Blink and you'll miss it -- 1/72 Fiat G.50, Airfix 1/72

[Selwyn]

1 minute ago, The Spadgent said:

Ooops sorry. 🤣 “Coaming”

Should of realised myself! On holiday and my brain is in autopilot at the moment!

 

Selwyn

[The Spadgent]

Excellent free hand airbrushing there my good man.

[opus999]

12 hours ago, ModelingEdmontonian said:

Gosh, that white fuselage stripe is crisp and perfect. I have the worst time with those... well done.

Thank you!  I'm not always so lucky with the stripes... seems like i get some bleed under the tape, or if the tape isn't stuck down right, I'll get some spray under.  I was relieved I didn't have to do any patching!

 

10 hours ago, woody37 said:

Airfix kits have come a long way since this one! your skills are making it look like a modern kit however, that looks brilliant!

They have come a long way.  Still, sometimes the simplicity of an old Airfix kit is a nice break... as long as I don't have to fiddle with it too much to make it look nice!

 

8 hours ago, fittedkitchens said:

That's quality airbrushing on such a little kit. Nice. Look forward to seeing the end result.

 

6 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Excellent free hand airbrushing there my good man.

 Thank you very much!  I've been refining my technique, and I walk on the wild side and take the needle guard off when I do mottles like this...  I have to adjust on the fly, though because the paint can get finicky.

 

7 hours ago, Selwyn said:

Combing? give us a clue!

 

Selwyn

 

6 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Ooops sorry. 🤣 “Coaming”

OK,  I'm laughing because I thought "Combing" was some alternate spelling (some US/UK difference) and I just ran with it... and only made matters worse!  🤣

[opus999]

Oooh!  Shiny!

 

 

 

You know what that means... Decals are next!

 

I used my usual hand brush painted Aqua Gloss for the gloss coat.  It needed 4 coats to be smooth enough.  I've found that for best results I need to let it cure for 6 hours between coats otherwise the new coat will soften up the previous coat and that makes a mess... usually in the form of brush marks.  With so much time waiting yesterday, I started on another build that might amuse you....

 

 

It's another quickie, but I'm getting kind of excited about it.  Don't worry though, My primary focus right now is on the Fiat and I hope to have decals on within the next couple of hours...

[2996 Victor]

Just catching up with this - I blinked and almost missed it! Holy moly that's quick work, even on a kit with such a low parts count.

 

The camo is absolutely astounding!

 

Looking forward to seeing the decals go on.

 

All the best,

Mark

[bigbadbadge]

That's some excellent paintwork,  looks amazing, great job.

Chris 

[opus999]

3 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

Just catching up with this - I blinked and almost missed it! Holy moly that's quick work, even on a kit with such a low parts count.

 

The camo is absolutely astounding!

 

Looking forward to seeing the decals go on.

 

All the best,

Mark

Yeah, I think all told up until now I've spent maybe 8 hours on this?  There's not much to it.  I'm glad because I was feeling almost a bit burned out spending 5 weeks on one Yak-38 and 5 weeks on another (long story that).  Although I'm really excited about how they turned out, I was ready for something quick.

 

And so a couple of hours of work today got all the decals on...

 

 

 

 

...and small parts painted!

 

 

So, I think it's possible to finish this tomorrow.  Hopefully! 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking very nice, great quick work. 

Chris

[ColinChipmunkfan]

Paint job is amazing both topside and the underside- this is coming together well.

Colin

[IanC]

I've enjoyed catching up on this. Terrific work. The Fiat G.50 was one of my earliest ever Airfix builds and I'm keen to re-visit it. Your superb build is providing lots of inspiration! 👏

[AliGauld]

You have achieved some really stunning paintwork on this.

Such freehand stuff scares the living daylights out of me.

Bravo.

 

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[opus999]

The last couple of days were a bit of a disappointment.  I was convinced I could finish it this weekend, but my allergies reared their ugly heads.  I am allergic to something called Rabbit Brush that blooms this time of year.  Unlike most people who have sinus problems or cough, my reaction to the stuff is to just sleep, or want to sleep.  So instead of benchtime yesterday and today, it was nap time. 

 

Still, I was able to rally this afternoon.  First off, I used a small mechanical pencil to go over the cylinders of the engine:

 

 

I then used oil paints for stains and a wash on the control surfaces, after which I applied a dull coat

 

 

I did the same to the top side

 

 

I finished off the day with drawing in the panel lines.  After that, I went over them with an eraser to knock 'em back a bit.  They are pretty subtle; if you look carefully you can just see them in this picture.

 

 

Don't know if I'll get to do anymore tonight or not.

[opus999]

Finished the panel lines tonight -- I did the top and the cowl.  Again, very subtle, which is a good thing.  I tried to take better pictures so you can see them...

 

 

 

 

Just need to do exhaust stains, general dirt and grime, paint chipping and final assembly.

[2996 Victor]

Beautiful workmanship as always!

 

The more I see your pencilled panel lines, the more I'm convinced that they're the most effective and realistic way to represent what are really tiny features on full-sized aeroplanes.

 

Hope your allergies have settled down now.

 

All the best,

Mark

[woody37]

Love the pencil lines as an alternative to scribing, it works well on something this size. Really looking the part now after that brilliant paint job

 

[opus999]

Just a quick update tonight...last night I used Tamiya pastels to put stains around the panel lines on the bottom of the cowl and near the wing root.  I found some very high quality photos of operational Fiats and that's where I saw staining.  I'd imagine the cowl stains were from oil that accumulated toward the bottom.  The other stains, I'm not quite sure what they were from. 

 

After that, I did some paint chipping.  Again, those really nice photos guided me, however I tried to make it a little less chipped than what I saw in the photos.  Almost made it. 😕

 

I realized that I didn't take an pictures of the stains or the chips, so I will need to take a few more photos for everyone tomorrow.

 

Tonight was final assembly, which took longer than expected.  First off, I decided to make a mounting bracket for the engine, because the way it is designed is too precarious, and too easy to get wrong because the cowl wants to slip, pointing the cowl assembly up at an angle.  Here was my solution:

 

 

The engine itself was tricky because it was too easy to push too far forward so that the front part of the engine stuck way out in front.  A postive stop in the cowl would've been helpful.

 

Another gripe of mine is the landing gears.  There was so much play where the landing gears went into the holes that it was a real challenge to get them lined up right.  In all three axes: rotation, front/back and side to side.  In the end, one is a little angled more than I'd like, but they're so delicate, I'm afraid of breaking it while taking it off to fix.

 

in the end, though, it turned out rather nice and while it took a couple more days than I wanted, it felt good to make tangible progress every day!

 

 

 

And here's the world's smallest canopy:

 

 

Oh, one other gripe -- I thought of making new guns instead of using the unrealistic, stubby ones that came with the kit.  Then I realized that the undersized cowl would prevent me from doing that because the guns extended out into the troughs, and on the model they would stick out above the troughs because of the smaller diameter cowl.  So I had to stick with the kit parts. 

 

Better pictures tomorrow!.

 

[stevehnz]

You've made a lovely job of this, I shall have to dig my in process one out & deal to it with reference to this build, it is a cracker.

Steve.

[FalkeEins]

On 9/6/2022 at 1:36 AM, opus999 said:

I finished off the day with drawing in the panel lines.  After that, I went over them with an eraser to knock 'em back a bit.  They are pretty subtle; if you look carefully you can just see them in this picture.

 

 ...how do you do that ? ..and get them 'straight' on those curves ?

nice paint job too!

[2996 Victor]

Stunning! There's nothing more I can say 

 

Cheers,

Mark

[bigbadbadge]

Great work   looks wonderful  and those panel lines , wow.  They look awesome. 

Chris

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Very nice G.50 … I really would like to add one to my collection. 

[opus999]

On 9/9/2022 at 7:29 AM, stevehnz said:

You've made a lovely job of this, I shall have to dig my in process one out & deal to it with reference to this build, it is a cracker.

Steve.

 

On 9/9/2022 at 4:12 PM, 2996 Victor said:

Stunning! There's nothing more I can say 

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

On 9/9/2022 at 4:35 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Great work   looks wonderful  and those panel lines , wow.  They look awesome. 

Chris

 

On 9/9/2022 at 10:36 PM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Very nice G.50 … I really would like to add one to my collection. 

 

Thanks guys!  I'm really excited about this one.  May be one of my favorites this year!

 

On 9/9/2022 at 3:48 PM, FalkeEins said:

 

 ...how do you do that ? ..and get them 'straight' on those curves ?

nice paint job too!

Thanks!  I'd be happy to detail how I do the panel lines.  First, I ordered an Pentel Orenz 0.2 mm mechanical pencil, which was the smallest diameter I could find.  I apply the panel lines after a dull coat so that the pencil lead has something to grip.  I use the Mr. Color GX113 dull coat and I find it has to cure for a couple of hours first, otherwise the pencil lead will cut into the clear coat.  For a straight edge, I stack four pieces of Tamiya yellow tape, which I de-tack a little bit to protect decals.  Using the tape as a straight edge allows me to draw panel lines around curves.  It also sticks enough that it doesn't slip while I'm drawing.  The tamiya tape will, however, pull up the graphite from other panel lines, making them more faint, so I have to plan what order to draw them in. 

 

I don't bother trying to draw the lines in faintly, because I found I can't do that.  Instead, I just draw them without any regard to how dark they are, and then when I am done with the drawing, I go over them with the eraser that came with the mechanical pencil. To me, this is the trickiest part because the graphite comes off too easily and it's easy to completely erase the lines.  I've found I need to have a very light touch on the eraser and a lot of practice.  The other thing that makes this part of the procedure is that the lines will appear slightly darker when a protective overcoat goes on.  That is because the dull coat removes the shine from the graphite.  So at this stage, when I'm deciding how much to erase, I have to hold the aircraft so there is no reflection off the lines in order to get a feel for how "dark" they really are.

 

Once I am done, I put another coat of dull coat on.

 

I really like this technique over others I've tried because you can control how dark or light the panel lines are -- which means you can adjust on the fly if need be.   Also, if I goof up, the line can be completely erased for another attempt. 

 

Perfecting this technique has completely removed my fear of raised panel lines.  Anymore I'm finding that I want to fill in recessed panel lines too, although that is a more tedious process, so sometimes I let them pass if they aren't too obnoxious.

 

I hope this helps!

[bigbadbadge]

Thanks for the information Opus999,  it certainly is interesting and tempting too, might have to look at a similar approach when doing a raised panel line kit.  So thank you.

Chris

[opus999]

2 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Thanks for the information Opus999,  it certainly is interesting and tempting too, might have to look at a similar approach when doing a raised panel line kit.  So thank you.

Chris

 

You are welcome Chris!  One thing I forgot to mention is, it's my cheat when I sand away recessed panel lines along seams.  I found if I just whip out the pencil at the end and connect the panel lines across the seam, you usually can't tell unless you look very hard.    Beats the pants off my terrible re-scribing skills!

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Opus, this turned out great.  I really appreciate the great result given the rapid move through the interior which is a stretch to see—it’s great to see the best come out of this one!  Best, Erwin