Finish on night-fighter Hurricane

i have no experience, but id say that very dark gray becomes black in 1/48 scale, without being pitch black and un-scale. i used tamiya dark gray for the deck of my 1/144 carrier diorama, and it looks like faded asphalt. for use on AC bodies i cant say much for sure though. good luck !

Reggie,

I built a similiar job about five years ago. I went ahead with the flat black, but then sprayed a fine "dusting" over the black with a mixture of Tamiya Buff and dark grey. I just kept misting over the base coat until I acheived the faded or lightened scale look I wanted. This also helps to "fade" Luftwaffe camo too.

Steve

For all black aircraft, I do overall in true black, then mask & do selected panels in 2 other shades of very dark greys. Helps to break up the monotone of all black.

Regards, Rick

Thanks for the replies guys. I was expecting to need a few different shades to vary the panels, but it's nice to get a feel for how gray is black enough... I suppose the buff/gray misting would help blend the panels also. I only have one of the basic Testors external-mix airbrushes though. Any advice on the dusting with no control over air pressure? I'm expecting to need to use a good deal of thinner and move the airbrush a fair distance from the model surface - am I on the right track?

Well, here's another one: I'd do all the other things you've been advised, the this: I'm preparing to start a Mk. IId with a bunch of AM stuff added to the 1/48 basic Hasegawa kit. But while researching my colors, since I've built the kit you're working on (didn't like having flat PE parts in place of very noticeable turbular framing in the fuselage, so I replaced those parts with styrene rod, using the PE parts for a pattern). Anyway, I was looking over Scale Aircraft Modelling Magazine's new series of books, specifically two volumes, Combat Colours (Vol. 2 is the Hurricane) and Camouflage and Markings No. 2 -- The Battle For Britain. These books contain literally hundreds of profiles of planes, and describes the markings in detail.
The Hurricane Night Fighter, as well as other night fighters and the bottoms of lots of aircraft early in the war, was usually painted the the British color Night. This color is not simply flat black. It is a flat black with very dark grayish blue added to it. This would be equivalent to U.S. Sea Blue. So I would add that, and if you are fading the a/c a little so it won't be so black, I would add more of the blue. Not to get a blue airplane, but to get the effect. I think you'll be happy with it.
Tom

Thanks for your input sharkskin - I get the feeling I'll have to find some plastic to sacrifice to test a few colour combinations!

Sharkskin your advice is timely as I'm due to start on the Hurricane Mk1 night fighter for the BoB GB.

I'll definitely keep an eye out for both those books in my LHS.

Karl

KJ, I just went back and reread, and the books says not that the blue was mixed in, but that Night is in fact a dark, dark shade of gray-blue, almost black. So I would start with a bottle of Sea Blue and start adding in black until you are happy with it. I wish I could send you this wartime photo of a Hurricane nightfighter from the big coffee table book "Cockpits," because it includes a very sharp picture that shows the blue tint very clearly, and all the detail is there in the photo, none lost to the dark color. See if you can find someone who has the book and a scanner (I have no scanner) and you'll have half your problem solved.
Tom
Tom

Tom, thanks for that.

All I currently have are a few rough black and whites, but I'll drop into my LHS and see what they have in the way of Hurricane references tomorrow.

Thanks

Karl