Thunnus Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 (edited) This was a diversionary build while I was between normal subjects. It's a snap-together kit designed for younger modelers but it was a pretty good kit in its own right. The model went together very easily and fit was great. The only plastic that I added was a scratchbuilt gun sight, the fishing line aerial and the flange around the drop tank. I also scratched harnesses using foil and PE hardware from the spares box. I didn't like the stylized eye decals that the kit provided so I masked and painted the eyes myself. I gave the plane a full weathering treatment including playing with oil filtering for the first time. You can discern the resultant tonal variations in some of the pictures. It was a fun quick build. Edited September 17, 2016 by Thunnus CANicoll, Shawn M, Hubert Boillot and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martinnfb Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 Awesome, it looks like you had lots of fun with this little thingie. Thank for sharing. Cheers Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn M Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 wow! looks great...really need to get these in my stash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 That looks better than my to-scale builds. Love everything about what you've done. Tonal values, chipping, highlights, lowlights. Maybe gun powder staining? Sincerely, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted July 2, 2016 Author Share Posted July 2, 2016 Thanks guys! A quickie but a fun one! I didn't pick up any other ones in this particular series but got the Meng B-17, which is similar. Will do that one later. Next is a "proper" 1/48 Mustang that I'm doing for a friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted July 2, 2016 Share Posted July 2, 2016 That looks awesome! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted July 2, 2016 Share Posted July 2, 2016 Ace - I think we could all benefit from having a go at one of these! Iain BloorwestSiR 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloorwestSiR Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 (edited) Great build, I really like the weathering. Ace - I think we could all benefit from having a go at one of these! Iain Absolutely Iain! They're a quick piece of fun modelling and great for a potentially stress free build. I just completed a Dragon Saladin armoured car for the very same reason. It was OOB, two colours and done in less than a week. Carl Edited July 4, 2016 by BloorwestSiR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted September 17, 2016 Author Share Posted September 17, 2016 Here is another in the series of Cute Kits by Tiger Models. This is the Bf109 kit converted to a Bf109F. Thanks to ScanmanDan for sharing his builds and pointing me to the conversion kit. The spinner from the conversion is on the small side and made the Bf109 look like an Avia S-199 so I used a 1/32 109G spinner and chopped it like Dan did. Zero77 and Shawn M 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artful69 Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 (edited) ... This is the Bf109 kit converted to a Bf109F. Thanks to ScanmanDan for sharing his builds and pointing me to the conversion kit ... I didn't know there was a designated conversion for this kit? Nice work btw Rog Edited September 17, 2016 by Artful69 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chukw Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 I really like these- great work, John! I have the He177 set aside for a fun "decompression" exercise. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martinnfb Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Absolutely über cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloorwestSiR Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Looks great. Nice to see more of them being built. Carl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero77 Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 So cute ! The painting and weathering are excellent. Nice to see there are now conversions for these small cute models. I saw recently that there was a resin cockpit for the "AFV for kids" (and for me...) Mirage 2000. I planned to build it with the pilot, but a detailed resin cockpit could be nice as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted September 19, 2016 Author Share Posted September 19, 2016 Thanks for the comments guys! I'll often stall out on my regular builds and having these little guys to work on is a good way to keep the mojo running. When ScanmanDan mentioned the Retrowings conversion for the Tiger 109 kit, I immediately went to their website and put in an order. I thought it was so cool! Luckily, it was pretty affordable and the overseas shipping was not too bad wither. The kit included a resin seat with harnesses molded in that came in handy. From the spares box, I added a Revi gunsight and some sidewall inserts to dress up the empty fuselage sides. As far as finishing is concerned, it starts with the pre-shade. I didn't document this particular step on this build but I normally pre-shade my models using a couple of steps. First I trace the panel lines with black. And then I fill in the panels using a random mottle pattern, again using black. I consider it a variation on the black-basing technique. Here's what it looks like on the P-40 build. In order to have the most control over dialing in the pre-shade effects, I use highly-thinned paint mixtures. Typically, using Tamiya and Gunze acrylics, my thinner to paint ratios are about 4:1. Building up the finish takes lots of passes with the airbrush this way but the preshading creates a subtle layer of depth and variation to the paint job. Marseille's "14" was a hand-cut mask that I made from transluscent frisket paper. The cowl gun barrels that were molded in place were cut out and replaced with barrels from a 1/48 109 kit. The camo is sealed with a gloss coat. After the decals are applied, I run a liquid pastel wash over the panel lines, which is wiped off when dry using pieces of moistened paper towel. This gets sealed with a flat coat. The Bf109F was then chipped using colored pencils. I use a few different colors depending on the background color: silver and grey for dark colors and browns, greens and greys for the lighter colors. I'll usually do some random streaking using pigments but for the Bf109F, I took a short cut and simply "streaked" the chipping that I had applied with a damp q-tip. The final touch was the oil filtering. I really don't have a good grasp on this technique so I'm using these eggplanes as a practice canvas. It didn't come off well on this one I'm afraid, with the yellow areas being very apparent and distracting. But on the positive side, it did cut down on the white frosting effect that occurs when I put too much Tamiya Flat Base into my matt coat mixture. I have a few more of these things that I have on my shelf... Meng B-17 and a Tiger Corsair... that I'll pull out when I get too frazzled by my normal builds. Looking forward to seeing others! Zero77 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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