Spirit of St Louis

Don't look like Jimmy Stewart at all.ha!  Anyway the history museum  here in saint Louis has a great  reproduction of the interior of the spirit

Doesn't look bad to me!  I'm getting ready to dive into small figure painting myself.  I think I'll start off with some 1/35 stuff.  You doing a 1/48 is pretty brave!  I think it looks good!

Eagle90

Duke, this is true, General Stewart was much, much taller.  I guess I could put some little lifts on the bottom of the shoes....

Eagle, thanks.  One of the tips I got on this forum about figure painting is to paint them as if you're dressing them.  I tried it here and it seemed to go a lot easier.  If you don't hold it right up to your eye (as the photos have done), it looks a lot better.  In fact, it's encouraged me to go ahead with more 1/48 figures.

I think it looks just fine.  Like you said, as long as you don't look at it with your eyeball being 0.005" away from the figure, it'll be just fine.  

I've heard a lot of good things about that Spirit of St. Louis kit.  I hope to see more pictures posted as your build progresses.  

Eric

Viejo

Duke, this is true, General Stewart was much, much taller.  I guess I could put some little lifts on the bottom of the shoes....

Eagle, thanks.  One of the tips I got on this forum about figure painting is to paint them as if you're dressing them.  I tried it here and it seemed to go a lot easier.  If you don't hold it right up to your eye (as the photos have done), it looks a lot better.  In fact, it's encouraged me to go ahead with more 1/48 figures.

Definitely keep posting your figure painting!  I'd like to see more and what you learn!  Thanks for posting the pics!

Eagle90

echolmberg

I think it looks just fine.  Like you said, as long as you don't look at it with your eyeball being 0.005" away from the figure, it'll be just fine.  

I've heard a lot of good things about that Spirit of St. Louis kit.  I hope to see more pictures posted as your build progresses.  

Eric

I felt the Revell SoS kit was a very nice kit- really enjoyed building it, and had absolutely no problems with anything.  Fit was nice, the results were great.  Loved the figure, so I built a base for it so I could display the figure standing by wing of plane.  Oh, the door is seperate and can be poised open- a real plus.

I'm agreeing with Don.  It's a nice kit, and with the opening door, provides an opportunity to care a bit about the interior details.  There are some external details you can add, too that really make it a nice example when done.

Gene Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

Gene, what external details?

One of the things I'd like to figure out is how to do the cowl in the brushed aluminum finish without going to the decals (they look out of scale for me).  If I can't figure it out, it'll just end up flat aluminum.

The kit needs control and trim tab rigging, easily added.

I found the pitot tube to be a bit out of round on my example, so I replaced it with round tubing.  The anemometer on the top of the fuselage can be livened up nicely with a little scratch-building.  I think I punched some discs out of foil, cupped them, and then epoxied them to some styrene tubing. 

Then, with BMF, you can replicate the engine-turned aluminum on the cowling:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/13/p/156067/1698810.aspx#1698810

Scroll to the bottom of the page.  How I did it is here:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/153678.aspx?sort=ASC&pi240=1

And, as Don pointed out, the control cables can easily be replicated on the tail, rudder and ailerons. 

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

NOTE:  Insert links link is not available to me, so just copy and paste the urls listed above.  Sorry

The pencil eraser, THAT's the key.

I reworked the rudder of a 19 foot sailboat one time, the rudder had a kick-up lower blade of aluminum.  While rebuilding the wooden rudder head, a friend went over the rudder blade with a steel brush mounted on a hand-drill (electric).  When she got done with the rudder blade it had the same appearance as the Spirit does on the cowl.  I knew rotations would come into play.

Now I need to find some BMF.

Welcome to the dark side! 

Speaking of the dark side, I got started and couldn't stop.  Don't know if I'll paint it or not, I kinda like it the way it is.  Decals for sure, but I think if I try to paint it properly, I'll screw it up.

When I used the kit decals for the turned cowling, I came up short and had a gap.  Fortunately the decals were still wet, and I was able to move the decals around so the gap was on the bottom.

The kit decals have two sets of cowlings, one as on the NYP flight, the other for the subsequent tour.  I built the model as the NYP version, then cut a little strip from the tour version decals to bridge the gap.

Looks very nice,the decals should make it pop