De Havilland Vampire J-28C - Finished!

[Jinxman]

Looks like proper grub, and so close with the very good-looking Vampire - nice one.

[Hockeyboy76]

Shame you missed the deadline but great build. 

[81-er]

Cheers gents. There will be more soon, both in terms of updates on this, and Vampires to build. I've got one more in the stash, plus I also have an Xtradecal sheet with a couple of options I like. The one here will be in Chilean camo, but I'm going to need another kit to do the Rhodesian one  Now if only someone could make a decent T.11 kit in 1/48...

 

James

[Bertie McBoatface]

The casserole looked tasty. And so does the Vampire. I certainly see what you mean about the lizard-ness of the aircraft, especially in those colours.

[81-er]

I squeezed a few minutes in at lunchtime. Start/stop times:

 

 

 

Decals on the underside:

 

 

Other than one on the nose gear door and the medical kit one for the rear canopy, that’s the decals done on this one. 20 decals vs the 90 for the other scheme! I’m in two minds about the dayglo orange ones as well, they’re a bit too “in your face”. I’m debating between trying some very thinned white over them to tone them down, or just removing them and painting them in with some orange paint.

 

I gave all of the landing gear parts some Nuln Oil to bring out the details (bad photo, but you’ll see more when it’s on)

 

 

Given it was on it’s back, the gear bays got the same treatment as well:

 

 

James

[Jinxman]

Off to get myself some of that Nuln Oil - looks very good.

[81-er]

Grab yourself one of the texture spreaders when you do, such a useful tool. Obviously adding texture, but great for filling and also burnishing down masking tape. The edge is really handy for getting the tape into panel lines as well, which is the way I got around the demarcations on the boom passing over panel lines with this build

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/M-Texture-Speader

 

As for the Vampire, I've decided to remove the day glow decals and have a go at painting them. I've got the paint on order, but if it doesn't work, I've got two more kits in the stash I can rob the decals from.

 

James

[AdrianMF]

Super result and good looking grub too!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[81-er]

Thanks Adrian. Still waiting for the day glow paint, but I'll crack back on once it's here. 

 

James

[81-er]

It’s been a while, but I’m still plugging away with this. And determined to finish it within 24hrs of work, even if I missed the deadline. The original orange paint I’d ordered turned out to not be as bright as I hoped, so I popped into a local shop and picked up some Revell luminous orange. That’s bright enough! I had a chance to get onto that yesterday, so time to start the clock again (excuse my reflections in the screen):

 

 

And just over half an hour later, time to stop it again:

 

 

In that time, I’d managed to get the dayglow areas masked and a white base down:

 

 

 

After that had dried, time for another set of start/stop pictures:

 

 

 

Which gave me the time for dayglow:

 

 

Another 10 minutes:

 

 

 

Which saw it unmasked and glossed (photos after it had dried, so it didn’t stick to the stand). The day glow looks no different to the decals in the photos, but in reality it’s much better. Fits within the panel lines and is faded:

 

 

 

Yet another start/stop:

 

 

 

And some Flory Dark Dirt slopped on the top:

 

 

Let it dry, then flip over for the other side:

 

 

 

 

Let that dry as well, then it’s timer time again:

 

 

 

And the end of where I got to last night:

 

 

 

I was somewhat disappointed that there were some big black smudges on the underside that I couldn’t get rid of with the dry cloths/cotton buds I was using. Then it dawned on me this morning that I could just use a damp one instead 🤦‍♂️

 

So, timer:

 

 

 

This is the bit where there should have been a photo of the underside actually looking nice with no Flory anywhere but the panel lines. But apparently I forgot to take that one... 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

 

Next up on my (rapidly dwindling) to do list on this build was to try some dot filters. Start the clock:

 

 

I might have overdone it with the dots:

 

 

And stop the clock:

 

 

What did I learn? I DEFINITELY used too much paint/too many dots. Dot filters are very effective. Next time I’ll do the filters first, and panel lines after. Why? Well:

 

 

 

All of the Flory has been obliterated by the residue from the filters. I think it could do with another wipe over to reduce some of the white “haze” effect as well, then I’ll give it another clear coat and redo the panel line wash. I might try that in oils this time.

 

The underside has a nice modulation in reality, I learnt from my mistakes with the upper surfaces. However, that doesn’t really come across in pictures, sadly:

 

 

 

I think I’m going to leave this one here for tonight and restart tomorrow. I’ve got one more day off work, and I’m determined this one (and the Ar 555) will be done before I’m back in the office.

 

James

[Jinxman]

That looks mighty fine.

[81-er]

Picking up this morning, my first task was applying another gloss coat (I’m just going to roll the start/stop time pictures in with the section of work they apply to):

 

 

 

 

Thankfully that got rid of the haziness, and gave a base for re-applying the Flory wash to make the panel lines not have a pinkish hue:

 

 

 

 

I left that to dry while I did some work on the Arado, then cleaned it up:

 

 

 

 

 

After checking my to do list, I decided the next task was to sort out the navigation & landing lights. I masked the navigation lights and gave them a brush coat of decanted Molotow chrome, and free-handed the underwing landing light. After that was dry, the navigation lights got a coat of Tamiya transparent green & red (on the relevant sides). I know the navigation lights are actually clear on Vampires, but this seemed better than solid blobs of silver:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll break the post up here while that’s drying.

 

James

[81-er]

After that was dry, I airbrushed some Tamiya X-19 smoke under the tail, as some of the shots of flying Vampires I’ve found have an exhaust stain there:

 

 

 

 

After letting that dry, it was time for a matt coat:

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to knock the mass balances off doing that. Whoops!

 

Matt coat dry, there was nothing left but some final assembly:

 

 

 

 

A few minutes for the glue to dry on that, and then it was time to unmask the canopy and add the first aid kit decal to the rear canopy:

 

 

 

 

More shots in the RFI shortly, but for now, I think some more music is called for

 

 

RFI coming soon

James

[81-er]

RFI now up

James