Thanks fellas...
Lemmee try and answer some of your questions, not necessarily in order.
The bare metal effect is Monogram/Humbrol's Polished Steel brushed on and slightly buffed. Unfortunately, this stuff is long gone... But I've heard that Humbrol still carries the same paint.
The pencils I used were, indeed, Prismacolors. I only used them on the serial number and the command pennant under the windscreen. And I love using 'em for drawing, as well!
Um... oh, decals for Glacier Girl. When I've made decals in the past, I've simply drawn the image out on solid film decal paper, painted it (sprayed and/or brushed) and sealed it with Micro Superfilm. Gotta be careful with the Superfilm, it'll dissolve most paints and inks if you work it too much.
As to the markings on this one, they were all painted directly onto the model using masks (roundels, fin flashes & code letters) or simply done freehand (playing cards & sharkmouth). The national markings were sprayed and the code letters were stippled lightly through the mask then finished off by hand.
The weathering, I really can't give a solid answer there. As I said, I built this as a testbed and tried a number of things on it, and continue to do so today. But here's what I recall: For the faded look on the paint I sprayed straight white over the colors to lighten them to varying degrees. Pastels were used throughout, as well as a bit of washing with watercolors.
This is a good case of knowing your subject; I'd be less likely to give this same treatment to an aircraft from the ETO. The effects of the weather on aircraft in Europe would be different than in the Pacific simply because of the differing weather conditions.
The aircraft serving in the PTO, especially in the southern Pacific, were subject to extreme weathering and I tried to represent this. Paint was very badly faded and dust, dirt and sand got everywhere. Also, the Aussies weren't known for keeping clean aircraft, so I really went to town on this bird.
And finally, the color scheme. This is, I realize, a matter of some debate in certain circles; information on Aussie Spitfires is not as plentiful as other subjects.
I like to add a bit of the unusual into my modeling, and when I saw a profile of this bird I had to do it. I'm not one for placing much faith in artists' renderings for the purpose of reference, but this was an exception. And although I did a bit of research before I actually painted this thing, I ultimately fell back on the profile as my main reference because of the little concrete info that I had at the time. In this case, it really didn't matter if it was totally accurate or not. I've long given up my quest for total accuracy, fewer models get built that way!
But, gladly, subsequent research seems to have justified my decision to use the Foliage Green/Earth Brown scheme. Many of the earlier VIII's delivered to the RAAF carried the RAF 'desert' scheme of Dark Earth & Middle Stone over Azure Blue. The Middle Stone was usually overpainted with Foliage Green upon delivery and the Dark Earth left alone.
As to the color of the undersurfaces, I used a slightly lightened Azure Blue. My reasoning at the time was that the Aussies, already showing a distinct lack of color continuity/uniformity,
would have most likely left the Azure Blue because although it wasn't the RAAF Sky Blue, it was still
blue, similar to the Dark Earth/Earth Brown issue. As long as it was in the ballpark... This, at the time, was pure speculation on my part; call it an educated guess. But, again, subsequent research has given a bit of further credence to this idea.
Anyhoo... there is
now some doubt, however, whether the aircraft carried the sharkmouth! I have conflicting info here as well, but without actual photos there's no way of knowing this for sure. I'd like to find out though as I wanna build this aircraft again with a Hasegawa kit.
By the way, the subject is an LF VIII flown by Wing Cdr Robert Gibbes during the summer of 1944. This aircraft was written off in an accident in December of that year, but I have conflicting info as to who was at the controls.
Gibbes was burned in an accident in December '44 and this would seem to jive, but some sources state that the aircraft was wrecked by a new pilot. I know that pilots, whether they had a personal aircraft or not, often times would use whatever ship was available when needed. But I find it hard to believe that a Wing Commander's ship would be entrusted to a newb. One never knows, however...
Fade to Black...