Wabash, that is one amazing 109!  Excellent work!

Wabash, that is some stunning work!!! What I can see of the office, looks great!! All round jam up job!!

I finally got my Bf 109 E looking pretty good.  I chose the aircraft flown by Hauptmann, Rolf Pingel, Gruppenkommandeur of I./ JG 26 during the fall of 1940.  The fin carries 17 victory markings.  It was during this period that Pingel had his aircraft damaged and ditched in the Channel.  In July 1941, flying a Bf 109 F-2, Pingel was attacking a British Stirling Bomber, when he himself received damage. Intercepted by Spitfires, he force-landed, and was taken prisoner.

The model is a Tamiya Bf 109 E4.  I used Eduard's Color Zoom cockpit detail set to dress up the interior.  All the exterior paint and camo markings are Model Master paints.  The fuselage mottle camo was by far the toughest part of the paint job.  I ended up using a combination of raised masks and freehand mottle with minmum paint flow and very low pressure.  I also sanded the mottle with 2000 grit paper to further feather the edges.  After a light coat of Future, I applied AeroMaster Decals using the micro set system.I highlighted panel lines with diluted oil paints.  I stressed over the stark yellow cowling, but the oils did a great job toning down the yellow.  I gave the whole job several light coats of Krylon clear flat, which lays down great.  Before attaching the fiddly bits, I dirtied up the exhausts, wheels, and general coverage grime.  It looks pretty good sitting on the shelf.  It continues to be fun and rewarding following all these builds.  Everyone's WIP's and tips certainly help advance each other's skill levels.  Thanks Darren, for making this build work.  Rick.

Thats a great loking Spit, very well done.

Clebode, sorry to hear about your paint wowes. Hope you get it fixed soon

Steve

Mike---I tried to paint the Xs freehand with poor results, too squiggly.  I might have worked before the wings were attached and I had better access to the fuze area over the wings.  A steadier hand would help too.  I spent time last night making a mask that should allow me to paint fairly uniform but soft enough to look hand sprayed Xs.  We'll see tomorrow. 

Thanks  Gamera, mine also has plenty of rough spots, photo's were very kind to me

Shame about your paint problems Clebode, I ended up stripping mine twice so stick with it and I'm sure you'll get the result your after

Darren, Richie was right thats a lovely looking Spitfire

Cheers...

Darren, is that Spit urs!!!????? WOWSERS!! Having seen the real one twice at Point Cook, albeit not as weathered, the colors are spot on!!! Beautiful work mate!!!

John & Gamera---I think you are right.  I masked too soon.  Its not an issue now because I tried painting the camo Xs today with disappointing results.  I have to strip the paint from the fuze sides and start over. 

Spike: WOW! She looks great, I was very happy with how my Spit came out but she did have a few rough places. Yours looks flawless!

Clebode: Weird, I've never had that happen to me and I use both sorts of tape. However I almost always allow the paint to dry overnight just to be safe. No idea if that would make a difference or not.

I don't mask that soon with acrylics, it seems like the surface can appear dry before the underlying paint is done.  I give it a day if I can, but I have gotten away with 3 or 4 hours on thin flat coats.  Perhaps the difference you see is because of the different tackiness of the tapes you used.

Spike190

...will yours remain mottle...less? 

Spike---I am sorry but it will not.  The inspriation is "Black 7" as feature in FSM's special BoB edition a few years back.  The builder displayed it open and I wanted to see what the bird would look like closed up.  In the end it will have RLM 71 Xs and RLM 02 mottles on the fuze sides.

All---I ran into a new issue when painting the 109.  After applying the RLM 65 I masked for the darker colors using Tamiya tape to make the demarcation lines and then filled the larger areas with 3M blue "painter's tape" to save my Tamiya supply.  When I demasked, the paint under the Tamiya tape was a lighter hue than the area under the 3 M tape.  I painted with Tamiya acryl thinned with their lacquer thinner.  The paint cured about an hour before the masks were applied.   

It is not a dramatic difference and the mottling and weathering should render it nearly invisible.  Has anyone else experienced this reaction?  Did I mask too soon? 

John, Mike, Jeremy, B17, Soulcrusher, Hugh annnnd Darren, thanks chaps for the extremely kind words. Also thanks to Nomad who advised me on the best way to mask for the camouflage, it worked really well and I will use that technique again.

Hugh nice update on the paint progress, I really like the 109's without the mottle, will yours remain mottle...less? I'm gonna have to do a BoB 109 sometime.

Cheers....

Mike, what can I say apart from wow, what an awsome job.

Hugh in terms of painting or highlighting raised panel lines I think the best method(s) would be a combo of pre & post shading. 

Whilst the Spit Mk.VIII in the pic has recessed panel lines but all of the panel line shading on this model was done with the air brush in a post shading frenzy: 

B17 & Hugh great looking progress work from both of you.  Those 109s are really starting to come together.

Cheers

Hugh that is looking great!!!

Spike---Awesome Supermarine.  Ditto Crusher's comment.  The weathering is superb.  Understated but recognizable!!! 

Al---Moving along on the Bf109E-4.  Main colors are on.  We have to get the Luftwaffe in the air!

Very nicely done Spike. The staining on the underside came out great.

Soulcrusher

jmabx

Spike - Nice work on the Spit! The paint work is beautiful!

Spike - Nice work on the Spit! The paint work is beautiful!

Spike -- you have a build you can be very, very proud of! This is one of the best Spits I've ever seen, and if I'd turned out a result like this I would be more than happy. The finish and detail are superb, the paintjob is entirely evocative of a serving aircraft of the period -- it's the perfect foil to all the 109s that proliferate at this time of year!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

The Spitfire looks very nice indeed, well done.

Looking very good so far B17.

Thanks guy's for the comments. Well I'm now done on this build, had a few problems along the way but all to do with me and paint. I dropped the elevators on this, first time I've done anything like that and I am pleased with the result. I used some Xtradecal to depict Spitfire Mk1 flown by Sqn. Ldr. Brian Lane of 19 Squadron, March to September 1940. Apparently this aircraft causes a bit of debate as regards the colour of the spinner, I went with yellow simply because I thought it looked good.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and all comments are welcome.

Not my best effort but I'm glad to have finally got her finished.

Thanks Darren for letting me join in the fun, I will keep an eye on all the excellent stuff being built.

Cheers everybody ...

Got my 109 together.  Eduard had me replace the radiators on the bottom wings. Can't see much of them, cause the kit supplied cover was still used.  Cut the elevators off to repostion later (going to do a diorama with the bird).  Just need to fill the seams and then I can paint her.

Here she stands at the moment:

Mike she's a stunner mate!!!!!! Beautiful job on everything!!!!

As far as raised panel lines go, well, the last one I did was my Hase Jake and I preshaded them. After final color I highlighted the center of the panels with a VERY thin mist of a light gray. When shooting, as soon as you notice the hue STOP! Anyway here's a pic of what I mean.

I wasn't about to sand down and rescribe everything. I chose to just work with them. Done the same thing on my Swordfish, just sort of tried to disguise them rather then totally change them. HTH!!

Mike nice looking Spitfire!!   Clebode the best way to fix raised panel lines is to rescribe. I f you dont want to bother with that you can preshade. I like to post shade I use post it notes to mask off the line and spray slightly darker paint at the line edge. I have used Tamiya clear smoke paint also, then you can take a pencil and run over the raised line to bring out the line detail. Some people use pastel chalk to bring out the detail I have not tried that one. Hope that helps

Damon

Hugh I think people often remove raised panel lines and then rescribe them, as you've already started I would think that's a no goer, I'm sure someone will chime in with the best solution for painting them, I'd of thought post shading may work better on raised panel lines.

My good lady is away this weekend and has taken the two cameras I use to take my pictures! A few little bits still needed and sorry about the camera phone pictures but this is where I'm at.

I should be posting proper finished pics tomorrow.

Cheers....

Okay.  I just primed the Bf109E-4 and realized I am dealing with raised panel lines here.  First time for this feature.  I need suggestions as to how to treat the raised lines for a look like you can get with a wash applied to recessed lines.  Preshading?  Also, any reasonable way to restore lines lost due to seam sanding?

Hugh your 109 is moving along nicely.

Soulcrusher I eagerly await "Red 1" .

Luftwaffle, nice work on your two, I just love all these 109's

I'm almost done on the Spitfire, hope to have pictures up in the next few days as I just need to complete the under carriage.

Cheers everybody, keep up the good work.

Looks like you are going to have a nice pair there Mike. I build the E-4 kit a long time ago. It is a great kit and it went together will no filler needed anywhere.

Soulcrusher

Time for a "Tamiya Two-fer" in 1/72!

What could be better than a Tamiya Emil?  Why two Tamiya Emils of course!  These are going to be "just for fun" builds pretty much OOB, including seat belt decals!

The E-1 will be "Yellow 8" from 9./JG 2 piloted by Leutnant Rudolph Rothenfelder and the E-4 will be "White 6" of 1./JG 3 piloted by Leutnant Heinz Schnabel.

Went together as expected, just about flawless fit everywhere:

Here's my deviation from completely OOB (decals excluded of course).  I ran across a profile of "Yellow 8" from 9./JG 2 and really wanted to do this scheme so some minor surgery on an E-3 kit was required.  Removed the gun blister for the wing mounted MG FF and the associated panel lines and then re-scribed the detail that was lost during sanding:

Will start painting them today.

Hey Hugh I thought I would run into you over here. Its a steep learning cure but you seem to be doing just fine so far buddy. That and you have fallen in with the best crowd around on this forum by joining the DoR GB and now this one. Lots of great helpfull people in both GB's. I will have to read back a bit when I get a chance to see all of the nice stuff I missed.

Richie what up buddy! You know me I do my best and I love thoses Luftwaffe paint schemes.

Soulcrusher