Search the Community

Hello guys, this is my recently finished Kotare Spitfire. While I have no special interest in Spitfires and I have very limited knowledge of the subject I have to say that this is the best kit I have ever build so far! Especially from buildability point of view, with logical build steps, great fit, almost no cleaning required, extensive decals and best in class instructions with detailed color callouts and great profiles, the kit has the highest probability to get finished once started. I did not used any other references except the instructions. Truly OOB build except HGW seatbelts and Artscale double sided masks, which btw fit perfectly. I hope that Kotare will raise enough cash to become major player on 1/32 market. I have no doubts that I will buy anything they will release (and I don't mind that it will be small collection of Spitfires ) Jan

Hello All, As promised, here are the first instalments of my own thoughts on the new Revell 1/32 Spitfire IIa kit. Following in the sure footsteps of Iain Ogilvie and Jenn Wright, this will be very much my own opinion of the kit as I wanted to personally find out for myself what all of the fuss was about and was therefore determined to buy a kit ASAP in order to do this review. Apart from giving the kit a 'once over', the other reason for this assessment and review was to do something that all of the members here have been asking - tell them if there are any anomalies, and more importantly, how to actually fix them! First impressions on opening the box My kit came in just a fraction under £20.00 to buy. The plastic is a soft pale green-gray colour and there appears to to be in excess of 180 individual parts in the kit. My immediate first impression is that this kit has a good level of detail and number of parts for the cost, making it very good value for money indeed. Looking at the kit parts, the current trend for rivet markings represented by small hollows is very evident. This is not overly done - not as finely executed as on the Tamiya Spitfire kit, but better than the Trumpeter or Hobby Boss kits - and will easily be lost under a fine coat of filler or layers of paint. The detail parts look simplified, but generally accurate in shape and the cockpit is surprisingly well appointed when compared to many of the more well established and elderly Spitfire kits in this scale. The decal sheet looks like it is high quality and should bed down well on the kit and look good. More to follow in due course... Derek

Well, it's been a while. I'd not realised that my last post was a ready for inspection of my 1:24 Airfix Hurricane Mk1 back in January of 2018: I already had this build of the Airfix 1:24 Spitfire Mk1a on the go back then and with the sad passing of Squadron Leader Geoffrey Wellum DFC in July of 2018 I decided to build it as K9998, the plane he flew with 92 squadron in the summer and autumn of 1940. Sadly, due to hard drive problems and being too idle to upload the images to the cloud, I lost the build pictures I'd taken, hence it's miraculous appearance in "Ready for Inspection" fully built and ready to go. As far as the build goes, a brief resume: I lined the wheel wells, added an Airscale Instrument panel and their excellent cockpit placards to liven things up and a Grey Matter control stick. A metal coat hanger and some scratch built brackets gave me the dihedral and removed the wing droop. Dry stencils from Hobbydecal are brilliant for the instructional markings around the plane, even if their supplied diagram is a bit out in places. The drop down door had the crowbar that didn't appear on the Mark 1 sanded away and a locking mechanism added with some wire and made up spring arrangement. The hinge assembly at the other end is wire again with silver foil wound around to represent the hinges. So that pretty much took us to the paint stage. Black primer undercoat followed by Vallejo aluminium paint and a layer of Vallejo chipping medium meant I could spray the camouflage and chip away to my hearts content. Afterwards a gloss layer fixed all in place and allowed me to go to town on the markings. I sprayed these on using making tape and Tamiya paints for two reasons. One, it allows for more realistic weathering and two, I couldn't buy the non standard markings off the shelf. The fuselage roundels for this Supermarine built "K" plane had the 7" centre red spot instead of the standard 5" so it was do it yourself or nothing! Underside panel centre lightening and upper side panel line darkening gave me the effect I wanted and oil fading effects and a nice panel wash completed the job. I always like to try to envisage a moment when I'm planning how I want the weathering to look a la Jon Bius so here was my thought for the day: So I imagined: "A wet, miserable autumn morning in October 1940. K9998 has just returned from a morning patrol and is thickly caked with the clay of the wet soil. Ground crew have already swarmed over the wings to talk to the pilot and are about to get the aircraft ready for its next patrol with a refuel and re arm." Anyway, here it is. I hope you like it: