.  I got the kind of 'cloudy' look by just dusting over the upper surfaces from more of a distance with the same mix, but at a higher pressure, which takes the edge off the colour contrast quite a bit (it also helps make some of the airbrushing errors look a little less apparent ).   

 

Believe it or not, the hardest thing was working out the pattern - and how to approach it.  Lots of practice drawing curly shapes with a pencil and paper helped me to finally work out how to approach it - a single wavy line on each major section, then another at a different angle, and so on.  And then just start joining in the gaps until you get the look you want.  I've seen builds on YT (Plasmo, I think) where he uses a 0.2 and gets a really tight pattern, but that's a bit beyond me at the moment..

[jackroadkill]

52 minutes ago, Werdna said:

Thanks all for the kind comments  

 

 

Thanks Jack.  I did this with a 0.4 Sparmax, after lots of experimenting with paint mixes, pressure etc.  I tried using my 0.2 H&S initially (which you'd think might be more suitable), but ironically, I just couldn't get anything right with it.  So with the 0.4 I ended up with a mix of about 50% thinners and a pressure around 8-10psi, spraying quite close to the surface.  I got the kind of 'cloudy' look by just dusting over the upper surfaces from more of a distance with the same mix, but at a higher pressure, which takes the edge off the colour contrast quite a bit (it also helps make some of the airbrushing errors look a little less apparent ).   

 

Believe it or not, the hardest thing was working out the pattern - and how to approach it.  Lots of practice drawing curly shapes with a pencil and paper helped me to finally work out how to approach it - a single wavy line on each major section, then another at a different angle, and so on.  And then just start joining in the gaps until you get the look you want.  I've seen builds on YT (Plasmo, I think) where he uses a 0.2 and gets a really tight pattern, but that's a bit beyond me at the moment..

 

That sounds quite close to what I did on my Bf109T (see below) but your result is much crisper and tidier than mine.  I assumed you'd have gone with a very fine set-up - I'm amazed that you got such a clean finish.  That secondary dusting of the colour is a smart move, too.  I've done it on blotchy mottles but never on anything like that spider-web (?) pattern, and never with such a pleasing effect.  I think you've done a cracker of a job on that finish and will hope to get similar results given time and practise.

 

Here's the Toni:

 

 

As you can see, both your patterning and results are better!

[Werdna]

6 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

That sounds quite close to what I did on my Bf109T (see below) but your result is much crisper and tidier than mine.  I assumed you'd have gone with a very fine set-up - I'm amazed that you got such a clean finish.  That secondary dusting of the colour is a smart move, too.  I've done it on blotchy mottles but never on anything like that spider-web (?) pattern, and never with such a pleasing effect.  I think you've done a cracker of a job on that finish and will hope to get similar results given time and practise.

 

That 'T' looks great - looking forward to seeing that on here  

 

I've had this build planned for a while, so whenever I was building something else and had a bit of paint left over in the airbrush, I would practice some '219' camo patterns.  And some of the results were pretty shocking.  I thought everything would be ok once I got the hang of spraying close up at low pressure, but like I said earlier, the real issue for me was knowing a) how to start the pattern and b) spray it in short strokes, 'tree branch' style, rather than try to achieve everything in one long, continuous line.  At the end of the day, the poor fellas spraying these things would only have been able to spray lines within reach.  

[jackroadkill]

2 hours ago, Werdna said:

At the end of the day, the poor fellas spraying these things would only have been able to spray lines within reach.  

 

Funnily enough I was wondering how they'd do it.  Leaning off a stepladder?  From an overhead platform?  Walking on the wings and backing up to the wingtip?  No idea!

 

As for the T, I did it last year for the Bf109 STGB, the thread is here if you fancy a look:

 

 

[Werdna]

15 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

Funnily enough I was wondering how they'd do it.  Leaning off a stepladder?  From an overhead platform?  Walking on the wings and backing up to the wingtip?  No idea!

 

Hoverboard would have been easier  

 

I think NASM's 219 was painted in sections, with the wings dismounted, before being built up.  Maybe Heinkel did the same..?

[Spitfire31]

Superb Uhu!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

[IanC]

Terrific work. I think the black undersides are particularly good too. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

That's a gem!

[Roland Pulfrew]

Lovely job. That works a treat. Is there a build thread showing how you did the camo?

[Werdna]

1 hour ago, Roland Pulfrew said:

Lovely job. That works a treat. Is there a build thread showing how you did the camo?

Thanks

 

Unfortunately no build thread, but there is a guy on YT (plasmo) who built one using a similar (but much better) finish than mine.  His airbrush skills are more or less at jedi levels though, which mine clearly aren't 

[Andy Dyck]

Delightful to see this one. It turns out very fantastic! Very good workmanship!

Thx for sharing!

 

Andy