Fanes

Coimg home frome work, expecting nothing in particular. Then there's a huge box waiting in front of my door. The box says it's from the USA, from @Rockie Yarwood in particular. Inside sits the beautiful Trumpy Avenger and - I'm shocked - another present from Santa. Thank you very much Rockie. What a nice community we have here! All the best Joachim

Fantastic work especially the ejection seat handles. I'll try to copy that approach for my F-104 build!

Let the weathering begin First stage: a subtle pin wash mixed from oils. For the grey lower fuselage a dark grey with a greenish hue was applied. And the excess wiped away: For the upper fuselage dark blue and black was added to the mixture And the final result - as planned it turned out very subtle which suits the trench like panel lines of the Italeri kit much better than a really dark washing. Now it's time for another clearcoat to seal everything up.

Good question Chuck! I completly forgot about that detail and had to double check what I did there. My method is quite simple: trimming one of the location lugs on the leg down, so that it can be inserted via a twisting motion. I hope it's stable enough to carry the Zipper's weight. Joachim

I guess you're spot on Derek - at least for the upper arrow! No decals were harmed during that action because there were none to harm (so much to bravery ). The MFG2 embem and the german flag are painted, while the stencil were applied afterwards. Thanks Thomas - something similar happened to me. I sold my 1/48 Hasegawa 104 just to get Italeri's LSP one. During the build I was tempted multiple times to trash the whole thing and go back to small scale and Kinetics awesome offering Cheers Joachim

Well scratch that with weathering yesterday I comepletely forgot to paint the white stripes on the starboard side of the tailplane. No idea what they are meant for. Some Zippers have two of them (the german ones), some have one stripe but on both sides and some don't carry any. Trusty Silhouette to the rescue: While scrolling through the Daco book I found a wonderful picture of said stripes and immediately realized that i forgot some decals as well (the "2"s for lifting points) Now everything is on - a final (this time I mean it) gloss coat t

The stash grows slowly but steadily The Junkers and the Gladiator were christmas presents to myself and the Stieglitz will be my first ever all resin build (thanks to @EvilCarrot). Cheers Joachim

Allright then - option 4 it is I have to do some touch ups but I think weathering will start tomorrow. Curently I'm planning: washing, but only slightly darker than the underlying colours - no need to overemphasize the trenches eh panel lines some sort of filter, haven't used any pre mixed so far, so most likely oils (maybe a dark green hue for the top and a light grey for the bottom) big maybe: salt fading for the upper surfaces

Getting closer to the finish line Shooting clear in two sessions takes time but isn't photo worthy. So I decided to move on to something I forgot in the first place. The red warning stripe around the rear fuselage. Italeri wants you to use 5 or 6 separate decals - no way. Out with the Tamiya tape! Since red doesn't cover so well, a thin coat of MRP grey (M495) was shot inbetween to get rid of the demarcation between the dark blue grey and the bottom grey. Followed by multiple thin coats aof Gunze insignia red Et voila:

Happy new year mates! It's been a month since my last post and all the decals are now applied (finally). Applying decals is one of my least favourite tasks. There's a 1/48 Rafale waiting for the last 20 stencils for around five years now.. Back to the Italeri decals: the heavy gloss helped with the application but there was some silvering nonetheless. Best practice was: really hot water with setting solution massaging the decals on with q-tips flooding them with micro sol - no point in being thrifty after a decent drying time: pinch holes in the silve

That depends a little if it's about a Vb or Vc. I had a quick look into my Valiant book. The Vc had a different windscreen (armoured panel on the inside) and the undecarriage had a different rake (like the Mk.IX), Oil cooler and radiator should be bigger repectively deeper on the Vc than on the Vb (the Revell radiator is a joke anyway). Both Mk.V versions used the clown canopy - I'm not a 100% sure what Revell supplies in the Mk.II box. At last the exhaust stacks can be of the fishtail type or even the later ones seen on Mk.VIII and IX Spitfires.

Nice to read that you're feeling better! And as usual when you post in this section, my wishlist grows constantly. Expect an order from me in the next weeks

It's time for an update - I guess. I've been busy the last weeks and if it wasn't work, then the zipper and its stencils took most of my spare time. Well, not yesterday. I started painting the underside. ICM calls out Tamiya XF23 and this doesn't seem too far of. So here's the base. And up close The idea behind this pattern was to emphasize the I-16s material mix: fabric wings, wooden rear fuselage and metal allaround the engine. Here you can see the result halfway blended in with the colour thinned down by around 80% with levelling thinn

I'm using them and they are okayish - meaning: you need a thick coat to get a decent flat finish. Frosting isn't a big issue, happened to me once in the last two years. I tried to thin them with isopropylic alcohol and that was a mess. Water with some retarder works but getting a good consitency isn't easy (at least for me). Long story short: I'm swithcing back to Tamiya and MRP flats

Thank you very much for your kind words Maru. My motivation - aka mojo - is back! Although I haven't figured out a solution for my mask cutting problem, I made a workaorund by just drawing the circles in the Silhouette software. Here's the new mask with some Tamiya red: And for the red falange insignia I laid down a white base below. Afterwards everything was sealed up with masking fluid. Everything meaning the arrows (no way to get the buchered mask back together) and all the edges of the roundels to minimze the risk of paint creep.