Cor

Very nice work

great work and also very nice photography

Hi all. This is my first display on this site, and my first big plane. I've been back into modelling for about 2 years after doing as a young lad. No aftermarket bits except for a few pe bolts from a 1/12 moto gp set, but I did extensively use brass rod and wire of various thickness for engine and cockpit side detail, and the cannon shells - I replaced most of the engine plastic tubing with aluminium wire and some braided wire. Also went for the heavy weather look as I've never done anything even remotely as detailed as this before and wanted to test myself out. Overall I'm really happy with how it came out, and it was an enjoyable 4 months of building a fabulous kit. I was inspired by other examples of this model I've seen on this site and others, and wanted to see if I could live up to the same quality of build you guys are pumping out. Hope you guys like the pics.

Very nice work. Great finished product.

What everyone else said... Very very nicely done. Congrats.

I like it. The oil stains underside are great, the highlight of your weathering. Really nice, and the silver plane look realistic too. Nice beauty light for the pics too, those things are unbeatable. You asked for comments, and as I'm going through a similar mindset re weathering, I thought I'd drop in with what I've been thinking about lately. Weathering is a funny thing. These planes went from one-time freshly-painted showroom pieces, to being covered in scratches and dirt and scarred from repairs and combat, so as others have said, its how far you want to take it - there is no wrong approach re heavy or light. Your weathering is extremely light. You've got the panel lines filled with some black and a few bits of aluminium showing through here and there, but overall it still looks quite new to me... especially the white markings - my car is white, and after I wash it, then drive around for a few days on city streets, its no longer a fresh bright white thanks to the grime and dust. I've nearly finished my first heavily weathered model plane and compared to yours, it looks like it's rolled onto the scrap heap, but that's the look I was going for - I knew that from the start. Work out in your head what you want the finished plane to look like, and get as many photos of similar looking weathered planes and try and copy what they look like. Weathering is simply another phase of the build /technique that you build up in skill, its no different to applying decals or glueing small bits together - just another skill to be used, or not, as you decide. So I guess Im saying practice makes perfect, and if you want to build that skill, you need to study and practice on some more models - which is the fun of it. For a bit of practical advise - use your imagination to look at what parts of the plane are going to be handled by the crew, such as access panels, cowlings, areas on wings and fuselage where the pilot climbs in. These areas are where the paint is chipped, worn down to metal, paint scuffed, dirtied with mud, scratched by boots etc. When the mechanic takes the cowling off, he is not trying to keep it clean and unscratched - he might have chucked it down onto the ground so he could hurry up and get the plane airworthy after a mission. Removing cowlings might also scratch the paint from the edges of the adjacent panels, so look at these areas for extra detailing. And learn how to make tool scratches look different to scuffed and worn paint from walking on a wing root etc. If one layer of paint is worn away, what's under that layer - metal, or a different coloured paint, like a primer? Think about that stuff. That's realism. I use a heavily thinned dark brown or black, a different type of paint to whats on the plane - acrylic or enamel etc, and liberally dab it on with a cotton but, then use another clean bud to wipe it off in the direction of air flow, and this can be heavy or light streaking for a subtle way to take the fresh clean look from the paint. I rub it with my finger, or wipe it with some tissue, and maybe some thinner on a bud to remove it a bit more. Stuff like that adds realism. Large clean areas of uniform colour dont exist a lot in real life, there's always dirt or something patching it up. I think weathering is a big subject, as it affects the look of the model - the finish of the model - very much - it can define the model. So however hard you go with weathering, work snd study at creating realism and your models will take on more depth. I think it is a very artistic skill and is actually quite difficult to make it look real, but it will take your models to the next level. I just want to show you 2 pics of what I'm working on now - and the reference pics from some books - as an unfinished example of what i've just said. If not appropriate on your thread please remove them. I plan to make a thread of this when I finish... D-Day stripes obliterated on the leading edge. Heavy scratching on the black stripe. What might have caused that, and if someone saw it on your model, what would they say about that not an area that would be scratched liked that? Some of these ww2 planes took a massive beating by friend and foe alike. You could weather in some doggy doo doo on the wing if you wanted - there are heaps of photos of dogs on these planes. Look at how random the scratches are on the fuselage left of the guy in the cockpit. Some liquid spillage out of the cowling, beaten up cowling far right of photo. Random scratch far left of pilot. And then there's this photo, battle of briton Hurricane. Gum boots and mud and scratches galore. There is no end to how far you want to go with weathering - 50 year old wreck - weather that. Straight off the factory floor, also great subject. Hope my rant helps you somewhat. Good luck.