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Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire MkVIII - FINISHED!


Bstarr3

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Back from a short vacation and got around to a little work tonight.  Busied up the firewall with some plumbing and wires, some from reference photos, others just "plausible", detail painting, and a wash.  Then a little detail painting and a couple of different color washes on the engine. The washes don't show very well in the photos, but they have done a nice job of weathering up the monotone black finish on the Merlin, making it look in use and oily.  Engine, engine bearers, and firewall will probably get a very light treatment with pigments as well. 

 

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Edited by Bstarr3
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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally made some further progress. Two points for future modellers of this kit: 1) if you are adding sparkplug wires, be very careful  How far out they stick common because they will interfere with  Cowling frame and exhaust brackets, which go on last. These parts not fitting well will prevent the cowlings from going on well. 2)  Edward pe  Anti friction strips on the cowling frames add enough to the thickness to complicate to fit. This combined with one above to cause problems for me how much is shown below. Since I am planning to model this with the cowlings off permanently and the cowling set to the side and a maintenance display, I believe I can get away with painting them separately and will probably do this instead of futzing with it any longer.

 

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 Next from here is masking the canopy and applying it. Then a coat of primer over everything and fixing surface imperfections and seam lines once again before we get the final primer coat and get into the painting!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was surprised how well taken care of the seams were by the time I got my primer coat on.  Only a very little remedial sanding was necessary to remove some excess filler.  I have always used Badger Stynylrez for my primer.  It sprays ok straight out of the bottle, but I have had much more success recently by adding some Vallejo airbrush flow improver and a couple drops of Mission Models thinner.  It levels very well sprayed on thick, but it is just perfect if you thin it a little bit.  So after a nice smooth coat of black primer, on with the medium sea grey marble coat.

 

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Applied with my new toy!  Love the H&S, and love the Grex MAC valve.  It's really nice not having to get under the table and mess with the pressure at the compressor. Also really nice is that you can vary the pressure at the trigger with the H&S.  I would not say I can do it in any sort of reproducible way, and the MAC valve is still my primary way of adjusting air pressure, but you can get some variation.  

 

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I think I ended up over blending.  I applied my first blend coat, then did some post-shading, then another blend coat.  Since MRP goes on so thin anyway, I didn't thin it, and it washed out all my detail.  It looks better than the picture shows, which I tried to capture with the second photo, but still not exactly how I would have wanted it.  For the camo, I'm going to thin my blend coats and see how that goes. 

 

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Edited by Bstarr3
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  • 2 months later...

Wow, what a long time it's been since I posted on this!  As late summer gave way to the beginning of the school year, I had less time for work on this project, and when I could get an hour, I never got around to setting up and taking in progress shots.  The painting was done with MRP colors, black basing technique, and camo drawn freehand.  After that I did a little post shading, decals, then oil weathering, with washes and filters. Wing root and leading edge chipping were done with a 3-0 brush and dark metallic grey and silver colors.  Chipping/wear on the propeller was done by painting the whole thing dark anodic grey, then painting the AMT-6 black, and sanding back to the metallic grey color along the edges and back of the blades. I'll add a better shot of the backside of the propeller blades to show this effect more. I used the same sanding effect for the nose cone, and also sanded away some of the white on the theater stripes.

 

 

 

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Oil staining on the undersurface again done with artist's oils. Mud weathering in the gear bays and tires done with dark earth pigments and thinned Gator Grip glue. Splatter effect by thinning pigments with enamel thinner and flicking brush bristles with a finger. The airfields in Burma were muddy and it was constantly raining. Tried to demonstrate the effects this tropical weather had on the airframes with heavy weathering.

 

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Squadron insignia is from Barracudacals.  Really blended into the paint scheme beautifully, especially with weathering over the top of the decals.

 

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My first fully painted item for the diorama is the wooden table from the Tamiya tank maintenance crew set in 1/35.  Painted in MRP ochre wood and oils over.

 

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This is the approximate composition of the diorama.  I'll be building a base from Styrofoam depicting a muddy airfield. The figures are from the Tamiya kit and another one from Master Box depicting a mechanic crew working on a motorcycle. Put together three figures by combining legs, heads and torsos from the kits. All other diorama items besides the figures come from Tamiya.

 

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Hmm. Something missing here....

 

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Edited by Bstarr3
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21 minutes ago, Grunticus said:

Beautiful! I like te mud effect.

 

2 hours ago, spyrosjzmichos said:

What a beauty!

 

2 hours ago, red Dog said:

Very Nice :)

Love the mud weathering

 

Thanks, all! I love adding mud effects. Really adds a third dimension to weathering.

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7 hours ago, Fanes said:

That's a really grimy Spit but beautiful nonetheless!

 

I know it looks really dirty, but this squadron in this theater is pretty well documented photographically, and it looks like they got pretty damn dirty!

 

6 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Cool !  always loved the leaping panther Spits     :speak_cool:

 

 

 

I was disappointed when I got this kit because I'd asked for the Mk IX and wanted to do Skalski's plane from Libya. I went looking for subjects of the VIII, and as soon as I saw those leaping Panthers, I was sold!

 

2 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

You can’t disguise the beauty of a Spitfire by covering it in mud and grime.

A real work of art, superbly created.

 

John

 

1 hour ago, Out2gtcha said:

Well done! It really looks great

 

Thanks much, John and Brian! Positive feedback means a lot coming from you

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And now for everybody's favorite part - figure painting!

 

These MasterBox figures are very well done for plastic. The guy crouching down is from the Tamiya set.  Molding is nice on the body but not as crisp on the face.  I did some work with the dremel and microchisel to better define things and remove extra plastic, eg, under the collar.  Cleaned up all the mold lines and assembled them from different combinations of heads/legs/bodies. A little milliput and Mr Surfacer 500 to fill in gaps.  Instead of a primer, I put a light coat of MRP light wood, just enough to get a background shade so I’m not trying to cover grey. Then the flesh tones are done in oil paints.  I use Abeitelung flesh color, along with burnt sienna, white, and burnt umber for the hair. I mix up a couple shades of darker and lighter colors and just blended things together as appropriate.  I used a soft brush to blend in some of the highlights and lowlights. After getting under the magnifying glass, I saw that this guy has a little Hitler mustache molded in. I decided to go with it, but extended it out a little bit.  The pictures aren’t great, but I’m happy with the results. I plan to do the clothing in acrylics. Two more to go!
 

 

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Edited by Bstarr3
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