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Progress - it now looks like an aeroplane! I've primed all the heavily sanded/scribed areas and fixed any defects, and now the wings and tailplane are on (minimal filling required - Mr Surfacer is enough).
The first photo shows the HS2 fairing under a coat of primer - I'm pretty pleased with that. The second photo shows the canopies etc. masked - thanks to Mr Eduard for saving my sanity there. The third photo shows the breakdown of parts I'll be painting separately and attaching after the main painting's over. There's what I believe is a 0.5" gun for the nose included in the kit (in two parts), though it isn't mentioned in the instructions.
Finally there's a picture of the transparencies with the interior colour painted on to the frames. Foam earplugs are good for masking the inside of the turrets.
The lovely resin cowlings are a bit of a nightmare to paint, with the deeply recessed grills moulded as one piece with the rest of the cowlings. I'm dealing with it by painting the grills and surrounds first, then 'cutting' in around them with a brush in the main white colour. I should then be able to mask them roughly and blend in when I airbrush the undersurface colour. We'll see how that works out!
Just need to finish the masking (wheel wells etc. now) then the main paint job starts.
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Looking great Doug. Eduard masks - brilliant things.....Comment
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Nice work so far Doug.Comment
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Things moved a bit slowly on this over the Christmas period, due to the usual family things and my wife's totally unreasonable belief that guest bedrooms are for guests to sleep in rather than for me to make models in. Normality has now been restored, and I've made progress with the painting.
After a coat of white primer, the stages have been:
1) Preshade all over in dark grey (no photo)
2) Spray the lower surfaces white (I used Vallejo white with a drop of dark grey to tone things down a bit). This took three coats, as the preshading was much too dark for the white to cover easily. Photos 1 and 2 show the end result, though the preshading hardly shows in the photo.
3) Mask lower surfaces and spray the upper surfaces Dark Slate Grey (I used Tamiya XF-13 - might be a bit too green?) (no photo)
4) Use White Tak and masking tape to mask off the Dark Slate Grey camouflage pattern (photos 3 and 4)
5) Re-spray some white over the unmasked bits and re-spray the preshading (photos 5 and 6).
Next job - spray the Extra Dark Sea Grey (Tamiya XF-24) and spend several weeks removing all the masking!
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Ah yes the painting stage. I always think there's "light at the end of the tunnel" at this stage. I'm always wrong of course. I forget about all the little bits still to be done.Comment
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Quick update on this. Lesson learned - I won't be re-spraying white before applying the second camouflage colour. It might help the pre-shading show through, but although I tried hard to spray away from the White Tak, there was still a visible white outline in places between the colours once I'd removed the masking. Cue some touching up with a brush followed by blending in of the brush strokes with the airbrush. The overall effect is patchier than I would like, but now that I've applied the gloss varnish (Humbrol Clear) things are looking a bit more even.
I've had to apply the varnish in two stages - top and then bottom surfaces, as I couldn't find a way of holding the model without touching the varnished surfaces. Interestingly, the top camouflage (Tamiya) definitely needs two coats, while the white (Vallejo) doesn't. Presumably this is because of the very matt finish on the Tamiya acrylics - it 'eats' the varnish like when you seal bare plaster with watered-down emulsion!
On the positive side, touching up things with the airbrush made me realise that post-shading, which I've never tried, should be quite possible, even at this scale and with my poor airbrush skills. I'll give it a try on a future build.Comment
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I was always a pre-shade type builder (with post shading as a back up) but more and more recently I've only used post shading, which I find easier. Pre-shading might still have it uses depending on what colours are being used. But for me, I'm going to try and stick to post shading. Give it a go, it's much more controllable than pre-shading, and not that difficult.Comment
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Just to say, I've finished this build now. Just waiting for a decent day (and some time) to take some pictures. Sorry for lack of updates - our PC died recently and I've been busy buying a replacement and restoring all the data. Loads of fun!Comment
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I look forward to seeing itComment
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Looking forward to the final pics Doug mate.Comment
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