BomberGruppe GB - 2007 (Luftwaffe Bombers)

Well, I finally finished.  Here are some pics, but my camera abilities still suck.  If I would have taken some time, I could have done better.  If you want to see anything in particular, just lemme know.  I made my typical ton of mistakes.  Besides the fictional decaling, you could pic out several issues with my build if ya wanted to.    However, it turned out ok for me.  I like the scheme and I did an ok job.  I'll be proud of it on the shelf at the office.  I can now better appreciate builds like this plane.  The splinter scheme and the canopy take some work.

razordws wrote:

Ya well I haven't actually finished them yet have I?

semantics, Dave, semantics...

Have you decided on how you are going to display them?

razordws wrote:

espins1 wrote: er... uh... well after I get back from the Nationals in LA anyways  Please, please please take lots of pics for the rest of us poor souls who will not be there!

Yeah ... what he said. 

good looking work on the 234's.  The last time I did a production line type of build... kind of took the fun out of it.  It was more like a... well... ... a production line. 

Looking forward to seeing some pics Dave.  I'm not sure I want to try four at once again anytime soon.  Maybe if it were a tamiya or hasegawa kit with no fit issues but I'll definitely never do this again with a Dragon aircraft kit.  By the way, dragon has not come through yet on a replacement canopy so until I build a vacuform box I am down to three.

Update photo of the first off the assembly line.  Still have to attach the engines.  I read on a review somewhere that with the four engine model you had better paint first before attaching because there is very little room between the engine and the fuselage and it can be hard to paint.  I will attach the engines and putty the huge gap before painting the final camo color.

I can't believe you are doing four at once, razordws! 

I decided not to put all the small decals on.  I feel like moving this project on and it's a sort of fictional plane as far as decals go anyway.  I've started doing the wash to all the landing gear and stuff.  I'll hopefully get the wash on the rest of the plane tomorrow.  Then I'll throw on a little exhaust stain on.  Once I put the flat coat on, I'll see if I feel like putting any paint chipping or other weathering on.  It shouldn't be long now! 

espins1 wrote:

er... uh... well after I get back from the Nationals in LA anyways

Please, please please take lots of pics for the rest of us poor souls who will not be there!

Work has resumed on the Ar 234.  I have decided to tackle these on a one at a time basis from here on out though as I found I was getting too bogged down trying to work on four at once.  First up is the 234 C bomber.  Got the canopy "BACK" on last night and the RLM 76 underside laid down.  I really debated over doing the RLM 70-71-65 colour scheme which may be more accurate but I like the 81-82-76 scheme better.

Looking mighty fine there Dave. Your almost at my favourite moment...Taking off the canopy masks.

Proper Job there big boy.

...Guy

Got some decals on.  Not sure if I want to put more of the small ones yet.  I'll finish up all the other items (landing gear, wheels, guns, props, etc) first and then come back to that issue.  Not very good photos, sorry.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the vote of confidence.  I'll get to work on the decals tonight.

jeaton01 wrote:

You're welcome, Dave.  The Ju-88 has so many variations in armament and marking it can be fun, or it can be wearying, can't it.  The attitude you've taken is probably best, and who knows, there may have been a Ju-88 that at some time and some place had just the markings you end up with.  It will look good on your shelf.

Well put, John. I couldn't have put it any better.

When it's all said and done, you'll have a beautifully modelled and painted aircraft of the most versatile German plane of the War.

Don't mean to push you generosity, but can you make decals from pictures?  This shot from the squadron book shows the diving eagle and shield.  Just wonderin. 

Edit:  Ahh, nevermind.  I just noticed that that one has a white fuselage band (and I've already futured) and it has the twin rear guns where I only have the one (but so does the other reference photo I mentioned......). 

Thanks for the offer, jeaton01!  If you can do that, let me to a little more research and see if I can find another example.  The one you referenced, F8+BX is from the kit's decals, so I assume it's an actual fuselage code.  I don't see any nose art to speak of on his craft.  Here is the one I found in my book, but I'll check one last time online to see what I can come up with.   I appreciate the help.

Heres a 1/72 day fighter C-6 in the splinter scheme, looks like it has no nose art, just the fuselage and lower wing codes.  These photos are at Aircraft Resource Center, look in the Gallery for Ju-88.  It was built by Joe Youngerman.  I can do those on my ALPS printer, it needs some exercise.  Do you have the national markings for this scheme?

Dave:

What markings do you need?  Do you have a picture of what the airplane looked like?  I may be able to help.  Fuselage codes are not too hard to make up, and other markings are pretty generic.

Dave, you're giving it "artistic license" as opposed to making a "what if" aircraft. At least your build is historically based, so I wouldn't be too down about it....it's looking terrific so far.

Keep those pics rolling!

Thanks guys!

mucker - I'm having to stick with the kit's decals even though the kit's decals are for a differently painted aircraft.  I wanted to build the dayfighter version instead of nightfighter.  I found plenty of references showing dayfighting Ju-88C-6's with regular splinter camo.  I figured I would be able to find some AM decals for a plane like that.  I searched high and low and I couldn't find decals for that type of aircraft in that scheme.  So it's not going to be an accurately decaled plane.

jeaton01 - Ya, I like those Vs, but they were more of a pain than I expected to do (at least for me ).  I found that splinter camo on this plane and on a 109 are definately two different things.  I looked back at your Ju-388K, I see you had fun with this pattern also.  You did a great job.