Thing One's Spitfire Cockpit Painting and Weathering

As promised, here is the more substantive post. We will continue with the painting and weathering of the cockpit for Thing One's Mk.I Spitfire.

Maybe it was crazy, but I let him use the Infinity. "Just don't drop it" was the only cautionary advice I could think of.

The parts were painted with Model Master Acryl RAF Interior Green and the seat was done with the Tamiya's Hull Red rattle can I had from the last time.

Time to hand paint some details.

Hand painting takes a bit of practice, but he didn't do too bad.

Getting paint on that instrument panel.

Picking out some details on the office walls.

We dry brushed a little white to highlight the black details. I've got some ideas now for my next Spitfire. I'll be dry brushing the ribs with a lightened interior green as well as a little chipping.

Dry brushed the white on the instrument panel. After this was all cured, I hit it with some Alclad Aqua Gloss from the trusty Badger Anthem 155.

Now the fun part, slopping the wash on to dirty it up.

Thing One was trying to paint it a little too much, I had to keep reminding him to just be sloppy with it.

Tada! Now we let it sit for 20 minutes or so.

Clean-up with the tips of Q.

Not that kind of "Q Tip"!

Enough of that. I've never been one for such non-sense!

Washed cockpit parts awaiting cleanup.

She looks well worn Captain!

Office completed and assembled.

The next steps will be assembling the fuselage halves and gluing the cockpit in place. Maybe you'll see it in a couple of weeks? You don't have to wait around, I'll send you an email when it's ready...just subscribe! (What a shameless plug.) Thing One says: "It's difficult putting small parts into their places. Thanks for reading."

Thing One's Spitfire - Cockpit Assembly and Primed for Painting

I was going through my blog post drafts and realized I haven't started a new build for the Tamiya Mk.I Spitfire that Thing One received for his birthday. It is the same Spitfire kit that I completed last year, so I know its build quality and ease of assembly. Perfect for a first...or second model kit.

Snipping the parts off the sprue.

That's right, more snipping.

The cockpit semi-assembled. It will stay in this state until after painting to facilitate that process.

Assembled interior and ready for priming.

Primed with AK Interactive's Gray Primer.

"What? That's it???? NOOO!!!!!!!"

I promise the next post will be a bit more substantive. This was something to whet your appetite.

The Spitfire's Unveiling

This will be the last post for the Spitfire build and the fastest model that I have completed. From start to finish this took me just about three months. A new record for me! I won't bore you with too much talk, I'll wait until the end. On to the pictures!

Before dry brushing the upper surfaces.

I dry brushed Winsor & Netwon oil mixing white over the top surfaces. It muted down the paint job and blended the decals for a sun beaten look. I'm still not completely sold on it and may still remove it with some Turpenoid.

Remember the Bare Metal Foil (BMF) I used to mask the front two canopies? The downside is that it is not really easy to remove. It breaks and tears when you are taking it off. You will either have to resort to using your fingernail or a toothpick. Once the foil is off, it leaves a lot of the adhesive residue behind. It took a soft cloth and quite a bit of Goo Gone to clean it up. I broke the pitot tube off for a fourth time while unmasking the canopy.

The Final Pictures.

I used EZ-Line for the antenna wire and rigging coming off of the horizontal stabilizers.

I used BMF for the rear-view mirror. It gives it a nice reflective quality like... a mirror.

I used a silver pencil to dot the walkway and the areas that got a bit of wear.

The following pictures include a 1/48 Revell JU-87D Stuka I did a few years back. It was only my second model back in this hobby. I can't say I would recommend the kit, but for this purpose, it shows the relative size comparison since they are both the same scale. One was an easier target than the other in real life.


Two Warriors From the Battle of Britain.

As I'm in the project management field, I find it valuable to capture lessons learned. Here is what I learned from this project.

• Siphon airbrushes suck. Literally and figuratively.
• Attach as many parts together with Tamiya Extra Thin before painting as possible.
• Attach as many parts together with Tamiya Extra Thin before painting as possible. (Not a typo)
• Extra Thin is the best method of adhesion. Use sparingly and with as many parts as you can. 
• Don't worry about the cockpit too much unless you leave the canopy open.
• Keep a light touch when dry brushing. Otherwise, you may find some wet paint.
• Tamiya decals are thick, like everyone says.
• Oil brushes and acrylic brushes are different. Use the right one and don't mix them.
• Blue tack leaves an oily residue, use white tack instead.
• Keep the same downward angle all over when spraying soft camo lines with the sticky tack method.
• Don't spray lacquer thickly or over 50% humidity, otherwise it will either get foggy or settle unevenly and distort your washes.
• Foil is a pain to get off after painting and lacquering.
• Rattle cans suck, adapt everything for the airbrush, including primer and lacquer.
• Never spray air directly onto the model from the airbrush after running paint dilutant thru it before you know it's completely blown out.
• Primer actually has benefits, like preventing paint from peeling up from using Tamiya masking tape.

That's all there is to this project and the Spitfire wraps up my third aircraft. I hope you've enjoyed the build process, found it entertaining and perhaps learned something along the way. I have.

If you have any questions or comments and would like to contact me, my email address is amodelforants@gmail.com .

Washing the Spitfire

This phase is sort of ironic, in the actual definition sort of way and not the Alanis Morissette way (link for educational purposes only, not meant for any form of entertainment). Yes, irony is not coincidence. I used Winsor & Newton raw umber oil paint thinned with odorless Turpenoid. It gets applied liberally, like Bill Clinton, all over the recesses of the model. After some time drying, an old t-shirt or a lot of Q-Tips with more Turpenoid will take the excess right off and leave behind the wash. We don't want to avoid the Noid in this case.  

Note: Here are the layers that I used up to this point with no ill effects; Tamiya Primer, Model Master Acryl paint, Testor's gloss lacquer, decals, gloss lacquer, oil wash with Turpenoid.

As you can see the process gets nice and dirty. We're washing to get dirty. Understand the irony now?

I wasn't completely happy with the wash in a few places, so I added a little more to those areas.

The unwashed bottom. I just thought of the other meaning after typing that last sentence.

The washed bottom, so much better.....or is it? The lighting is different than the comparison picture, this picture was taken in natural light while the previous photo was taken under a white fluorescent work lamp.

Before finishing the decals and washing, the comparison shot. Terrible recessed ceiling lighting here.

Washed.

Boy, I used a lot of references up there. I think it's a record for me. The oil wash will take at least 24 hours to completely dry. You may have noticed the pitot tube was missing again. Yes, I knocked it off a third time. My container storing the landing gear took a tumble as well and the wheel covers that were attached came off. I'll make more of an effort to clean off as much paint and primer in the contact areas as possible for better adhesion.

I think there will be one more post for this project, it will contain the last remaining steps; silver chipping, dull coat, attach the last few pieces and unmask the canopy. Stay tuned!

The Spitfire's Bottom Decals

This evening I started the decal process. I've decided to break it into a few nights for a few different reasons. 

1. I would like to do some work on the model but not consume the entire evening.
2. Prevent eye strain.
3. Reduce frustration.
4. Finally and most importantly, give the decals in one area an entire night to set. That way, I won't inevitably put my finger in the wrong spot and mess up a soft decal. 

I've noticed that after a couple of gloss coats, the underside was a bit bumpy. I took my highest grade of sandpaper, gave it a couple of light passes and it was nice and smooth.

Every modeller knows, Micro Set and Micro Sol. The Set goes down first while the decal is soaking. It increases adhesion to the model. Once you fiddle around with the decal for a while on the model, gently touch it with a cotton swab to soak up some excess liquid....then fiddle a little more, touch it again...fiddle, gently roll the cotton swab to set the decal and remove air bubbles. Put some Sol on top and move on. The Sol will make the decal wrinkle, but don't worry, it'll work itself out and it will look more painted on then a decal.

The finished decals for the bottom. This version of the model apparently didn't have roundels on the bottom and I decided not to sweat it. I started with the bottom since the decals were small and if I screwed something up, well, it's on the bottom.

Now it's time to let it sit over night and set.

That's all I have tonight. No witty wordplay this evening, I'll try to save some up for next time.

The Spitfire's Final Paint Scheme

..........................................................................................................................................................pation. I finally finished up the last of the minuscule parts and decided to place those yet again in front of the final camouflage pictures. Well babies, don't you panic. They are a bit further down. If you happen to still be on dial-up, I'm so sorry for you because this will take forever to load. Gird your loins, here we go.

Here we have the rear view mirror and the gas cap. I left these off because I didn't know quite what to do with them. Then it came decision time. I decided to paint the gas cap silver because I wanted to add a bit of contrast to the camo pattern. I painted the gas cap when it was still attached to the sprue. I then cut it off and had to trim a little bit off and touch it up. I was very concerned with losing it, so I stuck it to some blue tack until I was ready to attach it.

Next are the resin exhaust pipes from Ultracast. I primed these when I primed the body, but I wasn't sure what to do about them.

I headed off to the closest hobby shop and just started asking questions. Sure enough, everyone has an opinion and is usually very willing to dole it out. The sales rep was very familiar with Spitfires and knew my kit was a Tamiya when I told him it was a Mk I in 1/48. Typically exhaust pipes of Spitfires from that era collected rust. I picked up, rust paint and Jet Exhaust to mix in. I ended up adding a little Leather (brown) to darken it a bit. It turned out a little more red then I would have liked, but I'm not going to strip it at this point.

After painting I dry brushed silver on the opening edge of the exhaust. After the silver, I mixed some flat black and flat white and dry brushed the back two exhausts. The exhaust on the left is untreated, the exhaust on the right has been dry brushed. It's easier to see in real life.

Both are done, and I'm fairly pleased with the results........until I attached them.

See, I told you I would get to the camo this time around! I began the process by masking off the bottom to prevent over spray. I started with the dark earth color and painted it in the places where it should be while avoiding the areas where the dark green would go down. The theory is to preserve some of that awful pre-shading to add some variation to the paint job. On the other hand, I didn't want too much of it showing through because, well, just look at it.

Profile shot. I added a bit of white to the bottle and did some post-shading inside the panel lines to lighten them up. The effect is supposed to make it appear as though the paint job was faded a bit by the sun. Just before I finished up with this coat, the plane flipped out of my hand and landed on the antenna mast.....again. A little more glue and a touch up to the tip of the mast. Infernal delicate parts.

The shot that will be the segue into the next one.

Wasn't that an awesome segue? I used some blue tack here, the same stuff that you would use for hanging propaganda posters or other such paraphernalia. It serves two functions. The first is to provide a soft edge in between the two colors. Number two-ly, it's a lot easier to make it all squiggly-wiggly than cutting masking tape.

WOOO! More blue tack. I probably could have left this picture off, but it's not like you're paying by the megabyte. Unless you're using a 4G Hotspot, then well....

Boom, pictorial segue. I knew I left that last one in there for a reason.

I just covered up the areas that need to remain dark earth with some cut paper towel.

Dark green is down and the post-shading is done. It looks lighter in person.

As you can see, most of that pre-shading mess is covered, which on the other hand removes its whole purpose. It's a trade off sometimes.

The big reveal!

I present to you, the front.

Well I've got to add all the angles for the grand inspection.

The gloss lacquer coats started yesterday. I was having trouble with my airbrush handling the Future acrylic floor polish so I just gave up on it. I saw a can of gloss lacquer, so I just used that. The gas cap and exhaust pipes are attached for the gloss coating goodness.

The glossy profile.

On the underside here, I just took some shaved dark gray charcoal and brushed it on until it built up a nice gun powder residue on the gun ports and cartridge ejection ports. I also did this on the top of the wing, but since it is so much darker it's a bit hard to tell.

That's it for now. Time has expired for this model at the moment. I'll add a few more gloss coats and when I get to the decals I'll put out another post. Here is the corresponding YouTube video: http://youtu.be/51Jhep4rQAA

I forgot to mention in the video one more paint color I used, dull red for the seat that I had in a spray can. Grand total of 14 paints. For a half ounce of paint, it's $4.95. 128 fl ounces in a gallon, x2 would be 256 bottles of paint to equal one gallon. 256 bottles of paint at $4.95 = $1254.40/gallon. Aren't you glad gasoline doesn't cost that much?

In the meantime, you may see some posts about a Gundam model I've been working on with the boys. The oldest one has really taken to it and it's been a fun project to get them introduced to model building.