Tamiya 1/72 Sturmovik

[Guest]

Looking very good, excellent work so far

[Guest]

Thanks for the warning about the decals, John. I have a cunning plan for those, involving 1) trying out some of the spare ones in advance, and 2) praying. This may not be foolproof - I haven't seen any aftermarket ones to fall back on.

[Guest]

this is coming along nicely Doug.

[Guest]

Six weeks (!), yards of masking tape, and an entire packet of white tack later, I've finally finished the main colours. I do work slowly, but there's been a lot to do as well, with four colours to apply and lots of masking. As you'll see from the pictures, I pre-shaded it, sprayed the undersides light blue, then masked this with tape and white tack at the edges. I then built up the upper surface camouflage, masking each colour with tape and white tack. There was quite a lot of touching up to do, as I'm still learning about this white-tack worm business, and it's quite tricky to get it right when working into tight curves and corners.

If I had my time over again, I'd think about doing the upper surfaces first, then masking those off and doing the single lower surface colour. I know that breaks the 'light colours first' rule, and I might have to give it a few squirts of primer to ensure an even base to paint over, but spraying three upper colours to the edge of the blue using the white tack masking method is really tricky - you have to get the angle of the airbrush just right for every colour. I failed in this, and had to touch up the blue (with a bit of re-priming).

Half way through the painting, I told my wife I'd spent the last hour sticking white tack sausages all over the model, and she said, 'That reminds me, it's pizza for tea'.

Anyway - out with the Humbrol Clear next!

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[flyjoe180]

That's looking very good Doug. I'm a fan of the white/blue tack sausage masking now. I've also often thought about breaking the rule and applying the upper camouflage first, sometimes I think it would make the demarcation line along the fuselage sides looks a bit better (softer)..

[Peej]

I really enjoy watching other peoples builds come together. Brilliant way of gaining tips. Cuts down on my build time but keep 'em coming!

[Guest]

That's a masking & painting masterclass Doug! Great work!

[Guest]

Ian's recent post on problems related to a build, and keeping/linking them with the build itself reminded me. In the pictures I posted a week or so ago you can see the propellor spinner. I asked about masking off the white tip of this here http://www.scale-models.co.uk/community/threads/a-couple-of-masking-problems.28140/. In the event, none of the suggested methods worked for me, partly because I'd already assembled the blades and spinner. In the end I cut a then (2mm or so) strip of masking tape, and wrapped that around the white to get the hard edge. I then painted the rest of the white with liquid mask, masked off the blades, and sprayed the dark green. Results were not bad (though the prop might be showing its 'best profile' in the picture!). Next time I'll make sure I paint the spinner before attaching the blades!

Last night I tried out some of the spare decals on a my test plastic bottle, over a coat of gloss varnish, using Microset and Microsol. The results aren't too bad at all - just a bit of silvering on decals with a lot of carrier film (e.g. two separate numbers presented as one decal). I'll just make sure I've got a good polish on the areas to be decalled (is that a word?), and I'll trim or separate one or two of them to be on the safe side.

[Guest]

This is coming along very nicely indeed.

scott