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My 109 addiction: Walter Oesau: Completed 26/Jan/18


Gazzas

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Hi Everyone,

   On 11 May 1944, Luftwaffe ace Walter Oesau flew his last mission in a Bf106 G6/AS, Green 13, W.Nr 20601.  Bounced by a flight of P-38's he became separated from his wingman.   Damaged by cannon fire, (as can be seen in the picture below from the gun camera film footage) Oesau was attacked again by a Mustang and killed as he sought to make an emergency landing.

OesauGreen13shootdown.jpg

 

 

A few months ago I picked up the old Fujimi G6/AS Special Escort for a few dollars.  It's decals are long since yellowed, and I'm not even going to try to use any of them.  I have HGW transfers and decals for most of the required markings.  For the "Green 13" I'm going to use the Silhouette Portrait I was given at Christmas.  I've ordered some Oramask 810 and am awaiting delivery.

b_120832.jpg

The spiral spinner was masked using the sliver technique and Tamiya tape.  It's still a bit jagged in places and I hope some subtle weathering can make it a little less imperfect looking.

b_120902.jpg

The red band near the tail was done in Tamiya enamel.  The rest of the airframe was covered in various shades of RLM76 to achieve a light sense of paint modulation.  It's very hard to notice the tonal differences due to recent gloss-coating with Future and the lighting conditions.

 

b_120815.jpg

With the arrival of the G6 came a very fine whip aerial at the bottom of the fuselage behind the pilot.  I tired to replicate this aerial with .2mm copper wire but found it looked way too thick for the scale.  Searching around for a substitute I decided too accept help from my best friends.  It didn't take long on my hands and knees to find what I wanted.  A straight-ish hair from one of my Rottweilers.   I probably could have gotten away with plucking one fresh, but some things you just don't do to your best friend.  Though faintly visible in the main photo, you can see it a little better in the inset photo in the upper left corner.

 

b_120917.jpg

I'm sure the kit has lots of dimensional and a few shape errors, but for the price, I can't really complain.  I have scratched the radio box behind the pilot's head armor and brake lines in addition to the whip aerial on the underside.

 

You may have noticed that there aren't any panel lines on the fuselage between the cockpit and the empennage.  I have seen a fair few close up photos of 109's with these seams filled and sanded, though I won't assert that it was done on every machine.  One photo shows an Allied serviceman leaning casually against another Hohenjager with no evidence of panel lines visible at the end of the war.  I would have posted the photo but it's on someone's Flickr account so I can't get a workable link.  Maybe I just don't know how.

 

Anyway, my challenge to myself is to take this blank fuselage and make it interesting with markings, stencils, and weathering effects.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Gaz

Edited by Gazzas
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Hi Everyone,

    One small update for you, one giant leap for me.  (With apologies to Neil Armstrong)

Late yesterday my Oramask 810 arrived, so straight after work, I dug out the Silhouette Portrait and printed out my Luftwaffe 13's.

 

After weeding out the excess and setting the numbers in place (very difficult trying to get them straight) I mixed up some home brewed RLM 25 and masked around my masks.

 

While the spagbol was cooking, I was taking breaks to add another thin coat of green acrylic.  After dinner I pulled the masks and took a couple snaps:

b_180809.jpg

 

b_180837.jpg

 

At first I tried making the numbers by hand and found the '3' to be too difficult.  And then I remembered finding a font that worked for USAF birds.  So, I set to searching for a Luftwaffe font and found this page:

 http://digitalaviationart.com/skyraider3d/ttf_bff.htm

 

The Silhouette portrait will use any font that is installed in your windows fonts folder.   

 

So...I'm pretty happy and feeling like I've accomplished a lot even though it was only four 13mm tall numbers.

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Gaz

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Guest Peterpools

Gaz

Terrific progress on the 109, looking teal hood. I always appreciate the historical bio's .. adds so much to the build.

Keep'em comin

Peter

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Hi Everyone,

    One small update for you, one giant leap for me.  (With apologies to Neil Armstrong)

Late yesterday my Oramask 810 arrived, so straight after work, I dug out the Silhouette Portrait and printed out my Luftwaffe 13's.

 

After weeding out the excess and setting the numbers in place (very difficult trying to get them straight) I mixed up some home brewed RLM 25 and masked around my masks.

 

While the spagbol was cooking, I was taking breaks to add another thin coat of green acrylic.  After dinner I pulled the masks and took a couple snaps:

b_180809.jpg

 

b_180837.jpg

 

At first I tried making the numbers by hand and found the '3' to be too difficult.  And then I remembered finding a font that worked for USAF birds.  So, I set to searching for a Luftwaffe font and found this page:

 http://digitalaviationart.com/skyraider3d/ttf_bff.htm

 

The Silhouette portrait will use any font that is installed in your windows fonts folder.   

 

So...I'm pretty happy and feeling like I've accomplished a lot even though it was only four 13mm tall numbers.

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Gaz

 

 

That looks amazing!  Im really surprised at how much I like this scheme. I am normally not a single color camo kind of guy, but this scheme looks really great on the 109

 

Ive got a Portrait as well, and really enjoy it, having used it for all sorts of things!   If you ever need any Silhouette files for fonts (have many) and or balkenkreuz or hakenkreuz or others, I have made many of those as well, and kept them all as Silhouette files. 

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Peter,

    Thank you very much!

 

Brian,

    Thank you for the kind words and the offer!  I haven't done many single color schemes myself but I hope to work up to an all-black scheme nightfighter eventually.  It's a challenge to make the scheme look realistic and interesting.

 

Gaz

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