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Time to start a new project ... The Cub has to wait a little bit longer. I promised this one to a friend, and I don't have much time, so I'll be trying cut corners whenever possible. The idea is to take a paper kit, improve it if desired and feasible, and replace more time consuming details with plastic parts. I'm thinking specifically about using Wingnut Wings Mercedes D. IIIau engine, Gaspatch Spandau 08/15 machine gun and Gaspatch turnbuckles. This ought to save me some time (or that's what I hope will happen ). Problem is I don't have any experience with plastic models - this will be definitely a challenge. I hope I'll get some guidance from you guys. I got myself Matt77 repaint of Marek's design available at Ecardmodels store. The kit is quite detailed, but I would like to raise a bar a little bit higher for myself. If I'm going to use "ready" plastic parts, I might as well spend some time improving other areas of the model, right?. The first order of things will be to simulate better bare plywood section of the fuselage. I started with the nail lines visible on the plywood. The tests revealed I need some adjustments - it's bit challenging to add anything that spans between the parts as they are unfolded in 2D form. The next step was the plywood itself. The first attempt was actually done by mistake. I wanted to print wood grain on the reverse side of the parts to make the fuselage skin double sided. I grabbed some plywood textures out of the Internet, stitched it to cover larger area and put a sheet with the printed parts into the printer. As it often happens to me, I put the wrong side up, and ended up overprinting the wood grain texture on printed previously fuselage skin parts. The effect was quite interesting: This could be a very easy solution in some of the cases. Here though the color came out too dark, especially if one compares with this photo (source Jagstaffel 5 by G.K. Merrill, vol .1): Back to the drafting board. I'm thinking about redrawing the parts and the panels of the plywood in the kit and filling them with my plywood textures. Let's see if I can figure it out in Corel... I started work on the engine bay bulkheads. The kit proposes very simple solution: I used the kit's bulkheads as a pattern for my own version: These also may need some adjustments as I'll be trying to fit them inside the fuselage. I feel this will be a one step forward, two steps backwards project...