166 replies to this topic

[TaffyMan]

Hi to all my fellow comrades - (Hope this works as my fist post with pictures)
Comrade Taffski has heard the Mothlands call to arms and this is my offer to her a Spitfire MK Vb.
I nearly did the 1:24 Trump Hurricane IID that I have. I like big guns! But in hunting around found this Spity of the 3rd Squadron of 57th GIAP- Kuban battle stood out.



Then this with the big lightning arrow – Oh yes do I like that - lots, really adds something to the Spity



Then looking around the interweb found HobbyCraft had a Spring sale with this Spit marked down to £35. Uhm! “Comrade Taffski it is your destiny” I said the voice in my head. So brought it there and then.



This will be mostly OOB with just Airscale IP. Never used these before. In fact with my modelling skill set I have never done a lot of things! If I feel brave I might attempt a scratch build on the landing flaps. Gulp! We’ll see when I get there.

Have a few questions don’t know if any one can help. Have struggled to find reference for this plane seems to be just these two images and a lot of digital 3D skins. So any help would be much appreciated.

1st – I think this is painted in standard British Camo 2 Greys + Green. Hard to tell from the photo but the green doesn’t look dark enough for some of the Russian Camo greens, and it looks the right shapes for British. Also looks fresh! No splodge marks covering British markings and numbers?

2nd Have tried to find decent reference to the Guard Emblem, shape and colours on the tail plane. Found lots of badges or 3D drawings and some decals but all in the wrong scale, Doh!!! But my thinking is if you are painting this onto lots of planes would it not be in a simple format? Any thoughts or help.

Seem to have hit a problem with to many pictures posted! So will try doing a couple

Thanks for looking - Taff

[TaffyMan]

Hi Me again not sure how to add to my already existing thread so hope this works. To the powers that be please tell me if this is not the way to give my next instalment. Thanks - Taff


Any way enough of that. Some progress so fare. Because there is no Decals at this scale Double Doh!!!! I will have to try and make masks and attempt to spray them on. If I can, I will do my best!
As this is my virgin post not quit sure how fare to go so forgive me if I am teaching you to suck eggs. But I will try to take any advice?
Okay for the Decals the trickiest one is this Guard Emblem – following on from my thoughts above I took some of the images I have found and tried to simplify it. I put the image into Illustrator then on another layer above it started to draw it up starting with the star.





Once drawn I dupe a copy over the top change from fill to outline, increased the point size until I get the size of the gold star outline. Now outline your stroke so it becomes a shape, delete the inside star shape, then send the outside one to back and fill with the gold colour of your choice. Fill your first star with red and there we go a Russian Star.
Know for the laurel leaf surround – Very complicated to explain but similar techniques to the star plus a few more complex ones.



Okay back with another post in a moment

Thanks - Taff

[TaffyMan]

Okay That seemed to work..... I think! So next bit

Same techniques will be used for the flag bits. As for the text I first draw my base line the X height, then the Cap height. Then duped the Cap and Base line moving them in to give me a consistent guide for the characters serifs. Next draw my parallel lines to give me a guide to keep my drawn line consistent. Now as with the star, draw the characters fitting with my guidelines for reference.





After a few tweaks here and there - Bobs your aunty the finished emblem - simples!!



Just need to work out what the colours are and how to get it on to the plane?

Okay next post will be the other decals

Thanks for looking - Taff

[TaffyMan]

Okay last bit to date!

The rest of the decals are drawn with the same process.
Because the only reference for the numbers is distorted around the plane, a bit of artistic licence is needed. Also because this is screen dump, I printed it out at 100% of my image and re-scanned it at a higher res so I had a tighter line to work to. I straitened the image in Photoshop then the same process as the flag text



And the final image. I haven’t made these to any size or scale yet. They are just put on to an A4 for now. I will do that later when I can take measurements from the plane and do a test fit with paper printouts.



That’s all for know hope that’s not to boring but didn’t know if this would be of interest. Next instalment I hope will involve plastic paint and glue

Thanks for looking - Taff

PS Can anyone tell me if you can get automatic notification of any replies to your postings? - Thanks

[dodgem37]

A genus in the making.

Sincerely,
Mark

[LSP_Kevin]

Wow Taff, that work on the decal artwork is fantastic! Looks like you're as certifiable as the rest of us.

PS Can anyone tell me if you can get automatic notification of any replies to your postings? - Thanks

At the top of any thread, there's a button labelled 'Watch Topic' (it's next to two other buttons for adding a reply and starting a new topic). Click that and follow the instructions.



Kev

[TaffyMan]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Mark - May be after a few more beers or because we are Russian at the moment best make it Vodka!



Yes Kev I think I can produce a few people that would second that sentiment. Thanks for the tip I think I stumbled on this by accident

[Derek B]

Hi Taff,

This looks like a very project indeed, and it certainly is LSP! Great start on the markings - I look forward to watching this one develop.



Derek

[TaffyMan]

Hi comrades

Comrade Taffski has made a little bit progress. Have dry fitted the wings – Uhm! Lots of cleaning up to do there. You can tell this is an old casting especially compared to the Mosquito.

Okay I have only been hanging around here for a little while - and look what you have made me do! I am going to be brave and cut up a perfectly serviceable wing. You only live once and you need to try things at least once in that lifetime.

So never done this before but thought I would do this bit first! My thinking is if I get it wrong, I can get back to Airfix and get a replacement. I hope.

So my weapons of choice. And my victim!




Lined up and started to cut – carefully!




Ahhh! - Stopped cutting.

The wing flexed and distorting. Thinking a bit then reach for the old trusty lumps of blue-tak ! Wonderful stuff!!!! Placed under centre and also where I am cutting.
Started to cut – carefully!

Opppsss! - Stopped cutting.

Next issue the plastic bending away from the blade and snagging as it goes through the other side? Thinking a bit and decided to tape the other side of the cut to give it some support.





Also added to my weapons. I had brought a knife with serrated blades – this is useless when used in the handle but with your hand are quite effective and controllable. After an hour or so. Plus one slip out of my cut line Doh! Then an over exuberant cut!!!!! Lucky all fixable the flaps are off.





A bit of a closer look





Need to clean up. Then rub them back to within an inch of it’s life – Uhm bit more like 1 mm or so – then will try and start to make them look like flaps not randomly cut bits of plastic.


Thanks for looking - Taff

[PhilB]

Well firstly Taff its nice to see you building a fighter in the best scale, 1/24!!!
Secondly it seems we have a new computer wiz in our midst, thats incredible computer work there!
Be careful though once the word gets out some of the buggers on here will have you doing their decals instead of building!
Good to see you chopping up the spitty.
An alternative to a scalpel is to try out a really thin scriber to make cuts.
The Hasegawa engravers are very thin and bloody sharp (I have the scars to prove it!)
Start off lightly with a guide and once you have done several passes it will be through in no time.
Just another tool in your armoury.
Looking forward to seeing this one mate!

Phil

[TaffyMan]

Hi comrades

Thanks for looking in Phil – Just to say I am really enjoying the Mossie build and I think I will be looking out one of the engravers. My finger is still dented from the scalpel. Anything to make that easier! Also take the warning to keep deflector shields set to maximum.

Yeh it has to 1:24 as that is the only size that I can see and give me a chance to pick things up with my fat fingers!

I don’t know about a computer expert but having some 20 years + as a Graphic Designer I do know my way around the software. But compared to some of the CAD work I have seen around LSP - I think I will stick to making pretty pictures.

On that point not had time to do any plastic bits – work and life getting in the way at the moment.

But did have half hour to kill between jobs at work. So decided to work up the Guards Emblem. I think this might have been painted with gold paint!??! I am not going to cut this as a mask so I will try and do it digital.



I am still struggling to find any hard facts on this Emblem. Can anyone help with any info on it: - colours, how it was used, detailed drawing, it on aircraft etc…. Anything it would be really appreciated.



So in absence of hard facts I have made assumptions. Hope this isn’t to boring but here we go.

I started by cut and paste my vectored drawing from Illustrator into Photoshop. Resized the canvas to give myself some elbowroom.





I will use this as my guide and a selection layer.

Next cut & paste the star in separately, this will allow me to select it more easily later.





On my ‘Image Layer’ magic wand select - then make a new layer. This I filled with a warm black.

Note that I will use CMYK, as this is how the final print will be coloured, not RGB or others. If you got a mate in the graphics or print industry get some old colour conversion charts they come in handy to work your colours out for printers.

I have used a warm black (see pic) because this will give me better ink density on the print out. Also I pulled the black density down from a 100% to make the black a bit softer on the final printout.





Then select the brown line work on the ‘Image Layer’ and fill this with the same warm black.




Think I will be on the picture limit so will do this as multi posts.

Back in a mo - Taff

[TaffyMan]

Ah got ahead of myself - forgot the red.

I select these areas. And on a new layer filled this selection with Red. I have made it more Crimson.

I will adjust this later to colour match the red paint I use for the stars.

Also I lasso tool the text area on the flag and filled with the Crimson red. This will make sure you get no white lines on the final run.





Selected the yellow gold area from the original image and on a new layer I filled this with a colour that will be a light gold.





Okay next is jigging bits to give you effects.

I reselect the light gold and on a new layer fill the selection with a mid gold colour. Next reselect and offset using the arrow keys up and left then clear this will leave a thinner dark gold area. Next apply a Motion Blur a bit of very soft Gaussian Blur and a little bit of very light rubbing out. And finally made this a clipping layer to the light gold changing the blending mode to 100% Multiply.

Hope you are all still with me?

[TaffyMan]

This might seem a bit bazaar.

But next look through you holiday snaps and find a nice sunset or sunrise image. I find with water and a distinct horizon best. This is the sun coming up in the Maldives –


Ahhhhhhh Very nice could do with lot more of that!


The reason for the sun rise/set is I am after a gold effect and the colour spectrum is already there. For silver or chrome I would use mid day river, lake with reflections or swimming pool pic.





I opened this in a new file. Gave it a slight tip then took it into liquefy (under filter menu) and with a biggish brush squidge the image around the bit that I wont to use. Ok this and then cut & pasted into my emblem file. Then positioned for the light effect area I wanted.












Hello are you still out there!


Next reselected the light gold area and with the selection selected I made a layer mask to give the light effect to just the gold areas. Next applied a colour correction layer to this fiddled with the colour setting to give me warmer colours then made this a clipping layer. Finally to soft everything down changed the blend mode to Multiply pulling the opacity back to 20%








Didn’t like the effect on the top of the flag so duped the layers and flipped the image 180˚. A bit more blending and grad work on the layer mask plus upped the opacity a bit.

[TaffyMan]

Made a bit more gold effect by reselecting the gold area whilst still selected made a new layer and contracted this selection then offset this left and down.

Filled this with 100% yellow. Added motion blur left to right slight top to bottom. Changed blend mode to screen and opacity pulled down to 45%





Made the selection of the gold again slightly more contraction of the selection then offset right and up I filled this with white then Motion Blur and a small bit of Gaussian was applied. Then set the blend mode to Overlay and opacity at 65%.

I repeated the process with more contraction on the selection and offset it the other way. Blend mode of this layer was changed to hard light at 40% opacity.

I applied layer masks to each of the hi-light layers One with a couple of grads to soften its application. The other I painted the mask layer with a large soft brush with variant pressure to make it subtler.





To make the shadows areas darker and warmer I once again selected the light gold layer and on a new layer filled the selection with a mid to dark brown. Keeping the selection active I offset this up and to the right and delete the selected brown colour.

Turned the selection off I applied Motion Blur and Gaussian Blur plus a bit of soft rubbing out. Set the blend mode to Multiply at 100%





Then Simples - the final image







Hope this isn’t too much to take in and too boring. But thought you might be interested to see.


I have deliberately made this image about 10 x up of the final. My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be and why make life difficult. Also this means the image will tighten up at the smaller size.


So back in the real world I measured the tail and printed a selection of sizes onto paper to do a test fitting.





Once again hope I haven’t sent to many of you to sleep and this isn’t to confusing. But any questions or comments are more than welcome.



And especially any information on the emblem is really welcome


I Will try running a test print on the transfer paper, as I haven’t done this before and will do a trial run.

Fingers crossed this works or I will have to try and think of another route.


Thanks for looking in

Taff

[ssculptor]

If you make a decal of this emblem would you consider making a sheet of decals of the entire plane in both 1/24 and 1/32 scale so we mere mortals can buy a set from you?
Or how about a bunch of these Guards emblems in 1/24, 1/32 and maybe the smaller scales (whatever they are) because I have a mess of Lend Lease kits in 1/32 scale I'd to paint as Guards units.
Thanks,
Stephen