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My annual leave build, Tamiya A6M5


karimb

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It definitely does not look like masking fluid or the like under paint, and it definitely looks to me like the hairspray/chipping fluid method, but I could be wrong.

 

Fantastic looking whichever method!

 

Brian, you got that one right its hairspray my friend...i pondered on whether to use the maskol under paint technique but i thought the edges would be too hard so i went for two different hairspray layers from different brands that i use...thanks for the kind words 

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Hi guys,

 

During the past couple of years lurking here, I've seen some great models and some great engines, but this one is so realistic I expect it to fire up! In fact the only give away I can see is that giant sized hand in the pictures. And superb natural metal finishes too. They are generally way too bright but this is understated and I for one would like to know what paint mixes you're using.

 

More please!

 

Regards,

 

Bruce Crosby

 

Bruce Crosby

good evening to you Sir... sorry i havent had a chance to reply before as yesterday i got overloaded with family stuff and work on the kit...

You were asking about the paints used and how i got this result, i lined up all the paints i used on the radial, took a photo, and will post it in tonight... if you need any additional info just ask i will be more than happy to help you out or help out anyone for that matter... ive learnt so much from our community its only normal for me to pass on whatever little knowledge i have that might help out 

Thanks for taking the time to leave a word 

and thanks for the kind comments

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Allright Karim......

 

 

Now we talking...i like it very very much.

 

/Mal

Mal

Thank for the kind words mi amigo...

I hope you like the rest of things lol the way shes turning out

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Okay guys good evening to you all

Sorry i had to answer to each one of you in a single quote message as for some obscure reason unbeknownst to me, this super old laptop i am using to post from is not taking the multiquote button

First of all i would like to thank every one of you who took the time to leave a message and who have been so kind to me...

So picking up from where we stopped yesterday... i would like to apologize for not posting yesterday as i had a long hectic day and the evening was pretty busy with having a big dinner at home and using this rig to post updates takes a long time (between booting up and uploading and all lol - i wish i had my laptop with me :P)

So overall since yesterday, got her primed, got her painted, got her chipped and got the small details on. got the canopies masked and painted and the landing gear parts painted and assembled....she stands on her two feet now lol...

First things first, i reprimed her all over again, then sanded down the mr surfacer with grit 6000 micromesh (bad habit i got into when i spray on metallics, from nmf aircraft) until i got a really smooth finish, then i coated her with mr supermetalic chrome silver... i let everything dry then coated her with two coats of hairspray, two different brands....how did this all begin. well from the days of building armour, i ran out once on the last bottle of chipping fluid i had, so i decided to experiment with hairspray as it is supposedly what is being put into those bottles... went out and bought 4 or 5 different cans from the market, went home and started experimenting... at the end i settled down on two different brands for two different purposes.

I use waho (the black can in the picture below) for the big chips of paint and i use l'oreal elnett for the very fine chipping (normal hold)... each one has its own character when it comes to reacting to water and to acrylics (i have never used hairspray under enamels so i wouldnt know if it would even work)... the waho gives out bigger patches of chipping, while the loreal one is very fine, and you have to really work hard on it to be able to get big flakes off... usually i use loreal one for very fine chipping and distressed paint... so back to the hairspray coating on her, i coated first with waho the sides of the fuselage right around the cockpit, and the inner protion of the wings, and the rest fof the aircraft and the bottom of it i coated with the loareal to get the finer chipping...

That done, i sat down and visualized how i wanted her to look at the end of the process, and having read some reviews on the decals being very thick (typical tami) i decided to go the long route and try to work out a way to get the hinomarus painted on with the correct colour hues....

Now the tamiya flat red, with a light colour underneath comes out good, the black band around the hinomarus on the side is off black so i used nato black (i also thought about using green black but the fading would make it turn to more of a greyish black so i skipped that thought)...

I used a circular template to cut out the disks, drew a cross in the middle of them to line them up and did the negative masks. I airbrushed the red on then masked, then on the sides and top of the wings i sprayed black for the rings around and then masked again and we were ready to proceed with the start of the painting.

I started off with the lighter colour so i worked from the bottom of the aircraft upwards.

I preshaded with 4 different colours and filled some panels randomly on the wings and on the aircraft. I used flat black, sand yellow, white with a couple dots of IJN gray and neutral gray for the paneling and for the filling. i used the sand yellow mainly for the preshading and panel filling in the area around the landing gear and the lower fuselage as that would be where most of the dirt eventually builds up (a good base for the weathering to ensue)...after all that was done i airbrushed on successive layers of IJN gray building up the opacity slowly until i was satisfied. that done and dry, i used blue tack to get a soft delimitation between the bottom gray and the top green, masked the whole bottom and went to work on the top...

for the top parts, i preshaded with flat black again but to a lesser degree that the bottom part, and used deep green and yellow green to fill in some different panels all of the wings, fuse and tailplane...that done and dry, i sprayed consecutive layers of very thinned xf70 IJN dark green2 building up opacity again and leaving some areas with a less even coverage...

done and dry, i removed the masking and the playdoh and blutack and let everything breathe for a while...

On came the water and the stiff brush i use for chipping and i went to work....started the chipping from panel lines and spread backwards with the biggest concentration towards the inner parts of the wings and the fuselage sidewalls making sure it all fitted with the chipping i had done on the engine cowling... after that i retouched the paint problems here and there (including the hinomarus which i called the hinomarus from hell lol....i dont think i got th disks on a couple of those lined up correctly so there you go, had to work the corrections freehand) got everything is order put everything aside and called it a day....actually i also forgot to mention, in some areas where i wanted some really very fine chipping like rivet lines, i used the tip of a toothpick after having dampened the paint beforehand so i can get control over how the chipping goes...

Today, woke up pretty early got started on the kit... some of the chipping yesterday was a bit too big, so i went back on those with the same top colour retouching them (natural light does wonders lol) adding some more here and there, until i came up with an idea....how about we try to do some distressed looking paint (other than the technique i use with oils , which i going to be on the airplane when i clearcoat) using the airbrush...i mixed up some very very thin xf70 added some yellow green and just misted some on the bottom parts of some of the chipping areas....worked a charm... if you guys look well enough youll be able to notice it in the photos i took tonight...

After having finished that, i painted the little tailwheel assembly, airbrushed the landing gear parts their respective colours and painted all the little details for the cockpit. used the eduard etch on the gunsight after having painted that, painted the loop antenna, did some panel line washes on the area behind the cockpit where the antenna goes, and had a wonderful go at simulating wood on the long antenna by using tan, light and brown oils that i streaked then acrylic filters of yellow and orange....turned out really nice, and i think its a good start at simulating woodgrain and someday down the line i hope to use that on some cockpit interior, or even better, on a ww1 WNW kit lol someday as i am very much interested in building one)

I then masked the canopies using the eduard maskes int he biged set, airbrushed those the inside black and the outside with xf70....i then glued the front and rear canopies on (and they ARE the clearest best looking canopies i have ever worked on, full stop)...

That done, i did some freehand painted chipping to tie it all with the chipping on the fuselage and then i assembled the main landing gear....gave those a wash of dark gray on the black legs and dark brown on the gear doors...

And for those of you who are wondering, the mechanism really does work. the legs are solidly attached to the moving parts and they do really get tucked in the fuselage and when closed the fit is perfect... i will get them retracted for the clear coating then get them back out for the washes and weathering then back in for flat coating then back out...

 

Bruce Crosby, i am going to attach a picture of paints i used for the engine. The Mr supermetalic is lacquer paint, the unmarked pot is my own concoction of oils and turps for a brown wash, the vallejo washes are acrylic, the Ak washes are enamel and the rust pigment bottle acrylic pigments....i hope this helps, if you need to know more what went where on the engine just let me know and i will gladly help out...

 

I hope i answered any questions you guys had, please let me know if i can be of any more help it will be my pleasure...

the plan tomorrow and the day after will be all on weathering, and tying everything up. the aircraft persay i completely done, i still have the decaling and weathering to do (and the two coats clear and flat)....i also have little mr Tamiya San to paint lol

 

Ill update you tomorrow on how the weathering is proceeding...

two more posts below for the photos, again in random order....

 

Thank you again everyone for the kind comments and all the support

Stay safe and happy modeling

Karim

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Guest Peterpools

Karim

WOW ... Absolutely a war weary Zero. What a touch on the weathering and chipping - looks superb.

Keep 'em coming

peter

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Ummmm......WOW!  The cockpit looks amazing!  Very nice indeed.  The motor is fantastic as well.  I'm always worried the photo-etch might be too much, but it adds a perfect amount of "busy".  Nicely done.

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LOVE the preshading!

 

Jim

Thanks Jim...

There is another technique i also use called black basing that works a charm...if you have never heard about it read it up it works a treat on monotone camos....i just thought it might not work very well on this one...ill try it out if i get to build another zero some day lol

thanks for the encouragement

Karim

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Karim

WOW ... Absolutely a war weary Zero. What a touch on the weathering and chipping - looks superb.

Keep 'em coming

peter

 

Peter my friend....thanks for all the kind words. well shes done, i worked overtime yesterday and today to get her done as i am leaving on tuesday back to work....deadline worked lol

I had a whole day to work on the oil fading and the such ill post a teaser at the end lol....tomorrow ill take the proper photos and get them transfered on a usb to upload them monday evening...i also worked on a simple base lol....all about it in tonight's post

thanks for taking the time to leave a word

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Ummmm......WOW!  The cockpit looks amazing!  Very nice indeed.  The motor is fantastic as well.  I'm always worried the photo-etch might be too much, but it adds a perfect amount of "busy".  Nicely done.

 

Thanks so much for the kind words... dont worry about the etch as long as you can see it with the mark1 eyeball, there is always some place to stuff it in lol

Im glad you like how she turned out

thanks for taking the time to leave a word

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Well guys good evening!

Shes done after two long days of work to get her weathered and all...

Yesterday i clear coated her with tamiya clear, two coats then put her aside to dry...

During that time i went to work on Mr Tamiya San... little pudgy pilot for the zeke... as a general rule i am really bad at painting figures, for armour and for aircraft... i find it difficult to lighten some areas and darken some area like on the faces and all...anyways, i painted the pilot following the tamiya paint instructions, i also went online a bit to see what the rank markings looked like and where they were usually positioned on the flight suits...i found a couple and ended up picking on one that looked like an omega...painted it yellow. i also used different washes, dark gray for the parachute pack, black for the metal buckles and brown for the shading of the flight suit.also a blue brown for the boots and helmet. I used mr mark setter and mr mark softer to get the national insignias to sink well into the ripples of the jacket and helmet...

After that (took me half a day lol ) i went on working on the washes for the aircraft... i used brown and blue brown for the bottom...

alot of rivets and panel lines popped up which i didnt quite see during the painting process lol, so i am pretty happy about that. I worked through the afternoon and the night to get the washes on her...

Today was a whole day dedicated to weathering her, tying everything up, accentuating and toning down some areas on the aircraft...

I used oils for some fading and some accentuation in some areas and used AK interactive products (the ones for armour i use) to replicate the oil stains and all the grime on the bottom of the aircraft...

Having done all that i flat coated the aircraft, and continued finishing with the details remaining on the aircraft...i opened up the main landing gear, glued on the clear position lights and the two top small position lights on each wing, painted them clear red and clear green, i also glued on the cannons and the pitot tube and left both of them unpainted (nothing replicated metal better than actual metal).... i positioned the antenna provided in the kit. i didnt like it very much as i couldn't get it pulled enough (i think the word is taut if i spelled it correctly) it is made out of some sort of metallic material, and would have prefered to use elastic black thread i usually use for antennas (same as ez line) or stretched sprue...oh well...

After that i tried to tie up everything see if i had forgotten an unfinished business on her...and voila! shes done...

Oh i forgot something....the exhaust staining...i used black with brown, nato black, and tan....airbrushed those to get the staining, first the black in a general direction, then the tan very thinned from each exhaust going back, then again black to tie in everything together... once done, i used black smoke pigments to tie in the airbrushed smoke with the areas around the staining...i used the nato black so the cannon and gun staining....

 

All that done, i had thought about a small display base, so i went out and bought a cheap frame, got the glass and interior off, then i proceeded to glue 'planks' of wood (thank you mr starbucks for the stirrers lol) the nice thing about those is that the planking is uneven, with little wholes between them, some bent upwards some not....you get what i mean...) with white pva glue (the regular woodworking one) and left the contraption out to dry on the balcony in the fantastic sunshine lol....that done, i coated the whole planking pad with enamel gloss coat using a big brush as the wood would soak up the liquid. i am very happy as the planking doesnt look gloss but has now a deeper sheen to it....im still pondering on whether to weather the base or just leave it simple like this....

 

So here we are, the end of a beautiful enjoyable build thread after 6 months of not touching styrene i think she came out pretty nice...

I am going to post some photos of the past two days of work, along with one photos of all the oil coulours and all the weathering material i used on the zero after the clearcoating so if anyone has any questions please let me know i would be more than happy to point out what was used where and using what technique... also i am going to post one photo to show you guys how the landing gear actually works and tucks into the gear bays (i used that to spray the clearcoat while protecting the gear, wheatering everything including the smoke staining on the bottom, flat coating, then back out the gear went lol cool isnt it)... also one photo of how she looks on the tentative base just enough to hopefully wet your appetites... tomorrow i will take proper photos with the DSLR camera that i finally found again and get them transferred on a usb and uploaded on monday here and in a RFI thread...

I hope everyone enjoyed our work in progress and i am hoping to be able to do another one when i take my other chunk of annual leave in around 5 or 6 months.... i hope earlier than that.....

but this time i promise to be more active on the forums in between...

 

thanks you everyone again...

Stay safe and happy modeling

Karim 

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