I figured I'd share what I've been up to for the last few weeks or so. This is one of two Emils I have been building in 1/48, one Tamiya and the other Eduard. I figured when I was done I'd offer which of the two I liked better, perhaps the pros and cons of each. This is the Eduard one.
I have a book that's remanded to my bathroom (where most of my productive reading is done) called "Dogfights". It outlines, in detail, machines that commonly fought each other, to include profiles of some of aces that flew them. It's a really cool book that was the direct inspiration for my Bob Doe Spitfire MK. I and Gunter Landt's BF109 K-4 I built recently. I'm drawing inspiration from the book once again to build Herbert Ihlefeld's Bf 109 E-4 from II/LG 2 during the Battle of Britain. His striking Emil is here on page 25 from the chapter that pits the Spitfire MK. I against the BF 109 E during the Battle of Britain (also where Doe's savviness in the Spitfire was discussed). Aside from the sweet,eye catching scheme, Ihlefeld was the leading Spitfire killer with 15 downed during the battle.
Another great rendering of Ihlefeld's "Black 1".
I've built the Eduard kit before but it's been quite a while (Pips Priller's machine). I remember the kit was beautifully detailed but the fit was finicky in the cowl area. I was definitely curious to whether I'd have the same issues.
I started with the pit. Like their Hellcat, I found it to be somewhat average but the included PE dresses it up quite well. I sprayed it AK Real Color RLM 02 as per pre November 1941 requirement and gave it "the business". You need to build "some" of the engine even if you don't intend to display the cowl open, presumably because of the exhaust stubs. The instructions give the proper guidance here. I kept it simple.
I had no issues at all this time around. Everything fit great. I suspect it was because I assembled the fuselage then slipped the pit up from underneath. It pretty much clicked in there. Awesome rivet detail here, just like their 110 series. I preshaded it....
In no time I was here. Ready for Montex.
After I sprayed all insignias and added the Montex masks, I sprayed that nose. I used XF-3 Yellow with a touch of XF-7 Red added. A real quick crude pic...
I taped this area off and fired down the RLM 65, which was half XF-23 Light Blue and half XF-2 White. I did some serious marbling and fading with the reverse basing technique. When finished, I went back over the panel lines with straight 65. I like the effect and less time consuming than black basing.
Next I fired down AK Real Colors RLM 02. I used the same marbling/fading technique by adding XF-2 white. I'm on the fence with AK's rendition of 02. It seemed a bit green to me.
Here's where Ihlefeld's scheme gets a bit tricky. I couldn't find any real pics of this plane, so I had to trust the profile pic in the book. I surmised that it originally had the standard RLM 02/71 over 65 splinter camo for Battle of Britain Emils, however, not unlike Pips Priller's machine, it got field modified to difuse the hard splinter wing pattern. It seems Ihlefeld's got softened in a similar manner too. I used Blue Tac worms to mask it off to simulate this. It had more 71 mottling on the fuselage, almost all green with a touch of 65 peeking through. I used AK Real Colors RLM 71 to do this. I thought their 71 looked good to my eye, green with a touch of brown. I added some XF-57 Buff to fade it up a bit. Here's the results after all masking was removed. The Montex performed great.
I did some post shading with a mix of XF-69 NATO Black and XF-64 Red Brown heavily diluted with alcohol. More black was added and I fired in the the exhaust stains.
I dirtied up the belly too.
I just gloss coated it and should get to decaling soon.