Greif8

Nice progress Pete. The model looks like it will be fairly large when finished. Ernest

The super glue gods have saved me - and kept a build from any early Valhalla - more than once Chuck. You are doing the build justice. I have been considering getting this kit for years and your and Brian's builds keep nudging me towards pulling the trigger. Ernest

Choices, choices!! And no matter which one we are probably right as who really knows with absolute certainty what any of our subjects looked like at any point in time. Part of the fun of our hobby brother! Ernest

Thank you Jim and Pete! The build turned out ok, I consider it one of my 25 cm efforts, i.e. - it looks good from 25 cm+ and most of the areas look good at macro range, but not all of them by far. Ernest

I realized that the three heads that I am using for this SBS are 1/35 scale, which is fine. But I decided to use two of the 1/32 scale heads that I have already painted to have two LSP scale figure heads in the SBS. Here are the two 1/32 scale heads. I am going to redo everything on both except for the eyes. I have already laid in a base coat of the Abteilung 502 (A502) oils. You can see that the hue of the "flesh" is slightly different on each figure. This is due to the undercoat and is desirable as no two people's skin ever has exactly the same tone and hue. Below is the first 1/35 scale head that will be used in this SBS. I have laid in the base flesh color with the A502 mix I made. This head, and the other two as well, are 3d printed. They look a bit rough in the macros, but you will see that from a distance of about 10 cm+ they look just fine. Note how this guy's skin color is ever so slightly different from the two above. Jumping right to the most difficult thing in painting faces - the eyes. This particular head is not squinting, so the eyes have to be done; the eyes of a figure that is squinting can be replicated very easily with a dark shadow. I use the tip of a toothpick that I have broken to paint both the "whites" and the iris. They are very good for this task as they are a bit rigid and the tip can hold a tiny amount of paint that you can place pretty accurately. I have in fact laid in the "whites" of the eyes in the shot above. Note here: Never use pure white as that can very easily lead to the "pop eye" look. I use a very light shade of the flesh tone for this job. The irises have been painted. You can see the left one is not perfect. Before you decide to correct something like this take a look at the figure from about 25-30 cms away. If the eyes, or eye looks fine, I always go with it. No one has ever looked at my figures with an optivisor or magnifying glass, so if the eyes look ok from 25-30 cms away I am inclined to accept them and move on. The below photo was taken from 15-20 cms away; see what I mean? Deep shadows are laid in and ready for blending. The areas I have put the deep shadows in are generally where you want to place them. I find that each head is slightly different and I might lengthen or shorten deep shadow lines depending on the creases of a particular figure's face. Also note how stark the contrast is in the macro. Once blended and viewed at normal range the contrast will look very subtle. Blended. I use a 00 or 000 pointer to do this by strippling lightly along the border between the shadow and base flesh. Normally it only take a few very light passes to blend the paint. If you overwork the blending you will end up with no contrast at all. Less is more here, and if it looks too stark or ugly viewed through the optivisor or magnifier, look at it at normal range - you will often see that it looks just fine. It takes practice to know when to stop and I recommend that you stop and look at the face from a distance after each pass or two while blending to avoid overworking the area. A better photo of the above. Intermediate shadows laid in. I almost always put these in the hollows of the cheeks, under the lower lip, on the sides of the nose and alongside the deep shadows towards areas that will have lighter tones. Blended. Even at this fairly close range the effect is now much more subtle. Intermediate highlights laid in. You can easily see where I place these in the photo. Blended with the shades the intermediate highlights come into contact with. Sorry for the not so great photo. Finally I have laid in the extreme highlights on the bridge of the nose, the point of the chin, the highest point of the forehead and on the very top of the muscles in the neck. Blended. A bit of rose color has been added to the lower lip and the cheek areas that tend to get a rosey shade on real people's faces. This gives the face some nice warmth. I have already blended the cheek areas, the lower lip does not need blending. After this succession of macros you might be thinking, "Wow Ernest, the figure does not really look that good - in fact it looks like crap!" I agree, and again, one of the challenges in painting 1/35 or 1/32 scale faces is knowing when to stop the blending process. A rule of thumb I follow is to stop when the face looks like it does in each of the photos. I look at it from 25-30 cms away and assess my work. If I need to make corrections or blend an area a bit more I do that and look at the figure again. I think 25-30 cms away is about as close a most people are going to get to your work and IMHO if a figure looks good at that distance it is effective at what it is meant to do. The photo below was taken at about 25 cms - I forgot to take a macro of after painting the eyebrows. And this picture was taken about 40-45 cms away which is about as close a most people are going to get. I'll let the head dry overnight and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow. When painting with oil paints don't be worried if what you have just finished painting looks garish or worse. While oils dry they tend to do a bit of self blending and what looks overdone or has overly stark transitions turns out to be very nice once dry. I'll tackle one of the 1/32 scale heads tomorrow, Ernest

That riveting looks really nice Gary, and I think you did a bang up job on the seat! Ernest

Looking great Chuck. I have two ZM kits in the stash and am undecided how much a want to display opened up. Having read many build threads of ZM kits I have gained the impression that some of their parts are meant to be left open, which we all know can lead to issues - such as the one you had with the cowls - when a modeller wants to display that area closed up. It looks like you sorted out the problem very well though. Ernest

Thank you guys for both the kind words and information. Ernest

Thanks man! I have never used alkyd oils but hear they work quite well; the shorter drying than traditional oils is a huge advantage. That's one of the reasons I am moving to Abteilung 502 oils from W&N oils. I have started a thread in Modelling FAQ section where I will be covering how I paint figures in some detail. Ernest

Thanks Mike! I should be posting regular updates for the build until it is complete from here on out. Ernest

Using the oils in the above post you can create an endless variety of skin tones. The heads below show just a few of the possibilities. The left most head is finished and the two on the right are still works in progress. Note the different skin tones which are noticable even in this fairly poor photo (sorry for that!) This shot of the finished figure of "Pips" Priller shows the figure with a tan as if he had just returned to the cockpit from the French Riviera! I gave his hair a slicked back gel look that was popular then as well. The tones of all four faces were mixed using the colors I showed in the first post. Good faces require a good casting. Casting or molding imprefections can be corrected on a figure's uniform or equipment - on the face not so much. I buy good quality figures for this reason. Below are three heads that are excellently cast and that will make painting them enjoyable and a bit less challenging. I have cleaned them prior to priming. And here they are primed. I always airbrush both the primer coat and the acrylic base flesh coat to enusre I get the smoothest surface possible. I used Mr. Surfacer 1500 black because I want a warm base tone to start with. If you want a cold tone, for example for a figure set in a winter scene where the skin has a more "waxy" shade use white or light grey primer. I use Tamiya XF-15 Flesh for the acrylic base color for all my figures. Coupled with a good primer it has always been "bullet proof" for me. I thin the paint with Mr. Leveling Thinner, but Tamiya Lacquer thinner works just as well, at the same ratio I do when airbrushing base coats on a model. You can see that the base is smooth. You can also see that I sprayed the coverage slightly differently for each head. This well give the heads slightly different tones/hues when painted with the same oil base. Ok, I'll let these cure overnight and we'll get to painting tomorrow. Ernest

I did a small Step-by-Step (SBS) in my SE-5a build thread in the "In Progress" section for painting the leather coats of the two figures I plan to display in that build. That sparked some interest and I got several requests to do a tutorial on how I paint figures, so here we are. A couple of caveats before I get started. I am not a master class figure painter. My stuff is decent and some folks think I am good enough to do a tutorial, but I am not the "cat's meow" when it comes to figure painting. Second, the techniques I am going to go through in this thread are those that I use, some much more than others. There are many techniques and media to paint good figures that work just as well as what I will highlight; the trick is to find those you like and that work for you. Finally, this will be a long running thread and I will likely post in spurts as time allows. So - lets get to it. This first series of posts will cover painting a figure's face as this is by far the most important part of a figure. Faces tend to draw the viewer's attention first; they then begin to see the rest of the figure and the model. Most people who have viewed one of my displays containing models I have built comment on the figures first - specifically the figure's face, before saying anything about the model. As with the aircraft, and other models we build, the tools we use to paint figures are important to the final product's quality; they are just behind our skill level in determining how good the end result is. I use artist oils to paint the flesh areas of figures nearly 100% of the time. For years I used Winsor&Newton (W&N) oil paints exclusively, and still do frequently; however, I started using Abteilung 502 oils a couple of years ago and now use them for the majority of my flesh painting. Winsor&Newton oils are very high quality oil paints with very fine pigments and a huge selection of colors. They mix and cover well, are easy to use and a tube lasts forever. But they also take a long time - 4 to 7 days to dry without a drying box and 2 to 3 days when on is used. Abteilung 502 oils do everything the W&N oils do, but dry in 25% of the time it takes the W&N oils. Brushes are the next tool that goes a long way towards determining both how enjoyable figure painting - especially painting a figure's face - and how good the final result is. If you are serious about getting good results do not skimp here. I have a set of Winsor&Newton Series 7 Kolinski brushes ranging in size from 00 - 3, all pointer types. The only job those brushes do is laying down oil paints on figure's faces. They cost a bit, but I have taken good care of them and they are still going strong nearly 10 years, and at least 150 figure faces, later. Below are the paints and brushes I talked about above. I use the colors shown to create a wide variety of skin tones. Not every color is used each time, some of them are only sparingly used in fact. You can also see the bottle of white spirits I use to clean my brushes during a session. This close up shows the W&N paints I use to mix many different skin tones. When used with one or more of the other colors shown to their right above you can mix any skin tone. These are the Abteilung 502 paints from their flesh set. Like the W&N oils, I use these colors to mix any tone I need. Below are the two types of oils laid out on a piece of cardboard. Letting your oil paints sit on cardboard for 7-10 minutes leeches a lot of the linseed oil from them resulting in faster drying times. The Abteilung 502 oils have dryed overnight in many cases after letting them sit on cardboard. You can also see that the W&N oils (the lower oils) contain much more linseed oil than the Abteilung 502 oils. The paints transferred to a palette and mixed. The W&N oils are on the left and the three colors used to create the deep tan flesh tone are the ones to the right of the leftmost dark color which is Raw Umber. The others are left to right - Burnt Sienna, Gold Ochre and Titanium White. Those three colors alone can be used to mix a large variety of tones; Burnt Sienna and Gold Ochre are mixed in fairly equal parts and the Titanium White is added in small quantities until you get the tone you want. The colors on the right side of the palette are the Abteilung oils. The ones used to get the skin tone you can see below them are the three colors immediately to the right of the leftmost dark color which is Shadow Brown; those three colors are: Flesh Shadow, Sunny Flesh Tone and Basic Flesh Tone. As with the W&N oils I can mix about any tone I want from those three colors. Flesh Shadow and Sunny Flesh Tone are mixed in roughly equal parts and the Basic Flesh Tone is added little by little until I get the tone I want. Below I have mixed the deep shadows, intermediate shadows, intermediate highlights and light highlights. For the W&N oils Raw Umber has been mixed with seperate blobs of the base skin tone to create the shadows. Titanium White has been used in the same way to create the highlights. Be careful that you do not use too much of the Raw Umber or Titanium White as they will very quickly darken or lighten the color - use small quantities until you get the tone you want. The Abteilung 502 shadows were made using the same process using the Shadow Brown color and the highlights were made using the Light Flesh color. You can see I have kept the contrasts fairly strong. On 1/32 or 1/35 scale figures they need to be as the area is so small that if the colors are not strongly delinated they will disappear when viewed at normal distance. Pretty long post, so I'll stop here. Ernest

Back working on the SE-5a after completing my GB project and receiving the Archer Fine Transfer fabric stiching. Not much to show yet, I have only added the fabric stiching to the fin and rudder. The film shows up in the macros but it looks good at normal range. I may lightly buff the edges before priming though. Ernest

Welcome to the forums man! That is a beautiful build and much, much better than my 3rd model turned out! Ernest

I am sure you have that sorted out so well that it will not be noticed man. Ernest

Superb construction and execution of the modifications Tom. The build looks outstanding thus far. Ernest

Thank you for the kind words everyone! Tim: I don't have the references for Japanese aircraft that I do for German aircraft and I am sure you are correct. The kit instructions, and the kit parts, had the "MG151 like" barrels being installed. Being ignorant of what right looked like concerning this particular part I went with the instructions. While scratchbuilding the barrels - the kit parts were hopeless - I did notice that they looked a lot like MG151 barrels and to be honest, I was tempted to use a couple the Master barrels I have in the stash. But I wanted to remain as close to the spirit of an oob build without using any AM stuff and decided to press on scratchbuilding the barrels. I'll pretend that this aircraft had them installed! Gaz: The NMF is a mixed bag as far as quality of execution went; its good luck that the nice finish is on the top! Ernest

Good subject for the GP Tim! I have this kit and will be following along with your build to get some good tips! Ernest

Nice progress and I'm glad you found a riveting technique that works for you Gary. I am interested in watching how you use metal foil as I have never used it. Ernest

Hi Tim, ahh I though you meant you were going to paint the wing tips. RLM 23 Was considered a color for markings, such as wing tip marking for ID purposes. You are correct that one of the shades of primer would be enough. Ernest

Calling this build finished guys. This was my first effort at spraying a NMF and the results were mixed. The upper surface fortunately turned out pretty good; however, the lower surface had a few spots where there was a bad reaction between paint and primer (not sure why either) that ended up not looking as nice as I would have liked. There were a couple of other areas that could have been better as well, but overall a decent first NMF effort. I will use what I learned here to improve the end result of my next NMF build (hopefully). As soon as I finish the pilot figure I will post the build in RFI, but here are some shots taken at the bench. Thank you everyone for the kind words and support and I look forward to continue to follow your builds! Ernest I opted to only very lightly weather the build as I rather like how the NMF looks. I'll try my hand at replicating the oxidized look next time. Exhaust staining turned out to be pretty tricky to lay down as the NMF surface is very smooth. Hollowing out the exhausts and adding weld lines to them really improved the look of the kit parts. I think the heat discoloration turned out fairly decent as well. I rarely opt for an enclosed canopy, but two of the three kit canopy parts were very ill-fitting, and I did not feel like dealing with correcting them. Lazy I know! Adding brake lines to the landing gear added a bit of interest to them. The scratch-built cannon barrels and modifications I did to the attachment points turned out ok. Hmm, maybe I left the plane a bit to pristine. Again, once I have finished the pilot figure I will post better shots in the RFI section. Ernest

Merry Christmas Tim! The primer is a reddish-brown or brownish-red. I have attached a scan of a page of one of the German documents I have. Of the red-browns on the page the Nr.14(G) or the plate on its right look very close to what is generally accepted to be the color of primer used on Luftwaffe aircraft, though Plate 13(G) and the one to its right are also close enough. Given all the variables impacting hue, shade and tone, a color close to the two above would be just fine IMHO. The wingtips should be painted RLM23 Red. I have attached another scan of a color plate with RLM23 on it. I have found the Tamiya XF7 mixed with 15-20% white is a good match. MRP 52 also looks pretty close. I have alot of reference material at home, much of it primary source documents; however, I am in the school of thought that close is good enough when it comes to colors. Again, given the huge amount of variables that apply, Its my opinion that it is both impossible and pointless to point at a particulair color, even on an original color plate like the above, and say that is absolutely definitive. HTH, Ernest

Welcome to the group build Mike! Ernest

Thank you Gary and I wish you and your loved ones a very merry christmas! Ernest

Absolutely top shelf work Chris! Masking the camo pattern must have been eye watering at times but the end result is amazing. Well done! Ernest