Terrific pair of bombers guys!

Love that engine nacelle full of lead sinkers SP!

It's actually birdshot... #8 load I think,,, I still have lots of it, hopefully enough to last the rest of my modeling days. And this sucker is still tail heavy so far. I will need to put more in the cowlings behind the engines I think. Good thing that it has sturday landing gear.

Ahhhh, right SP, I thought it looked like it was slotted but I guess it's just my eyes.

Sorry everyone; it has taken me forever. No matter what I do, I can't get a pic to be focused. I'm open for suggestions. I did this pic further back and zoomed in.

I am useless with camera's ken, I just let my camera do all the work and luckily they usually come out well. Are you doing anything differently to what you normally do.

Many digital camers have a "close up" setting, often with a flower icon for that option. Look at your camera to see if it is there, and try shooting the model with that setting on.

AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I give up!!!!!! No matter how hard and patient I am , I just can't mask a section of white to my liking for the invasion stripes! I tried laying down the lower part decals to give me an idea where they start and end to mask, measuring the stripes total length to fit the fuselage, I tried measuring each individual stripes to get a total length to make sure it's gonna give me the correct spaces between black & white stripes and nothing is working. I spent a good part of 45 minutes last night (12:30 am - 1:45 am) and this morning  2 hours. I'm literally at my wits end and ready to give up all together and to hell with it. LOL!

Any help/suggestions/tips would be appreciated.

try a miniature version of what the gound crews did. Use a pencil to draw an outline of where the stripes are supposed to go on the model, then mask around that. On the real aircraft, the outlines were chalked onto the airframe and then the stripes were painted on.

BlackSheep,

Try not to anger the stripe gods.  Set out a tall, cool beverage (of your choice) and relax.  Stripes will come.

Not sure if you're trying to do individual stripes, but the easiest thing to do is first measure out the total width for all the stripes on wing or fuselage, then paint the entire area white.  Then you can go back and do the individual black stripes over the white.  That way, if you mess up a bit, it can be corrected with a little touch up.  And don't worry too much about getting everything perfect.  I doubt the ground crews did. 

Good luck!

Gary

Black Sheep I used a caliper to get mine. I wasn't having much luck with a ruler, so I bought the caliper.

Thanks guys, the camera setting was way off. Duhhhh any way here are a couple more pics.

just thought you might like to see my builds for this GB together

Good advice there Gary.

Glad to see you got it sorted Ken. Great pics.

Bish - I was measuring it that way (total length) for my stripes. LOL! No matter how hard I tried, it comes out either too long or too short.

Greentracker - I was using a caliper (cheap plastic kind from Harbor Freight) and that one gives me fits as well. Nothing to lock measurment in place. LOL!

stik - I may have to try that route using pencil......

Wings aren't the problem doing stripes on. It's the fuselage that's giving me fits. LOL!

Oops.... I meant to GAF's suggestion. LOL!

Ken: These photos came out great- very nice work!

BS214: Yeah, I always do the white area first and then put in the black. Not sure what else to tell you though, I'm not that good at this either- yeah the fuselage ones seem hardest to get right.

You said it Gamera. Invasion stripes on fuselages are hard to do. Of course I'm sure some are easier than others. I'll figure it out somehow.

Thanks everyone. Its always nice to see it finished. Now, I'm starting a B-17 and a B24.

There were "regs" put out on invasion stripes, but if you look around a bit, it's pretty obvious that there was a lot of interpretation done by ground crews. You're dealing with a 1/48 model, so you might do what I did. Get some of Tamiya's thinnest masking tape and either lay down five pieces are measure one and multiply by five. Once you've got the area to be masked set and masked in total, paint it white. White's a tricky paint, but if you're careful you should be able to lay down a good coat with Tamiya if you want to use an airbrush, or Vallejo Model Color if you want to hand paint it. (If there's a Blick store in your area you could make a quick trip and pick up a small bottle of Golden Fluid Titanium White and Carbon Black - both have astounding opacity and are terrific paints for hand brushing - keep your brush damp with water.) Model Master might work too, but for hand work you'd want a water based acrylic and I'm not sure how MM fits in there. Solvent based acrylics like Tamiya and Gunze are best for airbrushing.) Anyway, once you've got some big areas of white after the paint cures, put one strip of tape on the inside of both edges, and eyeball another one in the middle. Now you're looking at two perfectly good areas prepared for the black. If you're airbrushing be very careful and make sure the paint is sealed because you don't want overrun of black over white. If you hand paint it, it's a snap.

Eric  

Eric - thats good advice, But I used Rustoleum flat black and flat white. This white even covers the black no sweat, so touch ups were easy.

I'm on a fixed income, so I look for deals on everything. and the black, if not the white, will always be right at hand.

Eric - I will be Vallejo Off White and Floquil Weathered Black for my stripes. I may switch over to Vallejo black if I decide to hand paint my stripes.

I am unfamiliar with Golden Fluid Titanium White and Carbon Black. Who is the manufacturer of those paints? Curious....

Never mind - I figured out the brand - Golden Fluid. I need more coffee this late in the morning..... LOL!

I got to thinking. I'm going to try Eric's method on a scrap kit of masking and painting invasion stripes by hand.... with decals on. Yes, decals will be on and sealed with a coat or two of flat clear.

That's being very brave, BlackSheep!  Good luck with it.

And, Ken, great work and photos both!

That way I can paint the stripes around the decals due to the P-47 Thunderbolt subject decal placings.

It's still way more nerve than I've got!

Look forward to seeing how you get on with that BlackSheep. I am just glad German aircraft usually only have the one stripe.

LOL @ Bish. Ain't that the truth... Stripe of any color be it white, green, black, yellow, blue,... well you get the picture.

BlackSheepTwoOneFour

I got to thinking. I'm going to try Eric's method on a scrap kit of masking and painting invasion stripes by hand.... with decals on. Yes, decals will be on and sealed with a coat or two of flat clear.

good luck! I have had decals pull up, even after a coat or two of being sealed in... talk about angry...

Precisely why I'm doing it on a scrap kit. LOL!

I have thought about the risks of possibly decals pulling off the kit even when sealed with multiple coats of clearcoat.

I managed to find a quiet time tonight  to really concentrate on masking a section on the fuselage for the invasion stripes. It looks like I've finally got it.  (Gotta love a rainy night to work at it. LOL!)

I decided against my "decal first then mask idea." Didn't want to take the chance.