Hoss FL

Speeding along. Looking great, Mike.

Thanks all for the nice comments. Much appreciated. By the way, I was pleased to learn that Kotare used some of my photos on their website and marketing content. That's a first for me. https://www.kotare-models.com/products/k32601-kotare-132-spitfire-mkia-brian-lane https://www.facebook.com/kotaremodels/

Thanks all for the warm comments. I was pleased to learn that Kotare used some of my photos for their website and marketing. Here's a link. By the way, I highly recommend the kit. https://www.kotare-models.com/products/k32601-kotare-132-spitfire-mkia-brian-lane https://www.facebook.com/kotaremodels/

NICE! What a beast. Love the kit and your work is superb. Congrats!

Greetings fellow modelers: This was one of the most enjoyable projects I've done. The Kotare Spitfire Mk.Ia "Brian Lane" kit is fantastic. The Kotare team certainly put a lot of effort into creating a wonderful build experience for the modeler. And they pulled it off. In this brief, ready-for-inspection summary I'll share my build overview, my thoughts on the kit and some recommendations for future kit builders as I go through the photos. Here's a link to the build: Ok, here's my rendition of QV-K P9386 from September 1940. The quality of the molding, engineering, decals, and thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the 24-page instruction book really made this project a pleasure. I built the kit completely out of the box with the exception of Eduard masks for the canopy. Kotare's design philosophy made for a superb assembly process. Each main engine panel was molded as an individual part -- no seam lines or glue clean up. The fuselage aft section parts all intersect at panel line joins. The wing fairings are each single molded parts that fit perfectly. It's designed so that one can assemble the entire plane almost without a single seam line that intersects a rivet line or panel line. What a pleasure. The only area where this occurs is underneath the aft section of the fuselage -- conveniently away from normal viewing. I can't think of a single situation where the fit was not PERFECT. For example, there is only one way to install the landing gear struts. Full stop. There's no play, no wiggle, no uncertainty. One of the best designs I've seen. The horizontal stabilizers are one piece and there's only one way to install it for a nice, tight fit in perfect alignment. The prop assembly installs by literally fitting a square peg in a round hole for a perfect fit. Another nice treat is that the rudder and elevators are positioned off-center and match the positions of the control stick and rudder pedals in the cockpit. I haven't seen that before. That's just one of the many nice details and surprises discovered as one works through the build. Even the trim tabs are offset slightly. As for painting, the instructions provide extremely helpful guides for painting the cockpit as well as the exterior. For the cockpit, painting call outs are provided during the build steps and there are also summary diagrams with multiple views in full color. For the exterior, four full color views are provided for the aircraft with color call outs and key points. I used Mr. Color lacquers for the main camo colors (C361 for Dark Green and C369 for Dark Earth) and MRP Marking Yellow for the spinner. I mixed by own version of Sky Blue for the underside using Mr Color White, RLM 76 and Sky Blue. Since I wanted to emphasize color variation across the different subassemblies as the instructions pointed out, I painted some of the panels a little darker or lighter or a slightly different shade of green or brown. For example the fabric covered sections are a little more faded than the metal sections. I used the kit decals by Cartograf, which were fabulous -- perfect color, perfect register, nice and thin, no excess carrier film. All good. The main challenge with the decals was getting them to settle over the raised rivet areas on the aft part of the fuselage. It took several days of bubble popping and decal solution application to get them to finally behave around the rivets but they got there. I planned out the weathering process at the start of the project. My goal was to reflect what I saw in the reference photos -- and there are multiple clear photos of P9386 as well as several other Spitfires that are very helpful. One of the photos of a real spitfire elevator section has a humorous caption highlighting that there's no evidence of preshading on the fabric area. After priming with Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500, I painted the wing roots MC201 Super Fine Silver, then applied AK worn effects fluid over the silver areas. I pre-shaded the panel lines in black and then applied heavy marbling using spatter templates and random airbrush patterns to break up the solid panel colors. After the main camo painting, I dabbed the wing root areas with a wet brush to get the chipping effect I was after. Next was a gloss coat to seal in the chipping and prep for decals. After the decals and flat coat, I augmented the chipped wing roots with a sharp silver Prismacolor pencil to add some scratches and make some of the chipped areas "less round" and more random looking. The exhausts each are molded in top and bottom halves. There's a nice close up photo in the instructions showing the weld seams that can be replicated when you glue the exhausts together and let some glue squeeze out of the seams. I needed to add a little material to the tips of the exhausts to get the proper shape and I used my motor tool to drill out the exhaust interiors. I used reference photos for guidance on painting the exhausts. I started with gloss black and then applied a 1:1 mix of Mr Color Metallic Black and Super Stainless. After the decals were applied on the lower side of the manifolds, I used Tamiya acrylics to achieve the exhaust gas/heat color pattern. Black, purple, brown, orange, and deck tan were used. The cockpit detail that comes with the kit is astounding in my view. The instrument panel dials all have individual decals and there are placards all over the place - sidewalls, compass, gunsight, etc. Also, in the photo above, the molded seatbelt harness is visible, which I think looks pretty good. The figure of Brian Lane was a nice bonus and here's my attempt at painting him. There's a nice painting guide in the instructions. Overall Summary of the kit: Highlights Clear, detailed, comprehensive instructions. I may keep the book as a reference for other builds. Excellent. Design and fit for easy assembly and minimal clean up. Decals by Cartograf - cockpit decals and placards as well as the main markings and stencils Brian Lane figure - Colorful RAF pilot uniforms are great subjects. Aircraft interior and exterior color profiles in the instructions Surface detail - stressed skin effect around some fasteners, rivets, panel fasteners, hinges -- all good. Fine and consistent panel lines Landing gear design - "weighted" wheels with flat spots and slight bulges. Things to look out for (for future builders) My copy had some very slight molding sink marks on the tops of the wings above the wheel wells. Easy clean up. The exhaust manifold tips needed some extra filler material (CA glue). Again, easy clean up. The molded seatbelt harness is fairly thick in the section between the seat top and the armor plate slot. I thinned the seatbelt quite a bit by scraping underneath and cleaning up. Another option is an aftermarket seatbelt as the kit provides a seat without the molded seatbelt. Some of the molded detail needed a little sprucing up. Nothing major. Thanks for looking. Needless to say, I highly recommend this kit. Comments and critiques are more than welcome. - Jim Jenson

My rendition of Spitfire QV-K is now complete. Since the last update, I applied another gloss coat over the decals, applied an oil panel line wash, did some weathering to match the photos as best as possible and finalized assembly. Here are a few teaser photos. Here's the link the to RFI page: Thanks again for the comments and for following along.

Moving fast on this one. Looks great so far!

Cool camo scheme. Following along.

Time for another update. The decals are now complete. The decals are by Cartograf and they are thin, in perfect register, the colors look spot on and they conformed to the surface as well as any I've used. The model really comes to life when the markings go on. The stencils were apparently overpainted on the underside when the aircraft was painted from the black and white scheme to Sky Blue. Note to future bulders of this kit. The decal process over the extensive positive rivets took a long time, tested my patience, but worked in the end. If you zoom in you can see the zillions of rivets that each decided to become a bubble during the decal process. The exhausts are cool and the kit has decals for the manifolds. My version of inconel is gloss black base coat followed by a 1:1 mix of Mr Color Metallic Black and Super Stainless. I'll weather the exhausts after sealing in the decals. Here's my work on the figure so far. Still a long way to go. Next is a gloss coat over the decals and then a panel line wash. Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Bravo, Tolga! That Würger looks fantastic. One of my favorites. The paintwork and finish are superb. Well done! Congrats.

Time for a quick update. The main topside camo is now complete. I started with the Dark Earth using Mr Color C369. I've had good results using white tack for the masking boundaries - no ridge and a relatively hard edge line. The base dark green was Mr Color C361, but I used a number of other similar colors to depict the variety of paint from the various subcontractors (engine panels, tail section, canopy frame, etc.) and the lightening of the fabric surfaces. The variation is subtle but it's there. It may go unnoticed after decals, panel line washes and other weathering, but it will contribute to the overall look I'm shooting for. That's all for now. Gloss coat and decals next. Thanks again for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Got some more work done on the first day of 2024. Primed with Mr Finishing Surfacer. I needed to clean up a few areas but nothing out of the ordinary. Then I applied some MC201 Super Fine Silver onto the wing roots, followed by a coat of AK Wear Effects Fluid. Next was some panel line preshading using a thin mix of black. I used some spatter templates to create some variation across the panels. Finally, I applied Sky Blue, created using a mix of AK and Mr. Color whites and light blues to match my reference, to the underside. I applied 5 or 6 thin layers of varying highlights and base color and left some subtle preshading showing through. The Kotare instructions say that the underside can be Sky or Sky Blue and the color profile itself looks like Sky Blue, so that was my choice. Thanks again for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Nice work Sepp! Great way to wrap up 2023. Congrats.

Just joining late -- stunning work so far. I love this kit and your diorama is going to be stellar.

Andy I agree with your observations 100%. A breath of fresh air is a perfect description for this build. Beautiful work so far.

Thanks all for the comments and excellent input on the spinner color. Radu's photo analyses are marvelous and compelling. More on the spinner color later. First, an update on the build progress. Good news - the main build is now complete. The fit on this kit is absolutely amazing. Kotare did a fantastic job on the engineering. There are almost no gaps or seams. Any that exist I'm sure are caused by my technique, not the engineering or molding. Note that the yellow masking tape has been added in an attempt to prevent me from accidentally breaking off the antennal mount on the rudder. I really like the way Kotare positioned the elevators and rudder -- consistent with the position of the pedals and stick in the cockpit. In addition, various trim tabs are positioned out of the nominal location - very nice detail. Here's a first look at the figure of Brian Lane. I'm looking forward to painting. Figures are not my strong suit but it never hurts to practice. The wire in his right hand is a cigarette. There were a couple areas in the build that needed some extra work. First, there was a small step aft of the wings on the bottom of the fuselage. As a side note, I love the "stressed skin" effect on the fairing fasteners - nice detail and really looks great. You can also see the step in this photo. Here's the fix. I recovered the positive rivet detail with negative rivets using the rivet wheel and scribed the panel lines as appropriate. No heavy lifting here. Nice view of my fingerprints on the forward hatch! Another area that needed attention was the rivet detail inside the wheel wells. They were molded poorly and needed to be recovered. Again, no heavy lifting. You can see the rivets around the rim of the wheel well below. The radiator in the photo was painted flat black and then dry brushed with stainless steel enamel to bring out the fine mesh detail. One other area needing extra work was the detail on the exhaust manifolds. Each is molded in two halves and the instructions recommend that you open up the holes for added detail. Unfortunately, they were not molded crisply and the rims around the exhaust ports were uneven and had gaps. I used my motor tool to drill out of the holes and then recovered and reinforced the rims with CA glue mixed with dental acrylic (my "go to" filler). I also wanted to recreate the weld lines on the outside of the manifold by leaving the glue seam with some extra melted glue serving as the weld bead itself. After some sanding and clean up with my hobby knife, here they are. That's it for the build update. The next step is priming once the bird is masked and cleaned up. And now for the spinner discussion. Just for the sake of completeness, here's the profile in the Aerodetail book covering the Spitfire Mk I-V: We all knew someone had the plane featuring a black spinner and we just needed to find it. But seriously, based on the all the input -- photo analyses, 19 Squadron history, profiles featuring yellow, sky, white, and now black spinners, eyewitness interviews (reported by the Kotare guys), timeline for Luftwaffe yellow nose initiation, history of the aircraft per the Spitfire service records online, and various opinions -- I'm going with yellow for the spinner. Thanks again for looking. Comments and critiques are always welcome. (I hope I don't get banned from the forum for going with yellow). Priming and painting is next. Thanks again. Happy New Year! All the best in 2024.

Thanks all for the kind comments to get me off to a good start. The cockpit is now complete. The instrument panel decals are excellent and I think I got most of the them reasonably centered. My sequence since the previous post was gloss, decals, gloss, thin gray wash on IP and dark brown wash on lower section, flat coat. I used the same basic sequence for all the other sections. I really like the signs and placards that come on the decal sheet. Really nice. No trouble spots at all. I followed the instruction's paint guide pretty closely. I wasn't sure how the molded harness would look at the slot in the armor plate, but I think it looks fine. The fit and positioning is excellent across the board. Here's the cockpit with the sidewalls buttoned up. I added the suggested rigging for the landing gear hand pump, rudder and elevators. I also added rigging for the end of the harness behind the seat. I like the yellow armor plate circles, which reminds me -- I need to redo the chips and scratches for steel plate instead of aluminum. The fit when closing up the cockpit is really snug. Well done Kotare! I used colored pencils for highlights and chips and scratches. That's all for now. Next is buttoning up the fuselage. And now for the spinner color. I'm leaning toward yellow but agree that the photo can certainly be interpreted as white. Is there a chance that the spinner came from the training unit as yellow and then was repainted white at some point? The Kotare guys seem convinced that the spinner was yellow. In any event, thanks for looking and thanks for the comments. Comments and critiques are always welcome. Thanks! Jim

Thanks for all the comments. I'm really enjoying the build so far. The spinner color is definitely intriguing based on the photos. Hmm. As for progress, I've completed most of the main and detail painting in the cockpit. I followed the painting guide pretty closely using Tamiya and Mr. Color paints. The base color is a mix of C364 Cockpit gray-green and C319 light green, which is supposed to be "Supermarine Green" or the "apple green" shade. I applied some highlights to the raised areas using a lighter mix of the same color. I like the color scheme in the painting guide, which provides nice variation across the different colors. The center panel of the IP is XF-1 flat black and the outer portion is XF 85 rubber black. The armor plating and seat frame (not shown in this photo) is C364 straight from the bottle. The headrest is nato black. The voltage regulator is rubber black. I'm using the molded seatbelt option and think it will look OK. I thinned the portion of the belts that extend above the seat into the slot on the armor plate so they are more in scale. Based on the photos, I have a little clean up to do. Tamiya buff for the seat belts, X31 and X34 mix for the brass hardware, XF85 rubber black for seats, XF69 nato black for the padding on the seat. The cockpit floor is nicely detailed. The control column and rudder pedals have excellent detail. I'm really happy with the kit so far. Next step is gloss coat and then decals, followed by a wash and some weathering. Thanks for looking.

Well, I'm back to 1/32 after a few armor projects and several 1/48 kits. I picked this kit up this summer and am really looking forward to the build. The plan is to build it completely out of the box with no aftermarket and I think the kit has all the detail needed for an excellent rendition of this bird. This is the one marking option, but the subject is very well researched. The instructions are very detailed with photos and historical tidbits. A fun build experience so far. I just got started on the cockpit and will post updates along the way.

Looking great. Excellent work on the weathering. I like the fabric surface technique as well and have done it a few times myself. I think it adds some nice detail.

Fantastic construction and paintwork Miloslav! Your mottling work is superb.

That’s a beautiful camo scheme. Can’t get enough desert 109s. Looking good!!

Looking good. Clean and crisp.

Looking great so far.

Fantastic scheme. Excellent paintwork so far.