Warbird

Thank you Wayne Weathering will give some life to our models but we can quickly go overboard. My approach is to reproduce what I can actually see in my references. It seems trivial but it isn't. Tristan

Thank you all for your kind comments!

Thank you! - no WIP thread for this one - not enough time for that, unfortunately.

Thank you all! Thank you Nikola Those colors (especially the white) are "burned" due to the duration of the exposure time - but they are wheathered like the rest. Those areas would have required some photo editing but I didn't do that extra mile. So you'll have to trust me ;-)

Hi Gents, Here is my Tamiya Zero, a good kit except for the silly mechanisms to make the landing gears and doors movable - corrections are time consuming. You'll also need to work on the engine/engine mount for a perfect fit with the cowlings in place. I used the excellent tweak list available here. I used RB production seatbelts, master barrels, Barracuada tires (for Spitfire originally), all excellent. AK Real and Tamiya paints, painted markings and HGW wet transfers. Tristan

Back in 1994, I recorded an interview of SL Stevenson for a highschool history work (he was living in Switzerland). We made the interview at his place around a cup of tea (or course!). He spoke french with a very strong british accent - not many in the classroom could understand him. Nice memories! Tristan

Salut Romain, That's a splendid Cobra you've made (although I'm not a big fan of that "scaffolding" configuration)! Special mention for your wheathering. Congrats! Tristan

I built the Italeri and whereas panel lines on the flat surfaces are pretty good, those on the fuselage are inconsistent, softly defined and sometimes so wide that I decided to fill in a couple and rescribe. Initially I wanted to do a NMF but decided that the overall engraving nature was more appropriate for a camouflage. For a NMF I would probably scribe an Hasegawa (or build a 1/48 Kinetic). Tristan

The fact that all picures of that aircraft show the same side is, by itself, an argument in favor of the "one side" option. Some of these pictures would be better exposed (to the sun) if the other side was photographed. Drawings/nose art in general are more often one-sided than two-sided I'd say that likelihood of the one-side hypothesis is greater. Tristan

The strut itself lacks rigidity. I don't think it would break but it will definitely bend forward a bit, impacting the geometry (mine has the quite heavy master rockets set that doesn't help). My solution to the problem was to glue the top lip of the gear door to the underwing. By default there is a tiny gap of a fraction of a mm so a little adjustment is needed (I don't remember exactly what I did). That way nothing moves and the whole thing seemed rock solild to me. Tristan

Hi, No Mk6 here but others that could be modified - not sure which one would be the most appropriate... https://sparkit-models.com/fr/7-cockpit

Hi Pete, Awesome paint job on that office - what kind of lense did you put in the HUD? It makes very nice color effects. Tristan

Hats off! Really superb - especially the subtile OG tonal variations. Tristan

Superb!

Lovely Bück!

Thank you Juggernut. I'm builing an early superbug (Blue Angel #7) so that resin cockpit is ok with some modifications (intrument panels, mostly). Anyway it is 300% better than the kit cockpit.

Thank you but I forgot to mention that it's about the rear cockpit deck. I have edited my post.

Hi Guys, Working on the double seater Trumpy Super Bug. The rear cockpit deck (behind the rear seat, with canopy open) is devoid of any detail. I have the D&S v.9 but there is only one pic of the starbord side of the rear cockpit deck. I cannot find anything on the net, especially the port side. Any help welcomed. Thanks! PS : For those interested, the Avionix F/A-18D resin cockpit fits quite nicely (elbow grease needed, like for a bad fitting Aires cockpit, though).

Top notch work. Hats off! Tristan

Excellent, congratulations!

That is an interesting point - finding that sweet spot where you push fidelity to your reference as much as possible without going beyond the point where it will look like you're lacking some skills. Having invasion stripes roughly painted like that would typically not be acceptable for me. Tristan

With regard to model painting, esthetics is highly subjective. Realism is in my opinion much more objective. Take a photo of your model outside, under natural light and from a good angle and close distance - if it looks like your reference you can probably consider it as "realistic". "Spanish school" models can be amazing from a technical point of view but they aren't realistic at all. When it comes to photographic references, a common pitfall (especially for late war German subjects) is the use of reference photos of planes dumped in junkyards or abandonned in the nature - sometimes for months or years. This introduced a biais toward excessive wheathering I think (e.g. Me 262). Also, crap is not the same as wear and tear. A brand new aircraft can be very dirty but paint tonal variation will be almost null (or only due to dirt). An plane with hundred of flight hours will probably show tonal variations but could be perfectly clean.

Hi John, Outstanding result in every aspects! Paint work is brilliant. If I dare a suggestion: You obviously put a lot of efforts to break paint uniformity - I think the riveting could be made less uniform, with areas such as behind the exhausts, wing roots and belly more apparent than others such as wing outer portions or horizontal stabilisers. This can be easily done with selective application of washes. Tristan

I would try milliput - excess can be removed with a wet cotton swab

Thank you for your comments! I believe Sidewinders were mounted on the wingtips mostly during the first years - Photos I've seen of that specific plane and others from the middle of the 70's till retirement show Sidewinders under the belly. Unfortunately, those pylons and launchers are not provided by Italeri. Thank you - that is only based on free-hand airbrush mottling over an aluminium base coat. There is tan (XF-55), sand (XF-60), grey (?) and a little bit of clear blue. The predominant dark grey is Tamiya NATO black (XF-69). No wash. Paint should be well thinned and you must work slowly and very close to the surface - took maybe 2 hours until I was happy with the result.