Battle of Britain GB 2006 - 1 May to 31 Oct 06

Hi Tom I'm glad to hear all is well.  It does seem like we've all been hit by the modeling slump to various degrees, just as long as your doing ok thats the main thing the urge to build will return ...eventualy.

Cheers

Bear 

Hey guys, I know it's not much to look at yet but the Spitfire has been primered!  Tonight I do the preshading, and tomorrow begins the camo. 

Looks like a nice clean build Scott.

Regards,  Rick

Here's a question for those of you with multi-colored camo experience.  I remember seing a build write up recently where the guy painted the green and brown upper surfaces first, then masked and sprayed the light gray underside last.  I know the conventional wisdom is to start with the light colors, and work your way to the dark, but there seems to be some wisdom to this approach.  I can see the obvious benefit of only worrying about the camo masking on the upper surfaces, overspray on the underside be damned, then doing a clean mask all the way around to then spray the underside. 

Any thoughts on this?

wing_nut wrote:

I think about 3 1/2 years ago when I had my PE…Pulmonary Embolism… not Photo Etch ;o)… nearly bought the farm.  I would have disappeared from here too.

Marc - wow!!  yeah I know what a PE is, I was a Respiratory Therapist in a past life... we're very lucky to have you modeling with us!!!  Those things are quick and can be very deadly!!!

ALL:  Thanks for your worm... er... warm words... yeah maybe this is a good sign, I'll get back into modeling in reverse... after my almost 20 yr hiatus I started building, then bumped into this place while researching an aircraft... maybe I'll start back here and that will get me modeling again!!!  Good to see all of you, I haven't had time to go back and look at all your builds yet.  I have the 80-90% complete He-111 in a cabinet protecting it from the dust and if I can, I'll get pics even though I haven't finished it yet... my "almost" finished offering for the build...

Take care and thanks for being understanding!!!

tho9900 wrote:

Scott - I am also a follower of the bottom color then mask and do the camo for the top.  After ALL that masking for that disruptive pattern, Sky wouldn't look too good misted over it...  But it would be interesting to see how it works for you if you try it... who knows maybe WE had the wrong idea!!!

Normally I do the same as you, bottom first, then upper.  But here is what intrigues me about doing it in reverse.  Spray the upper brown, piece of cake all one solid color, no masking (other than cockpit).  Mask the camo pattern on the upper parts and spray the green.  Again, piece of cake although the masking will take some time.  Then, mask all the camo'd parts and one quick spray for the underside and I'm done.  In terms of masking it might be easier I would think, unless my logic is flawed.  I'm going to try to find that build I got the idea from and review that again.

Anyone see any issues with trying that?  I know one of you mentioned the posibility of overspray on all the nicely camo'd stuff, but if I just take my Tamiya tape, mask the edge between the upper camo and the lower, then us the super wide tape I have to mask the wings, sides and top, then there shouldn't be any risk.. in theory. 

I suppose either way is the same situation.  Going to get started on the camo in about an hour. 

Either way works, but I always paint the lighter colors first, which is almost always the bottom.  Some night fighter exceptions, & there I paint the bottom black last.

Regards,  Rick

I found where I got that idea from.  It's in Osprey's "Modeling the Messerschmitt Bf109 B/C/D/E."  There was a write up on building an E and they painted the gray and green camo first so that they could then mask it and paint the sides lichtblau.  On that particular scheme the blue goes pretty high on the fuselage so it allowed them to have a nice, clean straight edge between the green/gray camo and the light blue.

I did my preshading last night.  Camo work begins tonight.

Looking good Scott.

Regards,  Rick

Looks good Scott.

Regards,  Rick

Nice work Karl.  Most BoB Emils were RLM 71/02/65, but a few were still in RLM 70/71/65.  Best to check references.

Regards,  Rick

Scott & Karl  your builds are comming along nicely, great work

Cheers

Bear

looking good Karl.

Regards,  Rick

Looking good Karl!  Man, you have a lot of projects going on!  They all look great!  Nice work!

No progress on the Spitfire yesterday, had a very long day and when I finally got home there were "honey do's" I had to take care of and by the time I finished them I was ready for a couple glasses of wine and watched a movie "The Breakup".  Jennifer Anniston can keep me away from the modelling bench anytime.