Me109 Interlude

Setting up the airbrush and all the hassle that goes with it, it makes sense to try and have a couple of things on the go at once. In this case, as well as the Batmobile I wanted to test decals with the Pledge Wax, so I dug out and old Airfix kit that's been sitting under the bed for Lord knows how long. 

As I have mentioned before when I built that bloody submarine, Airfix' idea of Skill Level 1 and mine are very, very different. This kit led to just as much swearing as the last one.

One of the advantages of being a miniatures painter, of course, is that 1/72nd scale pilots and cockpits cause us no fear:

 This was something I was trying to get my head around for the Top Sekret Project - painting sub-assemblies before construction. Here you can see the cockpit in situ:

And here's ashot with the flash to show the ridiculously small decal sheet: 

The other skill I wanted to work on was masking. As it turns out, I didn't leave the cockpit frame unmasked which is something to remember for the future. The gun on the port wing, by the way, is a small bit of sprue carved to match the other. The actual piece is somewhere in the carpet. 

Here is the preshading technique again. Nothing too difficult if you've had a bit of practice with your airbrush. 

And, as you can see, very effective with the light colour of the underside. 

And equally effective with the top. Just to emphasise - there is no highlighting here. Just the preshade and a delicate application of the base coat, thicker at the centre of the panels. 

The nicest thing about an airbrush is, of course, that it makes camo-spraying very easy. 

And the masking worked!

And a daylight colour check:

At this point I started adding gross weathering such as paint chips on leading edges and foot wear where the pilots would be climbing in and out. 

Now this was the acid test. The old Klear made cockpit canopies look thinner. Not idea why or how, but it did. Would Pledge Wax do the same?

Yes:

As you can see here, the gloss coat really helped the decals adhere to the surface detail:

And then pastel weathering:

This one will be going in to work - when it's based - where it'll get used for the WW1/WW2 controlled assessment. 

Up next is the Top Sekret Project which is, of course, sekret no longer:

I'm currently faffing about with bits of wire and fibre optic to work out how to light this little beauty. 

Das Boot

You know how it goes. You've just gone through another rough Ofsted and you're hip deep in a painting project that you can't see the end of. You want an easy win.

As part of the recovered stuff from Grandad Er Indoors loft, I found this:

A starter set. Perfect. Something I could build and paint in one evening as an antidote to the stress and  hassle of the week. Here, then, in my record of my relaxing build of  Das Boot.

The kit itself looks ok. Indeed, construction of the hull and flying bridge goes quite smoothly.  Then we come to the propellor and planes assembly. 

Yeesh. Well, it's not too bad - I can sort of reason out in which order I'll have to do things so that I don't get in my own way. But what's this? Oh yes - the parts are TINY. 

Scalpel blade for scale against the propellor blades at the top of the sprue there. 

I end up having to utilise blue tack to create stands 

Then we come to putting in the deck guns. All you have to do is stick the pegs into the hull on the deck... Oh. 

Good job I had a drill, right? 

Finally we end up with a completed construction which, to be fair, looks pretty bloody good:

It's about at this point I notice this on the box and start laughing hollowly:

I believe the correct response is 'skill level one my ARSE'. 

Anyhoo, quick trip to the garage to undercoat and then painting. A very simple job of basecoat

Wash

 And then blended highlights. 

The supplied decals finish it off nicely:

Total time from cracking the box to finishing the decals for about 4 episodes of MASH on the TV, so call it 2 hours. Most of that was the bloody rear assembly:

So, batteries recharged and time to start on the rest of the Wars of the Roses chaps. 

Thanks as always for your kind attention. And remember - when it comes to Skill Levels Airfix speak with forked tongue.