Bf 109F-4/Trop 8./JG27 - finished

[Fanes]

I got myself a little present yesterday:

 

I finally found an affordable Silhouette Portrait for sale and luckily it was only 2km away from my workplace.

In the last days I prepared my drawings in Inkscape - basically just a sketch over the scanned decal sheet from Eagle Cals.

First test plot on Tamiya masking sheet turned out not too bad, but a little shallow:

 

Getting mask over on the model was quite painful since the Tamiya sheet is a little bit too tacky which made positioning pretty hard.

Somehow the mask turned out too big. The scanned crosses are 28mm in height, so is the drawing and that was the size in Silhouette Studio.

Well the mask for the cross is 30mm high - before pulling it of the backing sheet.

 

I've now scaled them down (26mm in height) and they turned out like they should with exactly 28mm - WTF?

[Cheetah11]

 

 

Fanes see if you can get Oramask 610 for the masking. It is the same material that Montex uses and produce very sharp cuts. It is pretty cheap when you buy a roll.

 

Just an further observation. After I started doing my own masks, I was surprised at the amount of size errors on decal sheets. I now try and verify everything with photos.

 

Nick

[shadowmare]

Here you have YT movie about cutting masks, guy is using Frisket tape, you can try it too (btw very nice channel)

 

 

 

[dodgem37]

I would not recommend the use of Tamiya tape as a stencil material.  I would recommend a vinyl.  Tamiya tape is good for a lot of things, but it doesn't have the integrity or properties of vinyl.  Vinyl won't stretch and is semi- rigid.  Tamiya tape stretches and is flimsy.

 

Just my take.

Sincerely,

Mark

[shadowmare]

Exactly, guy from movie is showing this too.

[ade rowlands]

I use Tamiya Tape sheets for canopy masks as I find the Oramask to not always get along with curves and it likes to lift whereas the Tamiya tape goes down and stays down, regardless of canopy shape. Then I use Oramask for the markings masks. It’s a little less tacky to start with and keeps the shape better. I usually place multi part masks on the model with some frisket film. I also tend to spray the markings first before the camouflage paint as I find it helps to eliminate the build up of layers of paint creating visible steps in the paint work, especially where white needs to be used over what would be a dark camouflage colour. However since switching a majority of my paints to MRP paints which are thin with great coverage, even the white this may be less of a problem but it’s been so long since I got something to a stage ready for painting I have been unable to test that theory.  

[Fanes]

I already had the Tamiya masking sheet and since I really liked their tapes for masking, my naive thought was that they would work as masks, too.

Well then Oramask it is - I'll try ordering one roll in the evening.
Thanks for your Input mates!

[Fanes]

It's been a while but I focused on my group build entry. Since the interior colour is drying there, I switched back to the 109.

Last week I finally recieved the Oramask stuff. After some struggle with the Silhouette settings I made new masks.

Here are the underside crosses in place - well almost. Things didn't go as planned but the underside won't really be visible and so it's practice for the other markings.

 

Then I laid down a very thin black base (thinned with levelling thinner like all colours in this procedure) followed by the almost black: Tamiya Nato black:

 

mask for the white fiddled back into place

 

And here we have the white marble with a Gunze off-white blend coat. hard to photograph due to the glossy finish.

 

The masks for the 2 and the wave thingy were crippled during cutting. The blade pulled the thin outline away. I'll try less force and speed with the next cut.

[Fanes]

And now without the masks:

 

The alignment is for sure not perfect (not showing the other cross) and there is a slight distortion, but I'm quite happy with the result and I can improve on the other ones!

[Thunderbolt]

I love your work and approach to painting!

[Fanes]

After some struggle with my plotter - somehow all came out larger than measured and drawn - all masks were put into place.

Since the fuselage codes feature a black outline, all letters recieved the same black base and almost-black marble and blend coat.

I kept the blend coat quite translucent to keep more tonal variation considering the following contrasting colours.
I'll wait until the paint is fully dry to apply the next layers (white followed by red for the codes).

 

[Fanes]

Just a quick update from the completed insignia.

First marbel coats:

 

To reduce the contrast between red an black I applied a white marble coat beforehand. That reduces the amount of paint needed to blend everything together which hopefully reduces the paint build up at the edges of the masks.

And here they are:

 

I'm really thrilled to see wether the outline looks good after unmasking!
But the next step will be masking the insignia and the green mottling over the fuselage and wings.

[nmayhew]

looking good

 

i like masks and certainly for larger insignia and codes etc they offer a finish that decals just cannot match

 

the downside is that 'heart in mouth' moment on each peel back of the masks

 

for anything on an aggressive compound curve where the mask does not have much 'run off' I am now favouring kabuki tape masks over vinyl, which just don't seem to stick / grip as well over less forgiving surfaces

 

looking forward to the next update

 

Nick

[Fanes]

Before peeling of the masks there was one minor step to do:

Mottling! - I've never done such thing before (except on my test mule). The red 2 features a quite unique mottling on the fuselage and wings but there are only profiles and pictures from the left side. There's one picture with the left wing visible but that's it. So it'll be to some extent imagination and artist's choice.

I started on the left side to get a felling for it. Here's the result without the masks:

 

I think I'll redo the red 2 since the black outline is a mess. I'll try to get some variation in the bigger splotches by spraying some darker and lighter colours followed by a thin blend coat.

Kind of reverse black basing.

[Out2gtcha]

Nice work!    I'm glad you finally got a Portrait cutter. I definitely found that weather you use rice paper tape or Oramask (there are drawbacks & advantages to both) get yourself some clear  frisket film for SURE. 

 

Using the frisket film to transfer the entire mask as a whole piece at one time really goes a long way to keeping each part of the mask in its correct position in relation to the other parts. This is especially handy when doing things like British roundels or German balkenkreuz as it allows you to see exactly where the mask will be positioned. Then you can weed out individual pieces of the mask as you need, then replace them if needed.