Out2gtcha Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 The end result was worth it! Really looks great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett M Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 Looking very nice and crisp. The masks worked perfectly with your painting. Out2gtcha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red Dog Posted September 23, 2019 Author Share Posted September 23, 2019 Thanks guys, beats decals anytime I'd think. The only tiny details that are missing is the indian head and the tribute to the pilot. Prop markings are also not corresponding to the decals in the tamiya box. So I quickly made a tiny decal artwork that I printed on wite inkjet decal paper. I made two background colour to account for the print/Paint difference, normally one of them should match at least I painted a bit of plastic and scanned it to get the closest hex value which then was used for the background colour of the white decal. Using transparent decal would not be ideal as the background paint is too dark for the light coloured artwork Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red Dog Posted September 24, 2019 Author Share Posted September 24, 2019 Custom decals were successful. This was probably the last major challenge of this quick build and I'm happy to report that all went fine. The above artwork were printed on a white inkjet decal paper and a quick coat of MRP supergloss was sprayed to protect them from water. One of the two green background (right most) was good enough and the decals were applied to the model: It's still quite visible with the picture, but quite less in real and I'll done it a bit down further with touch ups and further varnish. (some weathering marks I can't see with naked eyes need to be cleaned as well (these pictures are unforgiving ) the indian head turned out pretty good. No way this could have been done with transparent decal paper, at least not without a white paint background. There is still one white bit I need to remove, but that won't be a big problem. Logo prop were satisfactory as well. The white cut line can't be avoided but a quick touch up will solve that before the usual semigloss clear coat R Palimaka, Jan_G and LSP_Kevin 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmayhew Posted September 24, 2019 Share Posted September 24, 2019 nice! i happened to watch a youtube vid yesterday where the guy showed how you can mitigate those large ridges at the edges of thick decals involved spraying gloss round the edges of the decal, a small layer on the decal itself and then sanding the gloss build up to smooth the ridge red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red Dog Posted September 24, 2019 Author Share Posted September 24, 2019 Well, here the decal are not very thick. The issue come rather from the need to cut the homemade decal close to the colour border and doing so will inevitably remove a bit of colour. So the white is the decal paper, not the thickness. A quick base paint spray with a post it protecting the inner decal will make all that invisible. and the final gloss coat will blend all that together With custom decals, you control thickness with the amount of gloss you spray over them before applying them. I always tend to overdo it thinking that I need a lot of gloss to protect the decal from water. But I learned to control that and in this case for instance, it's one vertical spray, then one horizontal spray with the acrylic MRP gloss and they went on beautifully on the model. One might think that an acrylic gloss might not be suitable because of the contact with the water, but no issue at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red Dog Posted September 26, 2019 Author Share Posted September 26, 2019 I can't weather this model as it's kept shiny and immaculate. So I just gave a very subtle spash of tamiya brown wash. For the same reason I also wil not spray a semi gloss coat, i'll stick to the current gloss. I did spray matt varnish on the gear and tyres and the exhaust and the walkway area. The walkways are not painted black but there is a very visible change of brightness when you look at the walkway and compare them to the rest of the wing. I suppose that these area have been sprayed on the real aircrfat with a kind of transparent stronger protective coat. I initially wanted to give them a mist of light brown, but in the end I decided against it and gave them simply a coat or two of matt varnish. The difference is sublte yet remains visible. I gave them a quick brush with concrete pastels to try though. Not sure if I'll remove that or not. I think it highlight too much the rivets and panel line. I will remove that one and try to apply pigments around the panel lines and rivets instead... The exhaust are the only real parts that needs weathering. This was done on the black painting with first a splash of streaking rust effect, then concrete pigments at the base of the exhaust and black pigment at the exhaust hole. The pictures below show the exhaust before application of the pigment fixers which always tends to tone down light coloured pigments. Final steps were to add the non standard antennas for a modern spitfire and gluing the canopy and resin access door in place. I replaced the access door because the stock tamiya part was lacking in detail and depth. I think it's a very visible detail and that was one of the few part from this kit benefiting from a resin remplacement. (the others being the wheels because the stock parts didn't provide the 3 stokes wheels I needed for this model The rear view mirror is not fitted but a handle and a ball Inside the sliding canopy were Added, they are not visible in the above picture. Just a few nitpicking details to nail and this model will be completed. Lothar, Fanes, nmayhew and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R Palimaka Posted September 26, 2019 Share Posted September 26, 2019 You have done simply amazing work on this to make it a accurate replica. Your restrained weathering is perfect, and your attention to all the details, including the markings, is very impressive. What a beautiful model! The owner will be very pleased with what you've done, but it sounds like he already knows that. Richard red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red Dog Posted September 26, 2019 Author Share Posted September 26, 2019 Thank you very much Richard One last thing worth mentionning: The model instructions offer two ways to display the aircraft. On that great stand for an inflight or on it's wheel. Both options have the auxiliary fuel tanks installed, which is a clever way to install the aircraft on it's stand as 2 fuel tanks are provided. One which is screwed to the stand and the other that you can remove from the aircraft on it's wheels when you want to place the model on the stand. As you can see from the picture above, there are two rather holes in the belly of the Spitfire. If you reinstall the separate fuel tank, the holes are covered as it is where the pin of the tank inserts firmly in place. But if you don't want to use the fuel tank, the instructions don't say anything about covering these 2 offending holes, granted they are not quite visible when the spitfire is on its wheels Knowing Tamiya quest for perfection, I thought no way they would allow that to happen. There must be something planned for these holes !! And sure enough part 9 of the double sprue where the fuel tank are attached is meant to cover these holes. It's just not referenced in the instructions: they Don't even require glue: Much better for my model here that obviously doesn't carry the ferry tank. LSP_Kevin, Jan_G, Fanes and 2 others 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red Dog Posted September 26, 2019 Author Share Posted September 26, 2019 As I said, this is probably the best engineerd model I ever built. It was a real joy to build this model. It may sound obvious but unfortunately I don't built much tamiya models, but the quality of this kit was really astounding I replaced the IP because the Yahu model was really better, I replaced the wheels because the 3 spoke wheels were not included and I replaced the side door because the tamiya was lacking depth. And of course I used custom masks. But the rest of the kit really doesn't need anything from aftermarket, and this is from a guy who usually buy everyaftermarket possible for all my kits. So this was really an exception for me. Here are the final pictures thanks for looking and feel free to comment if there's anything I could have done better. MikeMaben, Nick32, Lothar and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanes Posted September 26, 2019 Share Posted September 26, 2019 It's really nice to see a cleanly finished Spitfire! Your build creates the urge to drop my Revell Spitfire and switch to one from Tamiya red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted September 26, 2019 Share Posted September 26, 2019 Wow, that is excellent work! Not often you see a modern resto modeled. Well done! red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted September 26, 2019 Share Posted September 26, 2019 Beautiful work, Olivier! Kev red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMaben Posted September 27, 2019 Share Posted September 27, 2019 Sweet ! red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IainM Posted September 27, 2019 Share Posted September 27, 2019 On 9/24/2019 at 1:37 AM, red Dog said: Thanks guys, beats decals anytime I'd think. The only tiny details that are missing is the indian head and the tribute to the pilot. Prop markings are also not corresponding to the decals in the tamiya box. So I quickly made a tiny decal artwork that I printed on wite inkjet decal paper. I made two background colour to account for the print/Paint difference, normally one of them should match at least I painted a bit of plastic and scanned it to get the closest hex value which then was used for the background colour of the white decal. Using transparent decal would not be ideal as the background paint is too dark for the light coloured artwork That Spit looks great! I'm going to be building almost the same thing, in the markings of the SAAF Spitfire Mk IX LF AX-K (basically a Mk XVI, just the engine differed). My brother in law flew it when he was 2IC of the SAAF museum. About 3 weeks after he left the service, the Spit was totalled at an airshow..... You wouldn't be selling a set of the propeller decals would you? They're about all I need to get going on this one... Thank you, and great build again red Dog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now