1/32 Trumpeter A6-A Drumstick!

[otis252]

Karim, you have not only built a great model, but your help with with the "how to" has been invaluable, at least to me I look forward to your future post, thank you.

Chuck

[Harold]

Hi everyone, just a very quick update tonight

tomorrow ill have all the photos on 

I finished the seats from AMS Resin, painted and weathered and they are in the big truder... ill write about those tomorrow because they didnt fit and needed surgery but i think they look quite good painted up!

I also prepared two small tuts for the salt weathering and the oil fading/streaking as requested by OTIS252 and another fellow lsper, i will post them along with their respective photos tomorrow...

 

Now i can say the intruder is really complete

Sorry for such a short update tonight i am really nackered 

 

see you all tomorrow evening!

Stay safe and happy modeling

Karim

I forgot to warn you about the details on the lower sides interfering with the tub. I didn't have the kit tube to check fit the seats, i used actual measurements and tried to compensate for scale. They were still too wide.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Harold

[karimb]

Karim, you have not only built a great model, but your help with with the "how to" has been invaluable, at least to me I look forward to your future post, thank you.

Chuck

Chuck the pleasure is all mine

your quick 'how tos' will be up in a mo

 

Karim

Edited November 26, 2015 by karimb

[karimb]

I forgot to warn you about the details on the lower sides interfering with the tub. I didn't have the kit tube to check fit the seats, i used actual measurements and tried to compensate for scale. They were still too wide.

 

Harold. they didnt fit. had to do a little bit of surgery which meant i had to sand stuff off of the sides. they dont show anyway, but that was the only solution

The seats look fabulous! Thanks a million

 

K

[karimb]

Well guys good evening!

Getting ready to go back to Doha for work, got a stretch until the 12th of December... 

Tonight i will do a quick runthrough of what i did last on the intruder , then the two tutorials for the salt weathering and for the oils

 

Concerning the work yesterday. i have a couple of photos up to show you the difference between the 4 seats i have for the intruder. True Details, the ones that came with the Avionix cockpit set, the kit ones and AMS Resin ones that Harold produces. I was pretty surprised that the TrueDetails and Avionix ones are 95% identical i dont know if it is a stroke of luck or if both companies deal with each other. the only difference is in the position of one harness otherwise they are the same. Harold's one is a tad bit smaller i dont know if it has to do with it being a gru5 or another reason.The AMS resin seat is very nice, towards the lower bottom part where the pour plug is the details tend to soften up a little bit , but i am sure it has to do with the moulding process. otherwise the seats are topnotch and depict the correct harness retainers. 

The seats themselves didnt fit in the kit stock tub and as Harold explained in the previous post it might be because he used the actual measurements and tried to compensate for scale. I had to do away with some of the details on the sides of the seat for them to fit snuggly in the tub. 

Regarding the painting i used tamiy aacrylics, nato black for the frame, light blue and flat earth for the belts, gunze lacquers for the drybrushing and the metallics and a homemade wash. the orange colour for the seat covers in modelmaster fluo red acrylic...

some pictures of the seat comparisons and some more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the pull ring on top i used wire that i bent to shape around the handle of my xacto knife. i know the gru5s were supposed to have a inverted V shape headrest pull handle, but to be honest i just couldnt bother with making a jig to get the two bends the same so i reverted to the D one. i painted the black stripes with a permanent 0,1 black marker and i find it does the trick every single time. 

That done, i removed the wingfold support rods as i read those were only put in place when the aircraft was going to be parked for a long time. I also didnt put any remove before flight tags as i want this plane to look like the ground personnel are doing their last checks on the engine and on the avionics bay and she is fully loaded ready to go...

Some photos of the seats in place 

 

 

 

I also took some photos for the ready for inspection post but i am not very happy with them (hence the blue background for RFI) this kit is a monster in size and i have been finding it difficult to actually fit it in anything remotely close to a lightbox...ill either have to find a solution when i am back in december but i will at least post some interim RFI photos when i am in Doha

 

Iam calling her officially done!

Thanks again everyone for all the support along the way during this build and for all your kind words

Below two quick tutorials on salt weathering and on oil fading streaking!

 

thanks again

Till next time! Stay safe and happy modeling

Karim

[karimb]

just another photo for the road lol

 

[ClumsyDude]

Seats look really good Karim. I like your resin versions a lot!

 

Jim

[Harold]

SWEET!

[LSP_Kevin]

Fantastic work, Karim! It really looks amazing.
 

I was pretty surprised that the TrueDetails and Avionix ones are 95% identical i dont know if it is a stroke of luck or if both companies deal with each other.

I'm pretty sure that both brands are now owned and marketed by Squadron, so they may have used the same masters for both sets.

 

Kev

[phantomdriver]

Stellar, as usual Karim!

[karimb]

Now for the tutorials, i am going to try to limit those to ten pictures or less per tutorial

First of all a disclaimer, i am in no way the inventor of those techniques. the salt weathering one is quite old actually. I do not claim to know how to do them as per the original way or the mainstream way but this is the way i do them and those techniques work for me. I hope you will find those give you the groundwork to start experimenting and developing your own takes on those techniques and maybe clarify things a bit. For those of you out there who know those techniques you can skip the tuts i guess!

I am also sorry if some of the pictures are sideways i cant manage to make them rotate on photobucket although i had them the right side up when i edited them on the laptop!

For both turotials i will use the wing of a sopwith camel in 1/32 (an italeri kit i bought for 8 euros a while back) 

The Top wing will be used for the purposes of the two turorials and it has been primed with mr surfacer 1200 and painted with Tamiya XF67

 

 

SALT CHIPPING technique:

 

This is a very simple technique that isnt very hard to master and gives very nice results

you will be able to produce some very nice discolourations and paint wear effects and the technique is tweak-able to your liking

You will need (what i use)

1-Acrylic paints (but it should work fine imo with other mediums too. i prefer to work with flats then when all is done i gloss coat them (you will notice the effect gets very much toned down when you glosscoat and then reappears when you flat coat over the gloss again so do not worry) 

2-Tap water

3-different grades of salt to vary the chip sizes (i use Morton's super fine popcorn salt because it is super fine, and a salt grinder with an adjustable grinding mouth. any salt variety will work)

4-Something to clean after the salt (i use newspaper pages to keep all the salt in one area then i wrap those up and the paint bench is clean again)

 

STEP 1

Paint your model (in our case our wing) the regular way you do, with or without preshading

For the purpose of salt chipping i usually paint it the base colour without lightening the colour (ie the colour just regularly thinned). Let the whole thing fully dry before proceeding (not just dry to the touch) Usually for Tamiya acrylics i wait a couple of hours

 

STEP 2

ready all the ingredients you need (salt and the water)

Fill your airbrish colourcup with water (tap or drinking or distilled doesnt matter) and lightly airbrush the area with the water until it is misted. DO NOT let the water pool up or it will give you a very hard time with discolouration due to the salt melting (this is also soemthing you can use to your advantage if you like.i do sometimes)

 

 

 

 

STEP 3

Sprinkle with the salt. the more coverage you have with the salt the more you are actually masking the base layer

I use different salt types for different effect and in different ares. i usually make the biggest coverage in area with the fine salt, and then do specific areas with the coarser grinder

 

STEP 4

Patience is the key here. You have to wait for the whole thing to dry completely. After experimenting youll see if you dont wait to get the salt completely dry you get a sort of discoloration. I use it to my advantage and instead of having just neat chipping you get areas of discoloration too that you can further tone down at a later stage with weathering. For the purpose of this tutorial i didnt really wait all the way until the salt was dry (more importantly the water that is the salt carrier was completely dry as the paint underneath it soaks it up) so you will see the effect we have acheived.

 

 

 

STEP 5

Paint on top of the salt with the lightened/darkened or even different colour than the base colour. Let dry completely too

 

 

STEP 6

Now you have two choices. you either want to further do some more salt weathering in this case all you have to do is rehydrate your salt, ie loadup your airbrush with water and mist it again on top of all you have done, and then tilt the model in the direction you want and the whole salt will shift with the water, then redo steps 4 and 5

Or if you have reached your destination, grab an old toothbrush, or use your hand, and brush the salt off of the model. make sure you do that on top of a newspaper or over your sink. I have heard of some people that wash the model clean, i do not like that approach as i find it is too messy. You will find the salt is stuck to the paint just softly brush it off with an old toothbrush and do not worry if you have to go at it for a bit. If you find the salt does not rub off in some areas, then dip your brush in water and rub the salt off and it will go.you will find some residual areas where you get like a 'shine' under some light angle, that is because of salt that was suspended in water and recrystalized after you rubbed everything off. either get a damp paper towel or do the brush trick again with water and it will go away. The brush is also good to get rid of the salt in nooks and crannies

 

 

 

Top picture, left wing has the center of the ribs lightened, right half of the wing has been salt chipped with the same lightened colour. check out the difference!

And there you go. you can get a myriad of different effects by varying the drying time of the water+salt layer, the colours you airbrush on top of the base colour, the salt coarsness and quantity and the number of salt chipping layers you make!

I hope this was helpful.... now for tutorial number two

We will be using the same wing and the same section we used for the salt chipping but breaking it down into streaking and fading

 

K

[karimb]

OIL FADING AND STREAKING

 

Again we will be using the same part of the wing, and we will be doing this on top of the salt chipped section (you will see how we tone down the surface discoloration

 

What you will need

1-Artists oils.The good ones Winsor and Newton, MIG, AKI etc. They might be expensive but they will last a lifetime

2-A piece of cardboard

3-A set of brushes you will only use with oils (flat cut brushes of different sizes, chisel and round type too if you can get them. Chisel for streaking flat for fading. round for whenever you need it)

4-Turps for oils. I use winsor and newton oil colour distilled turpentine as i found after alot of trial and error that it doesnt eat through the acrylic layer like some other cheap oil turps do. You can also use stuff like MIG or AK's odorless white spirit

5-Trial and error. This is something that takes a bit of time to get to know how to do to your satisfaction so dont be frustrated if it doesnt turn out how you like the first time. you can always go back and modify with terps.

 

 

STEP 1

Make sure your model's base coat of paint is dry.One thing we need to clarify first is the type of finish you have on, as this will greatly change the way things are done. a flat painted finish makes it much easier for the fading and streaking. a glossy finish makes it harder for the oil paint to cling and 'fade' a paint finish!

 

STEP 2

Choose your color palette. For green colors i like to use earthy tones, like browns yellows and greens. sometimes i also use blues and reds depending on what i am weathering. For grays i use lighter and darker grays, whites, ochre and browns. One thing to know is that black is a colour that really stands out with oils on any surface so use sparingly. After you have chosen your colors, put a dab of each on the cardboard piece. Oil colors have linseed oil in them, which is a drying time retardant and this is one of the reasons people are able to come back and work on an oil painting a couple of days later. We will avoid the oil contamination by placing it on a piece of cardboard which will suck out all the oil from the paint dab we put. We do not need to put alot of paint, a small dollop will go a long way

 

 

 

STEP 3

for fading, take dots and place them all over the area you want to change the color 'tone' of... you can get a sense by adding more dots of the same colour in some areas than others.

For streaks add a couple of dots or draw a small V shape or a line. you will get a sense for this as you try it out...

The picture below is of the dots applied and brushed back

 

 

 

STEP 4

This step is very important. You vary the fading and streaking by how much you load the brush with turps. Dip the brush in turps, then dab it on a paper tissue until it is almost completely dry. i like to run on the cutting mat as if it is too loaded with turps it leaves a shiny trail on the mat.

A brush too loaded with turps will end up removing almost all of the oils from the surface!

 

STEP 5

The fun begins. For fading just drag the paint drops in the direction of airflow all along the wings, they will mix together. at a certain point i like to go perpendicular to the airflow to make sure everything is mixed up pretty well. you can reload your brush and dry it off on the paper towel every now and then again to get it clean and almost dry again.

You can vary your movements, like dabbing if you want to do one specific area, and you can use different types if brushes. for fading like what i have done below i used a flat brush that is moderately big. for the streaking i like to use a chisel brush and a round tip brush to tidy up the edges. When you experiment you will find what you are most comfortable with for different jobs.

You can (i have a couple of times) used my fingers to smudge some areas, just make sure you dont put your finger down and remove it as you will leave a fingerprint in the oil paint and will need to go over it again either dabbing it or streaking it to make the fingerprint disappear

 

STEP 6

Let the oil dry. it usually takes me overnight to be able to handle it without getting prints or destroying my streaks. I have heard of some products that you add to the oil dollops on the cardboard that accelerate drying time. I have never tried those so i cannot say how they work or how quick the oils dry. it is nothing major, by the time you are doing oild fading you are either in the end of the weathering stages, or doing wheelwells or the likes, so make sure it is the last thing you make that day at the bench. Leave everything over night or move on to something else and next day all will be dry.Another thing of note, some oil colors tend to dry lighter in my experience, so keep this in mind my friends

 

Et Voila!

Below some pictures of fading and streaking i have done on the same salt chipped wing. i dont know if the light shows the tonal differences well, i hope it does

 

 

 

I hope those two quick tutorials were helpful in shedding light on salt chipping and weathering with oil paints. I also hope if you havent tried either that this will inspire you to give it a try!

I think the way i do those two are pretty much mainstream but i want to hear from you guys if you do things differently i will learn something new too!

Thanks again for reading up and for all the support!

 

Karim

[karimb]

Stellar, as usual Karim!

 

Thank you my friend!!

 

  

[karimb]

Seats look really good Karim. I like your resin versions a lot!

 

Jim

 

Jim thanks !

Well i got three sets now and only one more A6A in the stash lol ! seems i might have to add another one to the stash too, maybe an A6E

Thanks for leaving a word

[karimb]

SWEET!

 

Thanks Harold....

Your seats are really fatastic buddy! I think the problem is with the scaled down trumpeter tub

 

thanks again for going through all the hassle for the parts!

Karim