Happy New Year everyone!
I have had this kit on the back burner for over a year, but the project has been in mind since I was about 12, so that makes this one a 21-year project...
What I mean by that is I bought the decals back in 1995 or so at a model show for $5, bought the kit in 2015 and managed to paint the wheel wells in 2015, get it assembled by the end of 2016 and started throwing paint on it on New Year's Eve.
I've always loved the 190 and its various paint schemes, and Josef "Pips" Priller was a name I knew from watching The Longest Day as a kid.
So here is his mount from 1942.
Assembly was typical Tamiya - great fit and nice recessed details. Also typical for Tamiya, the harness was a decal, which I replaced with Eduard photoetch. I didn't do too much to the cockpit, as I wanted to leave the canopy closed since the 190's lines look so awesome.
Once done, I primered the aircraft in Mr. Surfacing Finisher 1500 Black and started painting with the yellow on the chin and rudder, Tamiya in this case.
Next up was the main scheme of RLM 74/75/76. I used Gunze paints for these with Mr. Leveling Thinner at a ratio of 9:2 thinner:paint.
Rather than paint the underside first, which I normally do, I decided to do the grays because I wanted to freehand as much of the pattern as possible and felt that would be easier. I did of course mask the wing roots, but the rest was freehanded.
I mottled the fuselage once I'd done the blue, and then it was time for decals.
With the decals, I didn't have stencils, but I had the kit stencils as well as an Eduard sheet.
I decided to put down the wing walk lines, and while they went down fine, I thought they were both too big and too contrasty. After doing some research of 190 pics from the same unit and same era (JG29, 1942), I saw multiple airframes that didn't have them. So I decided to pull them up.
...which went pretty bad, and the tape I was using to lift them actually pulled the clearcoat, paint and primer off.
So it was back to the paint shop for a fix.
Working off a profile I foundof the aircraft online that seems to be pretty accurate, I noticed the Superscale fuselage markings were a bit small, and in any case they were each two decals (one white and one black, which had to be lined up perfectly). I used the Superscale Balkenkreuz, but got the aircraft markings from an Eduard Bf-109 sheet printed by Cartograf, and they worked flawlessly. Fit of the Superscale markings around the exhaust ports was perfect, and I'm guessing the sheet was made for the Tamiya kit.
The above pic ismore or less how it sits now. I've since added the stencils (Eduard, with two of them coming from Tamiya). If you look closely at the pic, it seems like the colors change a bit on th eleft wing, but that's a shadow.
I'll be cler-coating this one tonight, then getting on with a panel line wash.
Thanks for looking!
-BD-